Media Literacy Quiz

A Bit of Fake News , and a Bit of Truth

June 26, 2023

Quiz

Media Literacy

Can you spot the fake news?

Sometimes reality is even stranger than fiction. Take this quiz to test your media literacy skills.

start ➛

NEWS QUIZ

Interviewer: "Why do you think Truman has never come close to discovering the true nature of this world?" Producer: "We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented. It's as simple as that."

The Source: The Truman Show (1998)

continuE ➛

The psychology and history of misinformation cannot be fully grasped without taking into account contemporary technology. Misinformation helped bring Roman emperors to power, who used messages on coins as a form of mass communication, and Nazi propaganda heavily relied on the printed press, radio and cinema. Today, misinformation campaigns can leverage digital infrastructure that is unparalleled in its reach. The internet reaches billions of individuals and enables senders to tailor persuasive messages to the specific psychological profiles of individual users. Moreover, social media users’ exposure to information that challenges their worldviews can be limited when communication environments foster confirmation of previous beliefs — so-called echo chambers.

Obviously, it's not that simple

The Source: "The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction" https://www.nature.com/articles/s44159-021-00006-y

continuE ➛

Mis

Misinformation

Do you know some of the terminology associated with media literacy?

Inaccurate information

Dis

Disinformation

Inaccurate information spread malevolently

continuE ➛

Mal

Malinformation

The Source:The Encyclopedia of Misinformation, Rex Sorgatz (2018)

Accurate information spread malevolently

Rare or Parrot?

Spot the lie.

The Falcon!

"Peregrine falcons are exceedingly rare and critically endangered, with numerous conservation efforts in full swing to keep them around. Unfortunately, peregrines are among the slowest-moving birds of prey and are consistently outperformed in their habitat."

???

Choice #1

"A groundbreaking gene study published in 2008 suggests that falcons are actually more closely related to parrots and songbirds than to hawks or eagles."

The Source:Spot the Bullsh*t Trivia Challenge, Neil Patrick Stewart (2024)

Choice #2

The Research ➛

The Lie

The Falcon: Not So Slow!

Fake: Peregrine falcons are neither rare nor endangered. On the contrary, they can be found nearly everywhere on the planet (including in my neighborhood), from the highest mountains to the densest tropics. They are the most wide-spread bird of prey. They are also hands-down the fastest animal in the world, having been clocked at 240 miles per hour during a dive.

Lies!

Back

The Source:Spot the Bullsh*t Trivia Challenge, Neil Patrick Stewart (2024)

The Research ➛

The deadliest month

The Truth

The Falcon: Songbird

Fact: The finding, sponsored by the National Science Foundation's Assembling the Tree of Life initiative, is counter to the assumptions made by ornithologists for decades. Falcons have the same curved beak as their parrot and songbird counterparts, but they have evolved to be strong predators (just like hawks and eagles."

Truth

Back

The Source:Spot the Bullsh*t Trivia Challenge, Neil Patrick Stewart (2024)

The deadliest month

The Truth

The Falcon: Researching Before Believing

Ask yourself what you already know or think you know? I've always heard that peregrine falcons are fast

???

The Source:Spot the Bullsh*t Trivia Challenge, Neil Patrick Stewart (2024)

continuE ➛

The deadliest month

The Truth

The Falcon: Tracing the claim

Ask yourself what you already know or think you know? I've always heard that peregrine falcons are fast

Me, a parrot?

Tracing the claim to the original source: https://www.nsf.gov

The Source:Spot the Bullsh*t Trivia Challenge, Neil Patrick Stewart (2024)

continuE ➛

Generative A.I. Images

"Generative Image AI refers to Artificial Intelligence models (Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Dall-E), which are able to create high-quality imagery through text or image prompts. These models are trained on billions of images (the dataset), which are curated for the intended use of the model."

The Apple of My A.I.

The Source: The University of Toronto https://guides.library.utoronto.ca

Fake?

Real?

Generative A.I. Images

FAKE!

Look at the green leaf. It doesn't look right on first glance.

continuE ➛

Holcomb, Kansas

Generative A.I. Images

An Actual Apple

The real apple and leaf have much more detail.

continuE ➛

Generative A.I. Images

Apples to Apples

This was an easy one. It gets harder from here...

continuE ➛

Britannica Education: Real or AI Quiz: Can you tell the difference?

Britannica Education Quiz

Can you choose which image was created by A.I.?

Britannica Education: Real or AI Quiz: Can you tell the difference?

Britannica Education Quiz

Real

Fake

continuE ➛

Britannica Education: Real or AI Quiz: Can you tell the difference?

Britannica Education Quiz

The Source: Real or AI Quiz: Can You Tell the Difference?https://britannicaeducation.com/blog/quiz-real-or-ai/

Try more Images with the britannica Quiz ➛

continuE ➛

Reverse Image Search

continuE ➛

Why does this matter?

“Americans are facing difficult issues that require informed decisions, including a contentious presidential election, military action in Ukraine and Gaza, and climate change. But just when we need trusted information more than ever, our media ecosystem is poised for a tsunami of deliberately false content intended to mislead, supercharged by the use of generative artificial intelligence. Most but not all people, we found, understand they need to have new skills to deal with it.”

The Source: Michelle Amazeen, Associate Dean for Research at Boston University’s College of Communication https://www.bu.edu/com

continue ➛

Decode Media Messages

continuE ➛

The Media Literacy Skill Toolbox: Seven Essential Skills

5. Deducing

1. Analyzing

6. Synthesizing

2. Evaluating

7. Abstracting

3. Grouping

4. Inducing

The Source: Seven Skills for Media Literacy (2019) W. James Potter

continue ➛

This is not a real news story. This is a madeup example.

News!

Dems: Lower Voter Age to 16

A threat to democracy!

Due to low voter turn out, and verified by the 2024 Census democrats in the United States House of Representatives have proposed lowering the voting age to 16. This is a threat to our democracy.

ToolBox➛

Analyzing

• Breaking down a message into meaningful elements

The Source: Seven Skills for Media Literacy (2019) W. James Potter

Example: Due to low voter turn out, and verified by the 2024 Census democrats in the United States House of Representatives have proposed lowering the voting age to 16. This is a threat to our democracy.

ToolBox➛

Evaluating

• The making judgements of the value of elements; the judgement is made by comparing the element to some standard.

The Sources: Seven Skills for Media Literacy (2019) W. James Potter Purdue Online Writing Lab https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/journalism_and_journalistic_writing/media_ethics.html

AVOIDING BIAS

• "Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting.
• Analysis and commentary should be labeled, and not misrepresent fact or context.
• Distinguish news from advertising and avoid hybrids that blur the two.
• Examine your own cultural values and avoid imposing those values on others.
• Avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance or social status.
• Support the open exchange of views, even views you might find repugnant."

ToolBox➛

Grouping

• The determining of which elements are alike in some ways and which elements are different in some way.

The Source: Seven Skills for Media Literacy (2019) W. James Potter

Fact: Voter turnout has decreased since 2020. Fact: Democrats have proposed lowering the voter age to 16. Opinion: Lowering the voter age would be a threat to democracy.

Toolbox➛

Inducing

• The inferring of general patterns from the observation of particulars; generalizing those patterns to larger aggregates; and the continual testing of those patterns.

The Source: Seven Skills for Media Literacy (2019) W. James Potter

When researching other articles on the same subject, the reader finds that the issue of voting age is a partisan issue. They also found that the group of democrats who introduced the measure was small, three representatives (of 435 total). This is an idea that is actually not supported by the majority of democrats.

Toolbox ➛

Deducing

The Source: Seven Skills for Media Literacy (2019) W. James Potter

• Using general principles to explain particulars in a process of logical reasoning.

After analyzing and performing supporting research, the reader is able to deduce that while a few democrats favor lowering the voting age, most do not. Most republicans also oppose this measure.

Toolbox ➛

Synthesizing

The Source: Seven Skills for Media Literacy (2019) W. James Potter

• The assembling of elements into a novel structure to solve some problem or to complete some specified task.

The reader is able to understand that the writer of the headline is not in favor of the proposed measure to lower the voter age to 16. It is also clear that the writer is also attempting to stoke outrage over something that has no chance of becoming a reality.

AVOIDING DISTORTIONS

• "Never knowingly introduce false information into material intended for publication or broadcast."

The Source: Purdue Online Writing Labhttps://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/journalism_and_journalistic_writing/media_ethics.html

Toolbox➛

Abstracting

• The assembling of elements into a brief, clear, and accurate description of a message.

The Source: Seven Skills for Media Literacy (2019) W. James Potter

Since the 2020 Census, voter turnout in the US has dropped. A small number of Democrats in the House have proposed lowering the voter age to 16. This measure would make more prospective voters. The writer thinks this is a bad idea. This measure has no chance of succeding.

continue ➛

Test Your Skills

• News Lit Quiz: Should You Share It?

• News Lit Quiz: How News-Literate Are You?

• Watch the first Presidential debate for the 2024 election tomorrow and put your skills to the test!

home ↵