News You Can’t Use:
How to Spot Fake News
Adam Dobrodt, Donna Pistolis and
Martha Vickery
History of Fake News
Benjamin Franklin
John Adams
Yellow Journalism
Hoaxes
Social Media and Fake News
Never in human history has more
information been available to more
people. But it’s also true that never in
history has more bad information been
available to more people. And once it’s
online, it is “news” forever.
Information & Its Counterfeits
from Johns Hopkins University
• Information – Communication or
reception of knowledge or
intelligence.
• Propaganda – Systematic
spreading of information in order
to instill a particular attitude or
response.
• Misinformation – Incorrect
information, not necessarily
deliberate.
• Disinformation – Disseminating
deliberately false information,
especially with the intention of
influencing policies or public
opinion.
Satire
The use of humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule to expose
and criticize people or events, particularly in the
context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
Heirloom Plasticware Lovingly
Handed Down To Next Hundred
Thousand Generations
How To Spot Fake News
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Consider the source
Check the author
Check the date
Check your biases
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Read beyond
Supporting sources?
Is it a joke?
Ask the experts (librarians)!
Bias
Bias
• Always look at bias in two ways:
• THE MEDIA/METHOD OF
INFORMATION
TRANSMISSION (Outer)
• YOURSELF (Inner)
• Confirmation bias
• Myside bias
Myside Bias
• “Confirmation bias (or myside
bias) comes from when you have an
interpretation, and you adopt it,
and then, top down, you force
everything to fit that
interpretation”
How Myside Bias Works
• Psychological effect
• Confirmation bias
• Myside bias
• It’s a process occurs in perception
that resolves ambiguity, and it's a
similar process occurs in thinking.
How Myside Bias
Works
Stanford Study
1970s
How Myside Bias Works
• Physiological effect
• Recent research suggests “that
people experience genuine pleasure
- a rush of dopamine - when
processing information that
supports their beliefs”
• It feels good to 'stick to our guns'
even if we are wrong
How Myside Bias Works
• Backfire effect
• New, correct facts that contradict
one’s firmly held belief actually causes
one to hold that belief more strongly.
• 2005 University of Michigan study
• The more strongly participants feel
about a subject (salience), the more
strong the backfire effect.
• “a natural defense mechanism to
avoid that cognitive dissonance.”
What can we do about this?
• Unfortunately, there’s no easy way
to overcome our own bias!
• Begin asking questions of articles
you read for news and on social
media:
• Does this factual article give me a strong
emotional response?
• ANGER
• ANNOYANCE
• HAPPINESS / VINDICATION
• Why am I having a strong emotional
response to this?
• Is this article causing me to dig in my heels
about my beliefs? Why is that?
• ALWAYS BE VIGILANT!
EXAMPLES
• TEQUILA AND WEIGHT LOSS!
• DOG ISLAND!
Online Resources
www.politifact.com Tampa Bay Times
www.fact-check.org The Annenberg Public Policy Center of
the University of Pennsylvania
www.snopes.com
Naperville Public
Library Resources