The Coming War Digitally Lit #271 – 12/05/2020 Thank you for being here. You are valued. This week I worked on the following: Trust, But Verify – Users of the Internet become pawns in a flow of information that circulates endlessly in the ether causing a contagion that is nearly insurmountable. Shades of Gray -…
Truth and Falsehoods Digitally Lit #235 – 2/29/2020** Hi all, welcome to issue #235 of Digitally Literate. I posted and shared the following this week: Co-Constructing Digital Futures – Several members of the Screentime Research Group have been conducting research on the challenges and opportunities that exist as children grow up in an world that…
False news spreads online faster, farther, and deeper than truth does — but it can be contained. Here’s how.
Sinan Aral in the Harvard Business Review: For the past three years Soroush Vosoughi, Deb Roy, and I have studied the spread of false news online. (We use the label “false news” because “fake news” has become so polarizing: Politicians now use that phrase to describe news stories that don’t support their positions.) The data…
The politically aware, digitally savvy and those more trusting of the news media fare better in differentiating factual statements from opinions.
From the Pew Research Center: A new poll by the Pew Research Center suggests people are having difficulty telling the difference between fact and opinion. Pew Director of Journalism Research Amy Mitchell said the study “raises caution” around news consumers’ ability “to sort news quickly.” “At this point, the U.S. does not seem to have become completely…
Do we have the right to believe whatever we want to believe? This supposed right is often claimed as the last resort of the wilfully ignorant, the person who is cornered by evidence and mounting opinion: ‘I believe climate change is a hoax whateve…
Professor of philosophy Daniel DeNicola in Aeon: Unfortunately, many people today seem to take great licence with the right to believe, flouting their responsibility. The wilful ignorance and false knowledge that are commonly defended by the assertion ‘I have a right to my belief’ do not meet James’s requirements. Consider those who believe that the…
New Data & Society ethnographic study illuminates conservative methods of fact-checking media; warns that search engines may facilitate disinformation
Searching for Alternative Facts is an ethnographic account drawn directly from Francesca Tripodi’s research within upper-middle class conservative Christian communities in Virginia in 2017. Tripodi uses Christian practices of Biblical interpretation as a lens for understanding the relationship between so-called “alternative” or “fake news” sources and contemporary conservative political thought. “They critically interrogate media messages in…
Scribd is the world’s largest social reading and publishing site.
“Facts are facts. Opinions about the facts differ. It is therefore the job of the peacemaker to bridge the gap between opinions, and in that manner, bring about reconciliation. This much seems obvious. But what if the facts themselves differ? What if the basis for the disagreement is so profound that the world arrays itself…