Taking on fake news
CMCI faculty fight fake news on multiple fronts.听
Fake news sites are the Hydra of the internet: take one down and two more grow back. At CMCI, faculty are tackling the monster from multiple angles.
Assistant Professor Chris Vargo uses big-data analytics to understand how fake news influences the broader media agenda. This year, Vargo analyzed millions of news articles across all types of media and found that fake news websites had about twice as much influence on the media landscape as fact-checking websites did in 2016.
Vargo is surveying about 1,000 social media users to find out whether certain types of people are more likely to spread fake news on social media.
鈥淭hen we鈥檒l be able to talk more about the why鈥攐r at least the how鈥攚hich will help us better understand this fake news phenomenon,鈥� says Vargo, who teaches in the Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Media Design.
Because fake news is a multipronged problem, the solution requires cooperation across industries.
In the journalism department, faculty members recently joined a working group of computer scientists to explore technologies, including apps and plugins, that can help consumers assess the quality of news they are reading.
For journalists鈥� part, the task is to focus on the 鈥済uts鈥� of reporting, says journalism department Chair Elizabeth Skewes. As the industry continues to expand into the high-speed realm of online and multimedia storytelling, journalists must remember not to take shortcuts when it comes to traditional best practices.
Another key strategy is continued public outreach and improved media literacy.
Media studies and journalism faculty are developing a program to train middle and high school teachers in media literacy education strategies.
鈥淭he Media Literacy Lab will serve as a learning space for students and faculty to explore innovative media literacies and incorporate them in a transformative teaching experience,鈥� says Nabil Echchaibi, the media studies department chair.
Last spring, Mei-Ling McNamara, an assistant professor of journalism who is working with Echchaibi on the Media Literacy Lab, gathered industry experts and media scholars for a public conference called Reporting in the Age of Alternative Facts.
CMCI invited the public to attend a series of free panels, as well as a keynote speech by Joe Sexton, ProPublica鈥檚 senior editor and a 25-year veteran of The New York Times.
Having spent decades in the ever-changing journalism industry, Sexton鈥檚 advice to future members of the press was simple: 鈥淓mbrace two qualities: stamina and humility.鈥� 听
Illustration by Michele Rosenthal.
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#(w)HolyMedia
Media studies PhD student Ashley Campbell discusses religion and culture in her podcast.
What do Marvel鈥檚 Thor, the horror film The Conjuring 2 and Donald Trump鈥檚 inaugural speech have in common? According to 兔子先生传媒文化作品 PhD candidate Ashley Campbell, the answer is religion.
In her podcast, (w)Holy Media, Campbell discusses all the ways religion is hiding in plain sight in American culture.
鈥淓ven if you aren鈥檛 religious, it still impacts your everyday life,鈥� Campbell says.
In the U.S., a group called 鈥渘ones鈥濃�攑eople who say they have no religious affiliation鈥攁re now more numerous than Catholics or mainline Protestants, according to the Pew Research Center. But while many Americans no longer consider themselves religious, people are still attracted to spiritual messages in different ways.
This is the idea behind Campbell鈥檚 podcast, and behind her work as a research fellow with CMCI鈥檚 , which conducts groundbreaking research and promotes innovative teaching at the intersection of religion, media and public life.
One focus at the center is public scholarship, says Associate Professor Nabil Echchaibi, the center鈥檚 associate director. Campbell鈥檚 work discussing religion in ways that are accessible to nonreligious people is important to that cause.
鈥淭he point is to try and make the academic study of religion more digestible to nonacademic and nonreligious scholars,鈥� says Campbell, who holds master鈥檚 degrees in journalism and divinity. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about the ways religion participates in our everyday lives.鈥�
#FindTheFlu
Using data from Twitter, information scientist improves the way we track epidemics.
A little bird is tipping researchers off to the next flu outbreak.
Health practitioners, who typically depend on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to alert the public to outbreaks after the fact, could use social media to track the flu in real time, according to a 兔子先生传媒文化作品 researcher.
鈥淭he national levels in the U.S. are collected by the CDC, and, depending on how you count, that鈥檚 delayed by one to two weeks,鈥� says Michael Paul, an assistant professor of information science and co-author of the new book Social Monitoring for Public Health. 鈥淲ith something like the flu鈥攚here the outbreak is fairly rapid and sudden鈥攊t can make a big difference in terms of preparation if you have that extra two-week notice.鈥�
Internationally, in places like South Africa, Twitter data can beat traditional tracking methods by a matter of months.
In addition to tracking flu outbreaks, Paul and his colleagues mine Twitter comments and hashtags to see personal reactions to flu season.
鈥淚t鈥檚 easier to use social media because, unlike tracking how many people have the flu, awareness of the flu is something that happens outside the doctor鈥檚 office,鈥� he says.听