Dealing with misleading information

Question 1

What is post truth?

Answer 1

Relating or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief

Question 2

What is the information deficit model?

Answer 2

Why we keep relying on misinformation.

People hold erroneous (foutieve) views because they don’t have all the information. A communicator can remedy the ‘knowledge deficit” (tekort) by sharing the missing information with the public.

Question 3

What is the backfire effect?

Answer 3

When one’s beliefs are challenged by contradicting evidence, the beliefs become stronger.

Question 4

What are the three types of backfire effects?

Answer 4

1. Familiarity backfire effect
2. Overkill backfire effect
3. Worldview backfire effect

Question 5

What is familiarity backfire effect?

Answer 5

The more familiar, the more perceived as true. Debunking of the myth by repeating it may reinforce the myth

Question 6

What is the overkill backfire effect?

Answer 6

The easier to process, the more perceived as true. Too much, too difficult information about the facts can backfire

Question 7

What is the worldview backfire effect?

Answer 7

With topics that tie in with people’s worldview and cultural identity

Question 8

What is confirmation bias?

Answer 8

The tendency people have to embrace information that supports their beliefs and reject information that contradicts them.

Question 9

What are causes of our ‘post-truth malaise’?

Answer 9

• Transformed media landscape
• online: echo chambers, filter bubbles, incivility/outrage, hyper connectivity / digital wildfires, psychological distance / deindividualization (trolling)

A consideration of the larger political, technological, and social context in which misinformation occurs

Question 10

What is epistemology?

Answer 10

How we know what the actual reality or truth is

Question 11

How does the post-truth world look like?

Answer 11

• Choosing your own epistemic reality (facts trumped by beliefs)
• Uncertainty about whether facts are knowable (“too difficult to determine”)
• Distraction from the real (political) issues
• Fluidity of allegiances (no fixed friends or foes)
• Self-perpetuating process - contrary evidence is rejected or ignored

Question 12

What is cognitive bias a.k.a. Consenus bias?

Answer 12

The belief that your opinion (actions, personal qualities) is widespread. This belief makes people “particularly resistant to belief revision, less likely to compromise, and more likely to insists that their own views prevail

Question 13

How can you reduce the impact of misinformation?

Answer 13

Basic tools:

• Emphasize the facts, not the myths
• Provide an alternative narrative
• Explain why the misinformation is wrong

Question 14

What two effects do you have with “emphasize the facts not the myths”?

Answer 14

1. Familiarity effect

2. Fluency effect

Question 15

What is the familiarity effect?

Answer 15

The more familiar, the more seen as true

–> focus on facts, make sure they become familiar instead of the myth

Question 16

What is the fluency effect?

Answer 16

The easier to process, the more seen as true.

–> keep messages simple. Use visualizations for instance.

Question 17

What happens during provide an alternative explanation?

Answer 17

People prefer an incorrect but complete mental model over a correct but incomplete mental model

–> fill in the mental gap. Give alternative explanations

Question 18

What is the inoculation theory of McGuire?

Answer 18

• Metaphor: belief in misinformation as a virus against which you can be inoculated/vaccinated. Inoculation helps delve resistance against misconceptions.
• A vaccine is a weak version of a virus. Likewise, you can expose people to a weak version of the misconception. You explain the fallacy used to distort reality, reconciling the myth with the fact.
• This makes the reader understand why the misinformation is wrong

Question 19

What are the steps in the inoculation study by van der linden et al.?

Answer 19

1. Consensus message
2. General inoculation
3. Detailed inoculation
4. Countermessage (misleading information)

Question 20

What is technocognition?

Answer 20

An interdisciplinary approach to the design of information architectures that incorporates principles borrowed from behavioral economics to ‘nudge’ against the spread of misinformation combined with a cognitively inspired program to educate the public and improve journalistic practices.

Question 21

How can you help older adults develop their digital media literacy skills?

Answer 21

• Develop effective instructional materials and methods (multiple sessions needed)
• Developing effect interventions
  first step: assessing what’s holding them back
  tapping into learning motivations (e.g. keeping an open mind | being a life-long learner)

Question 22

What is the protection motivation theory (PMT) of Roger?

Answer 22

• Applicable in the context of internet risks
• Evaluating the threat
• Evaluating your ability to respond to the threat

Question 23

What is the model of the PMT ?

Answer 23

protection motivation

• threat appraisal
  1. Perceived threat severity
  2. Perceived threat vulnerability
• coping appraisal
  1. Perceived response efficacy
  2. Perceived response self-efficacy

Question 24

What does Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan says?

Answer 24

“everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts”