A brief overview of the expanded media landscape, detailing the multiple creators and unregulated distribution channels available today, and why it’s important to stop before sharing information.
Transcript in English (PDF 320 KB)
We all get them — messages containing the latest news, opinions and gossip. Either from friends, family, or co-workers. From official and unofficial sources. Anyone and everyone, it seems, is now a news reporter with a pressing story to share of the day. And depending on that information, the urge to pass it on can be hard to resist. But should you? In this series, we’re going to talk about why, when it comes to information sharing, we should all stop, reflect and verify.
[TEXT: STOP]
The open exchange of information is vital to productive societies and creates opportunities for learning and informed decision making. But a healthy amount of skepticism and the ability to evaluate what you’re reading and hearing is just as important. We call this media literacy.
Media literacy is thinking critically about the information you consume and share. Being media literate requires you to not only question who the news is coming from, but why and how that news is being communicated to you. Even the timing of the messages and who they’re directed to must be considered. Was the story about the latest polling before of the election true? Was it meant to elicit an emotional response? Was it meant to cause you to lose faith in the process?Who sent it, and why would it benefit them?
In the rapidly expanding and increasingly open information world in which we live, there are good and bad actors. It’s on you to commit to being a responsible promoter of reliable and credible information.
So before you share that story – STOP!
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