“03 Introduction to Module 3”
Module 3: Construction of Truth
Week range:WEEK 12, 13, 14, 15
Introduction to Module 3
In 2016, the British newspaper The Guardian posted a story titled “Fake news: an insidious trend that's fast becoming a global problem.” The article, reported from journalists in eight countries, lamented the rapid rise of online misinformation that was “distorting politics around the world.”[1]
That misinformation is still with us – spreading through social media, podcasts, websites, and television, and supercharged with increasingly realistic looking and sounding AI audio, images, and video.
This four-week module on the construction of truth steps back for a big-picture appraisal of our information environment: how journalists construct the news; the history of fake news (which started long before 2016); how disinformation interacts with the political system in the U.S. and around the globe; and how people can identify and protect themselves from disinformation.
UNIT 1 (1 week) begins with all the ways academics, scientists, and journalists have sought to determine what is true. Verification is a common element across the academic, scientific, and journalistic methods. The unit also covers the problem of confirmation bias, the essential elements of journalism, and four classic global models of news media freedom.
UNIT 2 (1 week) explains the history of fake news – that is, misinformation and disinformation. In the U.S., that history reaches back as far as the presidential election of 1800, and continues through incidences of “gaslighting” today. The unit also analyzes how photography has been manipulated to misrepresent reality long before Photoshop and AI were invented.
UNIT 3 (1 week) explores the politics of fake news, particularly as it relates to the U.S. political system. The unit first analyzes contemporary “media bias” charts, and why their models for identifying bias in the U.S. media overlook crucial differences in media organizations. The unit also tracks how disinformation and allegations of “liberal bias” in the mainstream media came to characterize U.S. politics beginning in the 1960s, expanding to the extremely divided media system and politics of today.
UNIT 4 (1 week) applies the lessons of this module with a method for identifying and analyzing fake news, including AI-created deep-fake disinformation. The unit’s main tool is the “Is It Real News?” checklist, which guides students through several important YES-NO questions to determine if a media story is legitimate journalism or not.
[1] Kate Connolly, Angelique Chrisafis, Poppy McPherson, Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Benjamin Haas, Dominic Phillips, Elle Hunt, and Michael Safi, “Fake news: an insidious trend that's fast becoming a global problem,” The Guardian, December 2, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/dec/02/fake-news-facebook-us-election-around-the-world.
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