In today’s digital media landscape, it is not always easy to distinguish between what is true and false. At the side of the traditional media, there are a variety of producers who disseminate information about what’s happening in society.
Some of them are writing news in a different degree is fake in order to fuel people’s fear and prejudice through the dissemination on different internet sites and social media. Speaking of fake news, or the ”fake news”.
A common view has been that it often is where today’s young people are at risk to retrieve their information in the day.
Science & the public in cooperation with Uppsala university and the research institute the Rise in the time the project Nyhetsvärderaren. It is a project with scientific methods, critically news in digital media.
“They get to learn basic journalistic methods to be trained in critically the news is in their own flows,” says project manager Thomas Nygren, associate professor at Uppsala university who specializes in the evaluation of social media.
He has just written the book ”the Facts, the fake and fiction” (Natur & kultur) if the source and the digital skills which comes out in april, and underlines that it is not enough with a high education and a general critical approach to critically interpreting the news in a good way.
– Everyone can be fooled by fake news. It applies to both elementary school students and professors. It depends, among other things, that they often are so attractively packaged, ” he says.
”massexperiment” implemented. Where researchers have taken the help of more than 10,000 Swedish secondary school students to get a survey over how their news feeds look like. Is it credible, or less credible news?
the Students have with the help of their teachers participated in a job where they used Nyhetsvärderaren to learn to critically current news. A total of approximately 7,000 news was gathered and reviewed by the students. Most of the students downloaded the news that the review directly on a news page.
It was particularly hard news – that is to say, about politics, the economy, public service announcements, and accidents and crimes – which were read by the students.
the School has an important task to teach students to source criticism, says researcher Thomas Nygren. Photo: Berit Roald
in the mobile phone. Almost six out of ten goes directly to a news site to read news. Also the majority of news shared on social media comes from the established media.
” We were a little surprised that such a big deal was the news from the established mediesajter, newspapers, kvällspress and public service. Contrary to what many people think read and share young people in the first hand, credible news, ” says Thomas Nygren.
Nearly one-third of the students reported that they every day saw the news that did not seem credible.
” It talked a lot about the filter bubble, but they are enough as soon as a myth. Young people are moving much among the various sources. They do not seem to be looking to confirm their own simplified conception of the world, as many seem to believe, ” says Thomas Nygren.
– Yes, with 10,000 participating students from a large number of locations, there is reason to take the results seriously. The students go in many different public schools with mixed student groups. The study has been repeated two times with the same result: students read and parts mainly credible news from the established media.
on the news is the public service the public service in the top for the students, followed by the morning papers and the tabloids.
To students in spite of the choose the tabloids before the morning newspapers believe Thomas Nygren is because many articles in the morning papers are locked behind betalväggar.
– It is only those students whose parents subscribe to those magazines who have access to these articles. It is a problem that the availability of credible news depends on whether one can afford it or not, says Thomas Nygren.
The three main issues that the students may ask themselves is when they review the articles collective is traditionally journalistic: Who is the sender of the news? What evidence exists for the allegations made in the news? What do other independent sources?
– in Order to determine the credibility of the news, it is crucial to seek out other sources on other websites. You can not determine it on the site where the news is.
made in New York and Princeton universities, published in Science Advances, indicate that it is primarily individuals over 65 years of age who shared a fake news on Facebook before and after the u.s. presidential election.
Facebookanvändarna in the survey who were 65 years of age and older shared more than twice as many false articles against åldergruppen 45 to 65 years old, and almost seven times more fake news compared with the youngest group of 18 to 29 years old.
Thomas Nygren think it is fair that some older people may be more gullible because of reduced cognitive ability, but mean that you should take the results with a pinch of salt.
– The u.s. the study is limited to the news on Facebook and the 49 per cent which allows a firm on behalf of the researchers going in and reviewing their personal data. The participants can be assumed to be less critical to how the data is managed in the network than the 51 per cent who did not want to share their FB data, ” he says.
Thomas Nygren. Photo: Private.
it is difficult to translate the results to Swedish conditions. According to preliminary results from a new study which he has made together with the researcher in the psychology of the Mona Guath seems middle-aged swedes are relatively good at digital source criticism. The researchers tested how well about 1,000 swedes aged 19-99 years is on digital source criticism.
Young people aged 19-29 was in many cases worse than those aged 30-44 and 45-60 to assess the news credibility.
In the study, the researchers have the researchers also looked at how good swedes with different backgrounds and attitudes to the news is to critically news, in relation to how good they think they are.
– the Main result was that those who believe that they are good at critically consider the news are the ones that have the hardest time with it. The best source criticism has a more humble attitude to his own ability. Reflection and scientific curiosity are the key words, ” he says.
of the previous research, says Thomas Nygren. The higher the education you have and the greater weight is put on knowledge, the more also the realization that you are not sitting inside with all by yourself.
” Overconfidence is often a sign of ignorance.
Thomas Nygren would like to emphasise that the school has an important task is to lay the foundation for students ‘ evaluation.
– The basic skills the school provides if the world is a prerequisite for källkritiken. Therefore, it is important to invest on the teaching of, for example, history and social studies. Especially those with higher education in the humanities, and to a certain extent, the natural sciences, had good results on our test of the digital source
– They may be published in a way that looks professional and credible. Often, they are not entirely fake, but contains some traces of the truth. They are hard-angled. Often plays on the emotions.
was made shortly before the parliamentary elections in september last year. The material is now being compiled and analyzed. The idea is to develop Nyhetsvärderaren to a permanent tool that will be open for all and help both young people and adults to become better at the source.
Thomas Nygren would like to underline that there are lots of credible information on the web.
– the Threat from false news is not so great as one might think based on the debate, but should not be underestimated either. Confidence for traditional media, public service, morning newspapers and tabloids is still very high among the students, despite the loud voices who want to claim something else, ” he says.
” It is the established media that sets the agenda and faktagranskar to young people!
