News Literacy (Cavendish Square Publishing)

The news media has long functioned as the American Fourth Estate, at its best correcting abuses of power in government and business, and at its worst amplifying the biases of reporters and publishers and promoting them as "truth." The explosion of new forms of media in the twenty-first century, coupled with new professional standards, advertising models, and technologies, has made it harder than ever to identify bias, let alone do anything about it. This resource investigates the causes of bias, its history, and its many manifestations in the new media of the twenty-first century. It proposes tools, tactics, and strategies for recognizing, confronting, and correcting bias, in the media as well as in ourselves.

As digital natives attempt to navigate news sources, media literacy is more important than ever. Understanding who is behind different forms of clickbait like posts, articles, and ads, and the motivation behind this content, is a critical part of distinguishing reputable sources of information from distorted or false information. This must-have volume examines the roots of modern clickbait in the sensationalism of yellow journalism, while guiding readers through the process of recognizing clickbait and reacting to it in savvy ways.

Facebook, Google, and other major internet companies track clicks and use that data to provide personalized content. More and more, each person encounters a unique online world, what some experts call a "web of one." This essential resource explores what filter bubbles are and how they work. It looks at the potential downsides of filter bubbles, such as deepening political divides and the rise of confirmation bias. It offers helpful advice about how to recognize this challenge of the digital age and how to break out of the bubble.

Due to today's nonstop news cycle and the omnipresence of the internet, the search for facts can be more difficult than ever. A rumor or untruth can be shared at the touch of a button. This volume analyzes the various types of hoaxes that appear online and in the news, providing readers with a comprehensive set of tools to discover whether or not a story, image, or quotation is true. Hoaxes covered range from the historical Piltdown Man to the recent Pizzagate. This book fosters critical thinking and media literacy skills that can be applied to content of all kinds.

Online and in the news, the word "disinformation" appears often, but what does it mean, and how can it be combated? This book explores the most common usage of the term disinformation, the intentional spread of false information for political means, and provides guidance for how to spot it online, with special attention paid to its propagation through social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. With colorful photographs and sidebars about the role of social media, sock puppet accounts, and bots, readers learn about media literacy and how to read sources with a critical eye.

Thanks to websites and social media platforms, conspiracy theories are able to reach a wider audience today than ever before. Such theories both fascinate and alarm critical thinkers because they challenge media consumers of all ages to hone their media literacy skills. This volume introduces the basic critical thinking concepts needed in order to evaluate the credibility of conspiracy theories, such as those surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks and allegations of "crisis actors" after mass shootings, as well as the skills needed to debunk such theories. Case studies and examples walk the reader step-by-step through the methods readers can use to process and evaluate information related to conspiracy theories, helping to separate fact from fiction.