This week is Media Literacy Week, and 2024 is the 10th annual celebration of this important awareness-raising campaign! In celebration, we’ll be posting one Substack post each day this week with some tips and ideas for becoming more media literate. We hope you find them helpful!
Before we get into today’s tips, we wanted to invite you all (and your students if you are a professor!) to attend a misinformation workshop that the library is offering on October 22nd at 11:30am. This virtual workshop will give you some hands-on practice with the concepts we cover in this short series. All are welcome!
Media Literacy Week – Day Four
Media Literacy Week is nearly over, but there’s one more piece of the SIFT method to cover!
Trace Claims to Their Original Context.
Unfortunately, many of the sources that you encounter online are not original content -- they're stories that are being re-reported or commented on. This makes some of the other steps of SIFT more difficult because the context of the information (and, sometimes, the information itself) is altered when it is re-shared. To address this problem, you may need to trace claims to their original context.
Find more information, suggested resources, and assignment ideas related to Trace Claims to Their Original Context on our Misinformation Research Guide.
Media Literacy Week – Day Three
Let’s continue our exploration of the SIFT method for Media Literacy Week!
Depending on your information need, you may find that the first two steps in SIFT are sufficient to verify the source you want to share or use, and your work is done. However, if you're unsure about the trustworthiness of a source, the next step in the SIFT process is to evaluate the claim by Finding Trusted Sources. See the video below for some tips for doing that kind of fact-checking.
One common strategy for Finding Trusted Sources is called “lateral reading.” The idea is that instead of relying on the source itself to tell you how trustworthy it is, you open new tabs and investigate how others assess that source’s reliability.
Find more information, suggested resources, and assignment ideas related to Find Trusted Sources on our Misinformation Research Guide.
Media Literacy Week – Day 2
Welcome to Day Two of Media Literacy Week!
Don’t forget that our Avoiding Misinformation Workshop is today at 11:30 – we would love to have you!
Now that we know more about the first step of SIFT, Stop, let’s move to the next step. The second step of SIFT is to Investigate the Source. It can be tempting to immediately begin to debate the merits of a claim that a source makes (and, depending on how outrageous it is, you may be able to dismiss a source based on its claim alone). However, it's often a good idea to begin by investigating if the source of the claim is credible. See the video below to learn why the strategy you use to investigate a source can mean the difference between an inaccurate conclusion and a successful fact-check.
In the next video, learn a quick method for investigating a source.
Find more information, suggested resources, and assignment ideas related to Investigate the Source on our Misinformation Research Guide.
MEDIA LITERACY WEEK: DAY 1
The SIFT Method
Today we’ll start by introducing the SIFT method. What is SIFT?
Stop
Investigate the source
Find trusted coverage
Trace claims, quotes and media to the original context.
Learn more from the creator, Mike Caufield
The first step in the SIFT method is to Stop when you are considering sharing information online or using it as evidence in an assignment. Consider the following:
- Do you have a deeply-held belief about this topic? Do you have an emotional reaction to the claim?
- What is your information need and context? Are you going to be using this information for a low stakes task, like deciding what movie to watch, or a higher stakes decision, like whether to share political information on social media?
If the source you plan to use evokes a strong emotional reaction, be extra cautious to verify its claims before sharing. Also, return to this stage of SIFT if you are feeling frustrated or stuck -- take a pause and re-evaluate what you've learned in your investigation.
https://youtu.be/dNmwvntMF5A?si=Uwwl21H461vfW896
Find more information, suggested resources, and assignment ideas related to the Stop of SIFT on our Misinformation Research Guide.