Where do you get your information? Your next door neighbor? Your weird Uncle Bob? Fox News? MSNBC? How do you know who to believe? Do you limit yourself to one source or try to balance your information by going to multiple sources? Do you live in a bubble or scour the landscape for different viewpoints?
From the beginning of my course, but especially here, I challenge students to always ask two questions: (1) is what I'm hearing credible? and (2) is the source of what I am hearing credible? In fact, this is the entire course in a nut shell. If we could always remember to ask these questions, a lot of conflict could be avoided and a lot of misinformation stopped in its tracks.
In today's world there are basically two sources of information, digital and print. Both come with lots of questions needing to be asked. What "kind" (more later) of information is it? What is its frequency? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? What is the intended audience? Public? Academic? Professional? etc? What form does it come in? "News"? Magazine? Academic journal? Book? If the information is digital, pay attention to the "source." .com? .gov? .edu? .org? These designations give us a world of information. If you live in a digital world, do you rely on websites? Social media? You do know that Wikipedia is subject to public editing?
Fake news is pervasive, and its consequences are extremely detrimental to common discourse and public goodwill. We wake up to and go to bed with lies, intentional and unintentional. Technology has made it possible to photo shop and manipulate the visual support used to disseminate the fake and malicious efforts to confuse the public. One lie, despite expert, authoritative, legitimate verification, has convinced one third of this nation that the last presidential election was corrupt and wrong. On another issue, many people do not recognize satire or understand the role of sponsored content in the information they receive.
Here is a simple test we might employ. SIFT: Stop before sharing, Investigate the source of the information, Find other trusted sources that verify or correct, Trace the original to its origin.
A desirable characteristic of a critical thinker is intellectual objectivity. Never easy--always worth the effort!!
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