Page 13 - My FlipBook

Education Efforts

Teaching people how to evaluate the content they encounter online
might be one of the most effective ways to limit the spread of fake
news. News literacy programs teach people how to evaluate news
sources and not accept what they read and see simply at face
value. These literacy programs also teach users to expand their
sources of information and follow a variety of people, representing
different viewpoints. Howard Schneider, the dean of the School of
Journalism at Stony Brook University, believes that teaching read-
ers how to evaluate news and sources is critical to stopping the
spread of fake news in the digital age. Schneider contends that

new technologies have brought wondrous benefi ts but
also made it easier for malevolent actors motivated by
ideology or profi t to create and virally spread authentic-
looking reports and images. . . . The defi cits in the public’s
ability . . . to critically identify and evaluate reliable news
and information, are widespread . . . and go way beyond
the issue of our current preoccupation with patently fake
or fabricated news. They not only continue to undermine
trust in the news media but in our democratic institutions. 65

In Italy, a news education program was tested in eight thou-
sand high schools in 2017. The goal of the program is to train stu-
dents who live in a social media world how to recognize fake news
and conspiracy theories. “Fake
“Fake news drips drops of news drips drops of poison into
poison into our daily web diet our daily web diet and we end
and we end up infected without up infected without even realiz-
even realizing it. It’s only right to ing it,” says Laura Boldrini, the
give these kids the possibility to
defend themselves from lies.” 66 president of the lower house of
the Italian parliament, who has
— Laura Boldrini, the president of the lower spearheaded the project with
house of the Italian parliament
the Italian Ministry of Education.

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