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Misinformation, Disinformation and Digital Media Literacy: Home

This guide will provide information about misinformation, disinformation, fake news and how content can be manipulated when published in electronic format. Provides strategies to determine the validity of websites, social media posts, photographs, etc.

Digital Media Literacy

What is misinformation and disinformation?   How does it affect our daily lives?  Use this guide to learn how to evaluate information found on social media and websites to determine its credibility before sharing or using the content.

Video: How False News Can Spread

Source:  Ted Talk from TED.com
CC BY -NC-NC 4.0

Definitions: Types of Information

Reliable Information: Comes from credible, trustworthy sources and is based in fact and supported by evidence.  Intended to inform, not entertain, sell or persuade.
 

Misinformation:  False or inaccurate information that is mistakenly or intentionally created or spread.  Not intended to deceive.
 

Disinformation:  False information that is deliberately created and spread in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.

Quotes about Mis/Disinformation

Craig Silverman is a journalist who specializes in studying misinformation and disinformation, especially in social media.  In an article he wrote, these quotes should provide food for thought about the information culture in which we live:
 

  • "We have a human problem on our hands. Our cognitive abilities are in some ways overmatched by what we have created."
  • "For now,  a new orientation is to assume fakeness, assume deception"
  • "We are entering an era of verify, then trust"
     

Silverman, Craig. “Living in a Sea of False Signals: Are We Being Pushed from ‘Trust, but Verify’ to ‘Verify, Then Trust’?” Nieman Lab, Nieman Foundation at Harvard, 8 Mar. 2018, www.niemanlab.org/2018/03/living-in-a-sea-of-false-signals-are-we-being-pushed-from-trust-but-verify-to-verify-then-trust/.

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