3: Reality Distorted

Problem: “if one world defines our contemporary information environment, it is disorientation. Our exposure to information continues to grow, and with it, our confusion.”

  • Information centred world

  • Convenience and ease of access is expanding.

  • More opportunities for false information to spread.

  • Information overload leads to confusion and disorientation. Enables the spread of false information.

    • Information literacy comes into play.

    • Growth with tech doesn’t make a person literate.

Post-Truth Era

  • Some political wins rely on half-truths, misinformation and emotional appeals.

  • Truth no longer holds ultimate authority.

  • Fact and fiction is increasingly blurred.

  • Post-truth, 2016 word of the year: when emotion and belief outweigh objective facts in shaping public opinion.

    • Circumstances where objective fact is less influential than emotional appeals and personal beliefs. But when did appeals to emotion ever have less impacts?

    • Narratives used to energize a base.

Disinformation & Misinformation (TEST)

  • Mis-information: the action of misinforming: false or inaccurate information that is spread unintentionally. Often believed to be true.

  • Disinformation: intentionally disseminating false information (fake news)

    • Manipulates audience to discredit conflicting information.

    • Mixes truths with false conclusions and lies.

    • Crafts ignorance and doubt; critical and suspicious of what is true.

    • “Fake news” is used to discredit the mass media. Stir a buzz around a bogus newsworthy event by spreading provocative information.

      • Fake news thrives in societies that are politically polarized. Helped by social media. Driven by economics. 

  • Climate science was discredited by manufacturing uncertainty. Two plausible, opposing view are published — highlighting controversy and inspiring doubt. Crafts ignorance.

    • Suggests that doubt is a form of caution. Reverse engineering of information literacy. Instead of determining credibility, uncertainty and discredit is sewn in.

  • Trump brought in the term of “fake news.” While results can’t directly be linked to Trump, a recent increase in fake news discussion has occurred.

    • The use of the term has increased considerably more.

Impact

Fifth Estate Video

  • Trump alleges that the media is fake — the enemy of the people. “But do you have to put our lives in danger?”

  • Trump’s definition of Fake news: news that’s critical of the White House.

  • Daily fact checks and so many falsehoods. 

  • Canadians are merely passive observers.

  • Reporter accessibility.. feeds directly into news coverage.

  • Jim Acosta: enemy of the people. Press credentials revoked.

  • “Even Richard Nixon didn’t yank passes from reporters”

  • “We don’t take stands on issues, but when it comes to our access to the White House”

  • His bombastic style feeds directly into his base. America sneezes, the whole world catches a cold. Enrages normal people.

Societal Consequence

  • Intentionally creates distrust in the system — it’s the intended effect, it gets people to vote for Trump because it feeded into his “non-establishment” image.

  • Polarization, distrust in the American political system, which the press is a critical component of. 

  • January 6th was the materialization of this distrust; it fed directly into American distrust in their political institutions and their elections. Led to a violent riot at the Capital.

  • Attacks on post-secondary educations.

  • Erosion in truth and good reporting that follows journalistic principles.

Propaganda

  • Propaganda is another form of information manipulation.

    • Emotional, selective use. 

  • The Nazis used propaganda and the media to justify war and the Holocaust.

  • “State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda”: insight into how propagandists seek to influence politics and how the Nazis gained power.

    • Influence how propagandists influence politics worldwide. Disseminated materials on how the Nazis sold themselves.

    • Bombastic, patriotic, hero-like videos; how to play upon voter issues and reduce complicated issues to slogans.

    • Dissatisfaction with the status quo, national unity. “Freedom” used.

    • All forms of media became centralized within the German government. Echos Trump’s consolidation of Pentagon media.

    • Physical threats to Germany — people that power the enemy.

    • Microcosms of German society. Emphasis on the spoken word.

  • “Propaganda works not just to change your opinion, but to change how you behave.”

Pizzagate Case Study

  • Started from a controversial individual. Spread through humor? 

  • Clinton emails was true — and then spun in a mental gymnastics process into a child sex trafficking ring based on the DNC chairman liking a particular pizza place. Implied in people’s minds that Hillary was up to something nefarious.

    • Spread like wildfire from conspiracy to something your crazy uncle would share on Facebook.

    • Social media has this tendency to latch onto the absurd because it motivates shares, think of “cats and dogs” 

    • They’re sharing it out of humour and building this image of Hillary Clinton in people’s minds.

  • Filming/livestreaming of a children’s birthday party — something innocent to protect children’s privacy was weaponized in a mental gymnastics exercise.

  • Already a very polarized country; “anti-Clinton activists” spread the story, Steve Bannon and that kind of crowd — citizen journalists. 

  • Legal implications: defamation; the opportunity for injury

  • Ethically: political opportunism, and anti-Clinton activists knew this would work on some people.

  • Socially: it feeds into the narrative of American distrust in institutions — that their own politicians would be ringleaders of a children sex trafficking chain.

Post-Truth Era

  • Political manipulation normalizing misinformation.

  • Digital media allows anyone to publish and share.

    • Echo chambers amplify and add to misinformation.

    • Short memorable messages are more memorable.

    • Likes/shares/recirculation occurs without checking accuracy.

  • Information overload makes it harder to evaluate truth

  • Trust in traditional sources is eroding.

  • The world is becoming less rational. 

Threats

  • Threats to democracy, journalism

  • Weakened public trust

  • Confusion over current events spreads rapidly

  • Potential to undermine both science and society

  • Less legal liability for social medias and search engines

    • Cheaper and much faster to distribute information.

    • 2018: 2/3rd of Americans get news from Social Media.

  • People become overly confident.

    • 2017 study: 39% of people were confident that they could differentiate between real and false information. Only 4% actually could.

    • Our capacity to determine real news is only slightly better than chance. It is easier to gain the public’s trust.

Digital Generation

  • Digital native: people who have grown up with computer technologies. Native speakers of the digital language.

    • Young people’s ability to evaluate information is incapable. Most adults have never been taught how to evaluate information for truth and objectivity.

Actions & Impact Solutions

Literacy: the ability, confidence and willingness to engage with language to acquire, construct and communicate meaning in all aspects of daily living. Read the periodic table, defend positions, complete math problems. Multi-layered.

  • More modernly: reading and writing into diverse and new contexts.

  • Digital literacy: use and interact responsibly in the digital world

    • 84% of Canadians now require computer/basic technical skills, yet only about 30% of Canadians feel very prepared with workplace digital skills.

    • Gilster: the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers.

    • Today: digital technologies effectively and responsibly.

  • Information literacy: can I trust what I’m reading?

    • Being able to recognize when information is needed and the ability to locate, evaluate and use effectively the needed information. Determining the credibility of information.

    • Have I engaged with this enough to share? WHO is the author; WHERE did this article come from; is this article CREDIBLE? Cross-reference sources.

  • Critical media literacy: what message is being sent and why?

    • Teaches students to analyze power, bias and ideology in media.

    • Encourages not just critique, but also student-created media to engage with public discourse.

    • Traditional literacy isn’t enough in a digital, media-saturated world. Engage with media.

    • Digital equality: misinformation and media participation are systemic and gendered issues. How citizens participate in development processes and use media to support things like cultural exchange and economic development.

      • Who is represented in digital space and who isn’t?

      • Cultural norms can determine access to devices and the freedom to participate in the digital space. This impacts other forms of literacy, making them vulnerable.

    • Power, bias and representation. Allows us to protect ourselves and contributes to a more informed and resilient society.

Invisible knapsack: white privilege and information privilege. Relative common access to information in Canada; but not everyone has access to these. 

Governments and social media companies should take on more responsibility.