Subject Guides: Resources for Studying and Teaching the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol Insurrection: Understanding "Fake News," Misinformation and Disinformation

Lesson Plans about Fake News/Misinformation

Evaluating Sources in a ‘Post-Truth’ World: Ideas for Teaching and Learning About Fake News
This New York Times lesson plan from 2017 is designed to present both the problem of fake news as well as some potential solutions.
PBS News Hour: Fake News lesson plan
What’s the difference between misinformation and disinformation? asks Dr. Sam Wineburg, head of the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG). “It’s big.” If you come across a tweet that purposely used a fake headline (disinformation) and you sent it to a friend, you would be responsible for spreading incorrect or made up information (misinformation) and your friend would be misinformed.
RAND Corporation: Media Literacy Standards to counter Truth Decay
Report from the RAND Corporation that includes a list of competencies that instructors can use in the classroom.

10 Types of Mis and Dis information (InfoGraphic)

Video Verification (InfoGraphic)

Infographic from Groundviews.org https://groundviews.org/2018/05/25/infographic-video-verification/

The Debunking Handbook 2020

The Debunking Handbook 2020
Publication Date: 2020
The Debunking Handbook 2020 summarizes the current state of the science of misinformation and its debunking. It was written by a team of 22 prominent scholars of misinformation and its debunking, and it represents the current consensus on the science of debunking for engaged citizens, policymakers, journalists, and other practitioners.

What is "Fake News," Misinformation and Disinformation, and how can you spot it?

Misinformation is a basic term that refers to false information. Someone might post or share misinformation unintentionally because they believe it's true. There may or may not be an intent to deceive, but the misinformation still makes its way out into the world and has the power to influence others. Did you ever hear a piece of juicy gossip that later turned out to be untrue? That's misinformation.

Disinformation represents a subset of misinformation. Disinformation is false or distorted information that is spread with a purposeful intent to influence, manipulate, or deceive its target audience. Examples of disinformation would include a politician intentionally spreading unsubstantiated rumors about an opponent, or a corporation knowingly misleading the public about the damaging effects of its products.

And that brings us to fake news, which we've heard a lot about over the last several years. At a basic level, “fake news” is a term used to describe any kind of false or deceptive news story, often one that is circulating on social media. “Fake news” might be a hoax or satire. Or it might be a lie with a manipulative political objective. In other cases, “fake news” may simply be clickbait intended to generate revenue on social media platforms. Ironically, the term “fake news” has also been used by politicians to discredit legitimate journalism. As citizens, we have to be on guard whenever accurate information is disingenuously labeled “fake news” by those with a political motivation to hide the truth.

Misinformation Lexicon
The above definitions (and more!) are taken from the Misinformation Lexicon, published by the University of Louisville.
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Creative Commons License CC by NC 4.0
Citizen Literacy was created by Robert Detmering, Amber Willenborg, and Terri Holtze for University of Louisville Libraries and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Citizen Literacy was created by Robert Detmering, Amber Willenborg, and Terri Holtze for University of Louisville Libraries and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Teaching Lateral Reading

Stanford University Civic Online Reasoning: Teaching Lateral Reading
Evaluating where information comes from is a crucial part of deciding whether it is trustworthy. By observing fact checkers, we found that the best way to learn about a website is lateral reading—leaving a site to see what other digital sources say about it.

In this sequence of lessons, teachers model lateral reading and guide students through a series of structured activities to develop and improve their lateral reading skills. Students contrast lateral reading with vertical reading (staying on a single webpage), and learn how checking what other websites say about a source is a better evaluation strategy than trusting what the source says about itself. These lessons also introduce students to resources they can use when laterally reading: Wikipedia, news stories, and fact-checking organizations’ websites.

Check your facts!

Before you hit "send" to share with others, check the validity of the content first. It is always a good idea to question your information, especially from websites, social media and the like. How credible is it? Are there other established media sources (e.g. major newspapers, magazine publications, television/streaming networks) reporting on this topic? Do you really believe it it true? Why?

There are several "fact-checking" web sites available. You still must decide on whether something is "fake" or "truthful" but having tools to help verify content should help. Here are a few suggested sources:

FactCheck.org
From the website: " a nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. Monitors factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases."
Fact Checker - Washington Post
Media Bias/Fact Check
Michigan Truth Squad
The News Literacy Project
"The News Literacy Project is a national education nonprofit offering nonpartisan, independent programs that teach students how to know what to believe in the digital age." (from the NLP website)
PolitiFact
Snopes
From the website: "Snopes got its start in 1994, investigating urban legends, hoaxes, and folklore. As demand for reliable fact checks grew, so did Snopes. Now it’s the oldest and largest fact-checking site online, widely regarded by journalists, folklorists, and readers as an invaluable research companion."
The Verification Handbook
Designed for journalists to help verify "breaking news" for accuracy, but general enough for anyone to use as a guide. Several chapters on how to determine "fake news." The book is free to read online.