Understanding Media Literacy and Managing Misinformation (2024 edition)

Presentation delivered to Fulbright Scholars and Teaching Assistants focused on issues related to navigating misinformation and media literacy in Europe/Eurasia, with a special focus on media freedom, gatekeepers, as well as case studies and tips for managing misinformation.

1. Understanding Media Literacy
and Managing Misinformation
Damian Radcliffe, Chambers Professor of Journalism
University of Oregon
June 2024

2. Today’s session
1. Definitions
2. Spotlight on misinformation
3. Tips and Tools
4. Alumni experiences (panel)
5. Q&A with Panel

3. Virtual Introductions
Your nameWhere you’re
based now
Where you’re
heading to!

4. And who are you?
Who am I?

6. About Me
•British – in USA since 2015
•Married (Habiba)
•3 x Children (Nyla, Yara and Rafi)
•1 cat (Oreo)
•Love(d) to travel (58 countries)
•BA and MA Oxford University

7. 1995 – 1999: The Local Radio Company
1999 – 2003: BBC
2003 – 2008: CSV Media (NGO)
2008 – 2012: Ofcom (UK Office of Communications)
2012 - 2014: ictQATAR (Ministry and Regulator)
2012 + Freelance journalist + trainer
2015 + University of Oregon
Background
1995 2024

8. Many hats
Carolyn S. Chambers Professor in Journalism
University of Oregon
Fellow, Tow Center for Digital Journalism
Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism
Honorary Research Fellow
Cardiff University, School of Journalism, Media and Culture Studies
Life Fellow
Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA)

9. Visiting Fellow
Oxford University
Spring + Summer 2024

11. Lens for this session…
• Journalist
• Researcher
• Educator and Trainer
Those hats…

13. Yes, we’re (second) cousins!

16. 1. Definitions

17. “Media Literacy is the ability to
access, analyze, evaluate and
create media in a variety of forms.”
1992 Aspen Media Literacy Leadership Institute

18. “Media Literacy is 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.
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.”
Center for Media Literacy

19. Tl;DR > Multiple definitions, but typically include:
-Access – media plurality (e.g., FB = internet), affordability, freedom of information
-Understanding - critical thinking + how media works
-Ability to manage risks and potential harms

20. 2. Spotlight on misinformation

21. What do we mean by
misinformation?

23. Global Issue Across all markets,
respondents worried
about what is real and
what is fake on the
internet overall is up
3pp from 56% to 59%.
Highest in some
countries going to the
polls this year, incl.
South Africa (81%), the
United States (72%),
and the UK (70%).
Highest levels of
concern in Africa (75%)
and lower levels in
much of Northern and
Western Europe.

24. Typology

25. How it works

26. Motive Matters

27. How confident are you?
Post in the chat:
1-3 = Not very confident
4-6 = Somewhat confident
7-9 = Very confident
10 = I should be giving this talk, Damian!

30. Resilience to ”Fake News” Open Society Institute (2021)
Factors used to create
this index included:
-Press Freedom
-Multiple literacy levels
(e.g. maths, science,)
-Education levels
-Trust in others

31. Latest data
“Some of the most vulnerable countries as
registered by low results in the Media Literacy
Index 2023 are also the closest to the war in
Ukraine started by Russia and among the most
exposed to malign disinformation.
In a similar vein, the Balkan countries, many of
which are still experiencing internal instability
and inter-state tensions in 2023, remain among
the highest at-risk countries in the index.”

33. 5 x Examples

34. Footage shown of President
Zelensky “out there fighting for
his country,” was filmed in 2021.
(Screenshot via NewsGuard)
1. False context

35. Game footage also used to depict
war in Ukraine… and Syria…

36. 2. Poor and/or partisan journalism

38. And perceptions of it

39. 3. Fake websites

40. 4. Conspiracy theories

41. Covered by:
- Quartz
- Elite Daily
- Cosmopolitan
- BuzzFeed
- Digg
- MTV
- And more!
5. Humor – Parody - Satire

42. Denial covered by Quartz, Washington Post + others.

43. What examples have you seen?

44. Why now? 10x key factors

45. 1. Fake news looks a lot like real news

46. 2. Tech doesn’t discern fact from fiction

47. Makes it very easy to share…
“False information spreads just
like accurate information.”
Farida Vis, Sheffield University research fellow

48. AND…
They have cut back on a
lot of fact-checking.
Don’t check political ads.
Reinstated accounts e.g.
Trump, Kennedy et al.

49. “Social media platforms’
insufficient protections—
coupled with a surge in
political marketing and the
changing nature of news—
will exacerbate an already
fraught environment and
pose major brand safety
problems.”
eMarketer on UNESCO AND Ipsos data

50. 3. Algorithms can create filter bubbles…
They show us more of what we like, not what we need to know

51. 4. Decline in the number
of journalists

52. 5. And reduced
trust in media
and journalism

53. Global Issue
Backdrop of declining trust in Institutions, more partisan societies…

54. 6. Misinformation evolving into
different forms + different platforms

56. Claims can be more powerful – and memorable
when there’s an image associated with it

57. Memes

58. 7. Harder
than ever
to discern
fact from
fiction

60. 8. New tools… powerful Generative AI

62. Stone Age Selfie

64. AI-generated image
used by Amnesty
International to
illustrate police
brutality.
Source: The
Guardian

65. Body of a
massive
octopus
washed up
on the coast
of Indonesia

66. “Some of the most compelling AI image tools look a
little cinematic, a little too polished… They tend to
look a bit softer — with an almost airbrushed quality.”
"Other giveaways are unrealistic or nonsensical
backgrounds, and bizarre, missing or misshapen
minor details,"
Peter Adams, senior vice president of research
and design with the News Literacy Project

68. 9. Bots + weaponization of the web

69. “In place of overt, mass repression, rulers
such as Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, and Viktor Orbán control their
citizens by distorting information and
simulating democratic procedures. Like
spin doctors in democracies, they spin
the news to engineer support.”
How a new breed of dictators holds
power by manipulating information
and faking democracy

70. Media Capture
“In many parts of the world, special interests, from oligarchs and other
elites to governments, are influencing and controlling the media for
personal gain.
When media is captured in this way, it is no longer independent.
Captured media loses the ability to reflect the broad interests of the
community and to hold power to account – the classic role of the fourth
estate. Most often, media is captured by governments, plutocrats or
corporations or, in many cases, a mixture of all three.”
Internews, 2017

71. 10. Reduced – and declining media freedom

72. Q: How does
your country
rank?

74. Types of electoral mis- and disinformation
LatamChequeacoalition —a network of Latin American, Spanish, Portuguese and U.S. fact-checkers fighting
Spanish-language disinformationdiscovered 10 types of disinformation repeated in electoral cycles over the
last three years in every country they researched in Latin America, as well as in the 2020 U.S. elections.
Unintentional Irregularities denounced as fraud Disinformation about the documentation
needed to vote
Alleged fraud coordinated by authoritiesDisinformation about citizens voting abroad
Votes cast in the name of deceased personsChaos on election day
People are voting who are not qualified to do soFalse polls
Manipulation to discourage votingFabricated candidate statements

75. Q: Who should be
responsible for
addressing this?
How do we fix this?

76. A multi-stakeholder approach
•Government
•Regulators
•Tech Companies
•Journalists and Fact Checkers
•Consumers
•Education System

77. 3. Tips and Tools
- 10 recommendations

78. 1.Consume widely…
+ develop a list of trust sources

79. 2. Understand your source

80. 3. Double check everything

81. 4. Be skeptical

82. 5. Learn to reverse image search

84. 6. Slow Down

85. Misinformation can have major consequences

86. 7. Be mindful as stories break

87. And where…

88. 8. Check your emotions

89. The biggest red flag for me is when something evokes
an emotion in you. That doesn’t necessarily mean that
it’s misinformation, but it signals that somebody’s
trying to manipulate your emotions, and that’s
something you should be aware of. When you
recognize it, remember to take a deep breath and
look into it a little bit before you believe it.
Leticia Bode, professor of Communication,
Culture and Technology, Georgetown University

90. 9. Find the
local
equivalent
of Snopes,
PolitiFact
etc.

92. Also being
weaponized

93. 10. Don’t
automatically trust
authority figures

94. "Nothing we have seen in the
image seems like particularly
malicious edits. Clearly, not
much time was put into the
edits as you can see the clear
traces left behind."
Cole Whitecotton, senior
professional research
assistant for the National
Center for Media Forensics at
the University of Colorado,
Denver.

95. Yes, we’re (second) cousins!

96. Yes, we’re cousins!

97. Email: [email protected]
X/Twitter: @damianradcliffe
Web: www.damianradcliffe.com
Thanks for listening