Building Reality: The Construction of Knowledge

Flashcards covering key concepts related to information literacy, research methods, and critical thinking when faced with news and data, based on lecture notes titled 'Building Reality: The Construction of Knowledge'.

Fake News

Made-up content, masterfully manipulated to resemble credible journalistic reports, easily spread online to large audiences who are willing to believe and share the fictions.

Misinformation

False or inaccurate information, especially that which is intended to deceive.

Information Age

A period characterized by the widespread availability and rapid transmission of information, often referring to the digital era and the internet's impact.

Population (in research)

The actual group, organization, or category of people of interest to the researcher.

Sample (in research)

A subgroup chosen from the larger population; the actual group studied.

Representative Sample

A sample that approximates the qualities of the larger population, allowing for generalizations to be made about that population.

Validity (in research)

Accurateness; whether the measure or instrument used actually measures what the researchers intend it to measure.

Reliability (in research)

Repeatability; if another researcher repeated the study with the same method and a different representative sample from the same population, they would get the same results.

Unemployed Persons (U.S. Dept. of Labor)

Those who did not work during the survey week, but were available for work except for temporary illness and had looked for jobs within the preceding 4 weeks. Includes persons on layoff.

Mean

A measure of central tendency calculated by summing all values in a dataset and dividing by the number of values; highly sensitive to extreme values.

Median

A measure of central tendency representing the middle value in a numerically ordered dataset; less sensitive to extreme values than the mean.

Mode

A measure of central tendency representing the most frequently occurring value in a dataset.

Correlation

A statistical measure that describes the size and direction of a relationship between two or more variables.

Causation

A relationship where one action or event (the cause) directly brings about another action or event (the effect); difficult to determine as alternative causes must be eliminated.

Sampling Error

The variation one could expect from taking multiple random or representative samples from a population.

The Medium Is The Message

A concept suggesting that the form or channel through which information is communicated can be more impactful than the content itself.

Critical Consumption of Information

The process of evaluating information by demanding sources, considering the source's credibility, fact-checking, demanding evidence, examining images, and checking one's own biases.