Media Literacy

Documentaries on How Media Impact the World

by

From the Media Education Foundation – documentary films on the media

The MEF has a variety of films about the media which.  They can be used for media community literacy efforts or as a part of school programs.

Headline: “Films That Inspire Critical Reflection on the Social, Political, & Cultural Impact of American Mass Media”

“Media Education Foundation produces and distributes documentary films and other educational resources to inspire critical thinking about the social, political, and cultural impact of American mass media.”

https://www.mediaed.org/

 

Foreign Manipulators, Social Media and Elections

by

 

Article By Filippo Menczer, Indiana University in UPI 10/8/24

Headline: “Foreign operations manipulate social media to influence your views”

“. . . we found accounts that flood the network with tens or hundreds of thousands of posts in a single day. The same campaign can post a message with one account and then have other accounts that its organizers also control “like” and “unlike” it hundreds of times in a short time span. Once the campaign achieves its objective, all these messages can be deleted to evade detection. Using these tricks, foreign governments and their agents can manipulate social media algorithms that determine what is trending and what is engaging to decide what users see in their feeds.

“. . . The consequences of such operations are difficult to evaluate due to the challenges posed by collecting data and carrying out ethical experiments that would influence online communities. Therefore it is unclear, for example, whether online influence campaigns can sway election outcomes. Yet, it is vital to understand society’s vulnerability to different manipulation tactics.”

https://www.upi.com/Voices/2024/10/08/foreign-operations-manipulate-social-media-influence-views/7961728392145/

How to Identify Fakes in the Media

by

Article by Annique Mossou from Bellingcat.com, 11/1/21 (over a year old, but still good)

Headline: A Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Verification

“How can we tell whether the posts, articles and claims we see on the internet and social media sites are true? Online conspiracies and deliberately misleading, partisan content are serious issues, after all.”

. . . “Verification doesn’t need to be difficult. It also doesn’t require any complicated algorithms or access to advanced tools or programs that automatically detect whether an image may be fake or manipulated.

“A critical mindset and a close look at the context of an image or post, allied with simple tools such as a Google search or reverse image platforms, are often all it takes to discover whether a piece of content is genuine.”

https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2021/11/01/a-beginners-guide-to-social-media-verification/

Skeptical about the Media due to Deep Fakes?

by

Article in Ars Technica by Benj Edwards – 9/19/2024

Headline:  “Due to AI fakes, the “deep doubt” era is here”

Subhead:  “As AI deepfakes sow doubt in legitimate media, anyone can claim something didn’t happen.”

“Deep doubt is skepticism of real media that stems from the existence of generative AI. This manifests as broad public skepticism toward the veracity of media artifacts, which in turn leads to a notable consequence: People can now more credibly claim that real events did not happen and suggest that documentary evidence was fabricated using AI tools.”

. . . “When we are evaluating the veracity of online media, it’s important to rely on multiple corroborating sources, particularly those showing the same event from different angles in the case of visual media or reported from multiple credible sources in the case of text. It’s also useful to track down original reporting and imagery from verified accounts or official websites rather than trusting potentially modified screenshots circulating on social media. Information from varied eyewitness accounts and reputable news organizations can provide additional perspectives to help you look for logical inconsistencies between sources.”

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/due-to-ai-fakes-the-deep-doubt-era-is-here/

Repeating a Lie in the Media Doesn’t Make it True

by

Article in Daily Kos by Xaxnar, 9/19/24

Headline: “Must-Read from Jamison Foser – How the media fails us by “Privileging the lie”

“When a news report treats the truthfulness of a lie as an open question, it privileges the lie. When a news report devotes more and more prominent space to recounting the lie and the liar’s defense of it than it does making clear that it’s a lie, the article privileges the lie. When a news report focuses on the target of a lie’s struggle to deal with the impact of the lie, the article privileges the lie. And when a news report focuses on the topic of the lie — even if it does a good job of making clear the lie is a lie — it privileges the lie, because it allows the liar to set the topic of conversation, and thus increases the electoral salience of a topic the liar believes is to his benefit.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/19/2270386/-Must-Read-from-Jamison-Foser-How-the-media-fails-us-by-Privileging-the-lie?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

Pulling False Fire Alarms Distract Media

by

Article in Daily Kos by James Jarmess, 9/16/24

Headline: The Sick Worn-out Trick That the Media keep Falling For — Every time

“(Rachel) Maddow just told the story of this kid who knows he is failing his Exam, in the middle of taking it. Desperate, he manages to pull the school’s Fire Alarm. Granted, he gets caught, and he catches hell for that stunt. But he is no longer ‘failing the Exam’ — everyone is now focused on his ‘bad behavior.’ Side benefit — the Exam was cancelled.

“Then Maddow draws that as an analogy of what Trump did in the Debate: When he realized he was ‘failing his Exam’ — before a national audience — he does something so unthinkable, it will change for discussion for days. Trump vehemently tells the made-up urban legend of Haitian immigrants stealing and eating pets.”

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/9/16/2270846/-The-sick-worn-out-Trick-that-the-Media-keeps-Falling-For-time-after-time?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

Social Media and the Debate

by

Article In The Guardian by Alaina Demopoulos, 9/10/24

Headline: “How the Trump-Harris debate played out on social media: ‘Maga mad libs’ “

Subhead:  “Users react to viral moments as Democratic and Republican candidates face off in presidential debate”

Social media users responded in many ways as to how the moderators kept people to account during the Harris/Trunp debate.

“ABC moderator “David Muir countered Trump’s assertion that Haitian immigrants abducted and ate pets in Springfield, Ohio – a rumor that began on Facebook, but was quickly shot down by city officials, even as JD Vance and other Republicans repeated the claims this week.

“ ‘They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,’ Trump rambled, adding more pet lore to an election season filled with talk about ‘crazy cat ladies’.

. . . “But overall, the feeling on social media was that the former president floundered, and that Harris successfully baited him. A rare, bipartisan statement we might all be able to agree on: from Trump’s batty zingers to Harris’s lack of a poker face, both sides delivered enough meme fuel to last until November.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/10/trump-harris-debate-reaction

Media Control, A Problem for Right-Wing

by

From an 8/6/24 article on Media Matters by John Knefel.

Headline:  “MAGA Media Figures Launch Desperate and Weird – Attacks on Harris Vice Presidentiral Pick Tim Walz”

“As governor, Walz has pursued a robust pro-worker and pro-child agenda, two public policy areas where conservatives have attempted to make superficialinroads. While some conservative pundits attempted to level attacks on Walz for his progressive record as governor, many of their initial reactions to the news have been strange, bizarre, and — some might even say — weird.”

Read it here:

https://www.mediamatters.org/tim-walz/maga-media-figures-launch-desperate-and-weird-attacks-harris-vice-presidential-pick-tim