Tuesday 5 December 2017

Teaching fact from fiction - BBC News

Teaching fact from fiction - BBC News: "This is a fun and hyper-convenient way to consume the news, but it comes with attendant dangers. One is that if you only see what your friends are interested in, your worldview will become narrow, and is more likely to reinforce your prejudices rather than challenge them.
A second is that if, for political or commercial reasons, someone invents a lie and successfully imposes verisimilitude on it, young minds might come to hold false beliefs. To resist them requires knowledge (of the actual state of the world), intellectual tools (scrutiny to determine truth from falsehood), and courage (to call out liars).

This trinity, when combined, produces news literacy - and it is this, rather than fake news itself, that the BBC's new initiative is aiming to promote.
To the extent that it exists at all, fake news spikes around big news events, such as plebiscites that are too close to call. Such is the nature and volume of information online, that it is almost certainly impossible to eradicate fully.

Combating it requires an as yet unclear combination of action from governments, technology companies, and civil society more broadly." 'via Blog this'

No comments: