Introducing Digital Literacy Skills: Is This Photo Real or Fake?

Learn how to discern if a digital photo might be real or fake with a four layered approach. Discover how to evaluate claims through a media literacy strategy called "lateral reading". Then, play a game of real or fake.

1. Is This Photo
Real or Fake?

2. Contents
Media Literacy1.
Discern a digital photo:2.
Plausibilitya.
Lightingb.
Qualityc.
Contextd.
Fact-Checking with Lateral Reading3.
Let’s play!4.

3. What is
Media Literacy?

4. Center for Media Literacy defines “media literacy” as
“A 21st-century approach to
education. It provides a framework
to access, analyze, evaluate, create
and participate with messages in a
variety of forms – from print to
video to the Internet.

5. Media literacy builds an understanding of
the role of media in society as well as
essential skills of inquiry and self-
expression necessary for citizens of a
democracy.”
medialit.org/media-literacy-definition-and-more/

6. Ask Yourself:
Who created this?
What techniques are used to attract attention?
How might other people different than me interpret this?
What lifestyles, values, and points of view are
represented in; or omitted from, this message?
Why was this media published/sent?

7. Is this new?

8. No.

9. 4 strategies to
decipher a
photo

10. Plausibility1.
Lighting2.
Quality3.
Context4.

11. Plausibility

12. Chicken
Bike?

13. A shark
swimming on
the highway
next to a car?

14. New species
of rabbits
with antlers?

15. Lighting

16. How do we see light?
Light travels in a straight line and does not go through
opaque objects.
1.
Light reflects at a 90-degree angle from a reflecting surface.2.
Shadows should be consistent throughout the photo. 3.

17. Does this reflection match?

18. Where is the
grasshopper’s
shadow?

19. What angle does the light
come from? Is it consistent
across the image?
University of Wisconsin added a 1994 photo of a black
student to a photo of students at a 1993 football game
that gives the appearance of diversity.
We can only see his head.

20. Where is the
light source?
Follow the shadows

21. Quality

22. Overexposed photo
of George W Bush
supposedly writing a
note asking for a
bathroom break.

23. Does the size of the
storm and the
statue of liberty, the
boat, and the flag
make sense?

24. Do the
colors look
natural?

25. Context

26. What clues can you
find in the photo?
This image is AI generated.

28. What’s wrong here?

30. Look at the Metadata
Two ways:
Method 1:
Save the file to your device. Go
to the file you saved.
Right click on it and choose
“properties” then “details” or
“get info”.
If you are on a phone, go to a
photo, then scroll down to see
your own photo’s metadata.
Method 2:
Right click on the image. Choose “open
photo in new tab”. Copy the URL.

Put the image URL through an EXIF viewer
app in your internet browser, such as:
jimpl.com/1.
exif.tools/2.
brandfolder.com/workbench/extract-
metadata
3.

31. Fact Checking

32. Click on the camera button in Google to
do reverse image search
Google It
The easiest method:

33. Websites:
Factcheck.org
Snopes.com
PolitiFact.com
Fullfact.org
AllSides.com
Wiki of Fact Checking sites by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fac
t-checking_websites

34. Lateral reading is a technique of evaluating the
credibility of a source by comparing it with other
sources.
By doing this, you verify evidence, contextualize
information, find potential weaknesses, and
gather facts.

36. Where did the photo originate?
Who posted it?
Where can I learn more about them or their organization?
What claims does the photo make?
Where can I learn more about these claims?
What sources are cited?
Where can I learn more about these sources?
Ask yourself:

37. When evaluating media online
Consider who is behind the information/photo.
Open new tabs, and look them up.
By fact-checking with new tabs, you read “horizontally”.
This also works well with evaluating memes and graphs.

38. Let’s Play!

40. independent.co.uk/news/science/mut
ant-daisies-found-near-fukushima-
nuclear-disaster-may-have-nothing-
to-do-with-radiation-10411188.html
and
smithsonianmag.com/smart-
news/dont-freak-out-over-funky-
flowers-appeared-near-fukushima-
180956021/
Find the articles at

41. Does this smoke look real?
Photo claims to be a
bombing in Lebanon

44. Learn more about this photo at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2006
/08/14/technology/14photosho
p.html?
unlocked_article_code=1.G00.D
OZ9.UVK9xibOTQ7M&smid=url-
share

68. Thank
you

69. Keep
in touch
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