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Video
This video introduces the concept of media literacy and why it’s essential in an era with so much misinformation and disinformation.
You may feel overwhelmed by the idea of verifying what’s true. Media literacy helps you critically engage with the ocean of information in our digital world. The skills you learn in this module can help you critically interpret and understand information. This resource helps build the skills you need to interrogate the credibility of information and sources. Ultimately, media literacy aims to protect you against the potential effects of misinformation and disinformation. Media literacy is also a critical skill in a democratic society. Democracies work best when citizens can understand and contribute to our public discourse.
After learning about media literacy and the SIFT method, try out the Bad News Game. It helps to build "psychological resistance against online misinformation."
Video
Video
Timothy Caulfield teaches at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Law and School of Public Health. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy. He is a world-leading thinker on misinformation and disinformation. This video describes the importance of media and scientific literacy.
Assessing the credibility of information - The SIFT Method
Assessing the credibility of information - The SIFT Method
Critical – common sense – thinking remains the most essential skill in sorting fact from fiction in an age of information overload. You can use the SIFT method - stop, investigate, find and trace – to assess information quickly. (Adapted from the UChicago Library.)
Stop
Investigate Sources
Find Better Coverage
Trace Claims
We will examine each aspect of the SIFT method in further detail now.
Stop
Stop
Be a discriminating consumer of all information. In the attention economy, social media, news content and other digital content purposely want to trigger emotions that hook us and keep us clicking, liking, bookmarking, commenting and sharing.
Remember, the bad actors behind disinformation deliberately appeal to our emotions. So, it’s essential to stop and question if our feelings might motivate our interests and beliefs.
This video teaches you how to practice click restraint when confronted with a long list of results produced by a search engine.
Gordon Pennycook, an expert in reasoning and decision making, reminds us that when we see news or headlines that spark some emotion, we must check to ensure “it isn't too good, or too bad, to be true.”
Research suggests that we can vaccinate ourselves against misinformation by watching media literacy videos to build our defences against manipulative techniques. Another study found that people share disinformation online, often unintentionally, when scrolling social media. But we can stop spreading false information if we switch on our brains, pause and consider the information’s accuracy.
How to Spot Artificial Intelligence & Deepfakes
How to Spot Artificial Intelligence & Deepfakes
Telling the difference between what's real and what's AI-generated and real online is increasingly difficult. In this video from Australia's public broadcaster, Kevin Nguyen – an investigative journalist and digital forensics reporter with ABC News – highlights the steps journalists often use to debunk fake images and misinformation. You can find more tips, tricks and tools used by journalists to scrutinize text, audio, images and videos for deepfakes and AI-generated content here. DeepfakesTraker.org also offers a currated list of cutting-edge tools for detecting deepfakes.
More videos to help you spot AI-generated content:
Test Your Knowledge
Test Your Knowledge
Stop and reflect on each source and piece of information. Can you trust the author, publication or website? If the answer is no, don’t share – and research.
What does click restraint involve – and why is it important?
Answer: Professional fact-checkers don’t click on the first result a search engine returns. They turn their critical eye to the results list to understand the available sources and information and the credibility of those sources. Remember, a trusted news source or a university website is likely a more reliable source. Click restraint involves making an informed decision about what website to visit first.
Investigate Sources
Investigate Sources
With the rational side of your brain now engaged, evaluate the source. Ask yourself the following questions:
Is it a credible source?
Does it have a reputation for credible information?
What are the source’s credentials?
Is the source an expert or scientist connected to a university or reputable organization?
Is the source a government official or other credible source?
Environment Canada, for example, is a reliable source of information about the weather. However, not all experts or officials are correct or trustworthy. We must think critically about people’s agendas or motivations for saying something. Politicians, for example, can sometimes offer a biased interpretation of issues and events to help their political fortunes. Knowing the sources' expertise and agenda is crucial for evaluating their credibility.
In this video, you learn how to evaluate online sources of information.
When it comes to a news source, ask yourself how long the media company has been around. Who owns the news organization? If you don’t know, search the web to learn more about the news organization and who pays the bills.
In this video, you learn how lateral reading can help you improve your digital literacy skills.
If you are still in doubt, read “laterally” across several websites instead of down the webpage, or “vertically,” to evaluate the source's credibility. Don’t read what the source says about itself; read what other websites say about the source you are investigating. Open multiple sources to evaluate information across the web to determine the source’s credibility.
Credit: Mount Royal University © 2024
News vs. Opinion
News vs. Opinion
Ethical standards – including accuracy, neutrality and balance – underpin news coverage. At its core, journalism remains a “discipline of verification,” whereby reporters present “facts” and “the truths about facts.” While impossible, news reporters strive for objectivity and impartiality. News also includes multiple sources and competing perspectives on issues and events.
Conversely, opinion allows authors to argue or take a stand grounded in the truth. While editorials and commentaries are expected to be accurate and balanced, there is more latitude to express views and beliefs. Also, opinion and commentary often come with more partisanship or political cheerleading. Reputable news organizations label and separate their opinion from news. Most credible news organizations identify their opinion, commentary and editorial pieces. However, not all opinion is labelled. Ask yourself if the piece feels fair and includes multiple perspectives when in doubt. Does it quote sources? Does it feel neutral or contain unattributed views and opinions?
Given its high standards of accuracy, objectivity and balance, news is a more credible source for evaluating information. Opinions and commentaries can be trusted, but it is essential to remember that they reflect a view or belief and sometimes partisan interpretations.
You can assess a news organization’s credibility by looking for its journalistic standards and practices. Reputable news organizations, such as those listed below, follow similar codes of ethics and professional standards.
Sponsored Content
Sponsored Content
Sometimes, information aims to sell something – think advertising. It’s essential to always question whether digital content is paid advertising. Did a company pay for the content? Do they want to influence people to buy what they are selling?
Sometimes, it’s hard to spot paid advertising. So-called native advertising is paid or sponsored content resembling the website or publication’s editorial content. These native ads attempt to entice readers to click and buy. Look for clues such as “sponsored content,” “paid partner content,” “advertorial” or “sponsored” to spot advertisements that look like editorial content.
Sponsored content comes in many forms, including videos, tweets (like the one below from playalberta.ca), Facebook posts, Instagram posts, videos, infographics, paid articles and more.
This playalberta.ca ad encourages X (formerly Twitter) users to purchase a subscription to Lotto Max and Lotto 6/49.
This native advertising resembles the news content on CNN’s website.
Test Your Knowledge
Test Your Knowledge
What words can help you spot native advertising?
Answer: When assessing if the content is sponsored or paid for, look for words such as paid partnership, sponsored and advertorial.
Find Better Coverage
Find Better Coverage
Sometimes, it may be hard to decide if a source is credible. Sometimes, you don’t care if the source is reliable, but you are keen to know if the information is, in fact, accurate.
When a source is in doubt, follow these steps to identify a more reliable one:
Find a better – more trustworthy – source.
Do web searches and trade up to find trusted sources that make or analyze the same claim.
Find a higher-quality source, such as a trusted news organization, government agency, or university, or official studies or reports, than your low-quality source.
Check out what fact-checking organizations such as Snopes or FactCheck.org have said about the claim in question.
Test Your Knowledge
Test Your Knowledge
Stop and reflect on each source and piece of information. Can you trust the author, publication or website? If the answer is no, don’t share – and research.
What higher-quality source should you look for when you trade up to check information?
Answer: Trading up involves checking information online from low-quality sources with higher-quality sources. For instance, check a claim on social media by corroborating the information with an official or scientific source. Additionally, you can check fact-checking websites such as Snopes.com and FactCheck.org to see if the claim or information has been scrutinized.
Trace Claims
Trace Claims
Internet claims that feel suspicious often lack critical context. A picture or video may appear natural – but the description feels weird. Or maybe medical breakthroughs or scientific claims come with a link to a credible-looking scientific journal or organization, but you are not sure. Perhaps a news article you read feels misleading or mistaken.
You can check a claim by doing some detective work and swimming upstream to trace it back to its original source. This will allow you to evaluate the original context, add up the numbers yourself, and make a credible determination about its accuracy.
Now that you know the SIFT method, try out the Bad News Game. It helps to build "psychological resistance against online misinformation."
Test Your Knowledge
Test Your Knowledge
Why is it good to trace a claim, quote or news media report back to its source?
Answer: Misinformation and disinformation often take information out of context. Tracing claims or quotes back to their source can help provide the original date and context and confirm the claim, date, image or video.
SIFT Method Summary
SIFT Method Summary
The following interactive will allow you to actively engage with the SIFT method. You will explore various sources, and receive feedback and instruction regarding the proper SIFT method procedure.
Open Activity in New TabIf you're on a mobile device and encountering issues, please try accessing the site from a larger screen.
Test Your Knowledge
Test Your Knowledge
Engage with the following interactivity.
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Other Resources and Readings
Other Resources and Readings
Websites and Online Magazines
Websites and Online Magazines
Digital forensics reporter breaks down how to spot AI-generated "people" | ABC News Verify
How to Identify AI Images and Deepfakes in Media | Living St. Louis (PBS)
Silva, J. (2018) Distinguishing among news, opinion and propaganda. News Literacy Project.
Articles and Books
Articles and Books
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Documents
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