Navigating the News


Book Description

In an age when young people may confuse online chatter with legitimate news, Navigating the News is the first textbook designed to show students how to recognize credible reporting and how real journalists perform their jobs. The book begins with the basics of how to critically assess news stories, then covers what to look for in everything from community news and crime reporting to business, political and investigative coverage. More than 50 professional journalists share insights on how they gather, edit and report news, and discuss what critical audiences should expect from their news coverage. Students learn how to analyze complex topics including science, environmental and education news, and a series of chapters covers how to approach news from different parts of the world. Navigating the News is aimed at general audiences, not just journalism or communication majors. Given the importance and timeliness of the subject, this book could easily be the core text for general education classes on news and media literacy. The trend toward teaching young people how to understand and assess news is gaining momentum at universities everywhere. The book is written in a clear, straightforward style to engage students who may be getting their first taste of adult issues and concerns. Even students who have avoided "serious" news growing up will gain tools for understanding, assessing and processing coverage of complex stories. The mission of this text is simple: If students don't recognize what real news is, Navigating the News is going to teach them.




Unpacking Fake News


Book Description

Since the 2016 presidential election, the term fake news has become part of the national discourse. Although some have appropriated the term for political purposes, actual fake news represents an inherent threat to American democracy given the ease through which it is consumed and shared via social media. This book is one of the first of its kind to address the implications of fake news for the K–12 classroom. It explores what fake news is, why students are susceptible to believing it, and how they can learn to identify it. Leading civic education scholars use a psychoanalytic lens to unpack why fake news is effective and to show educators how they can teach their students to be critical consumers of the political media they encounter. The authors also link these ideas to the broader task of civic education and critical engagement in the democratic process. “Inside this book you will find descriptions of simple lessons practiced by experts that can help make students more critical news consumers.” —From the Foreword by Rebecca Klein, HuffPost “One of the notable strengths of this book is its emphasis on concrete approaches to help students protect themselves and the larger democracy from the insidious influence of fake news.” —Diana Hess, University of Wisconsin–Madison “This book is both an important contribution to social studies education and a timely response to the demands of our current political moment.” —John Rogers, Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access, UCLA




Navigating Fake News, Alternative Facts, and Misinformation in a Post-Truth World


Book Description

In the current day and age, objective facts have less influence on opinions and decisions than personal emotions and beliefs. Many individuals rely on their social networks to gather information thanks to social media’s ability to share information rapidly and over a much greater geographic range. However, this creates an overall false balance as people tend to seek out information that is compatible with their existing views and values. They deliberately seek out “facts” and data that specifically support their conclusions and classify any information that contradicts their beliefs as “false news.” Navigating Fake News, Alternative Facts, and Misinformation in a Post-Truth World is a collection of innovative research on human and automated methods to deter the spread of misinformation online, such as legal or policy changes, information literacy workshops, and algorithms that can detect fake news dissemination patterns in social media. While highlighting topics including source credibility, share culture, and media literacy, this book is ideally designed for social media managers, technology and software developers, IT specialists, educators, columnists, writers, editors, journalists, broadcasters, newscasters, researchers, policymakers, and students.




Navigating the News


Book Description




Navigating the News


Book Description

News today is a genre "in flux". New kinds of news producers and novel means of distributing, sharing and using news align with alternative ways of understanding what news is. Based on an extensive ethnography of news practices and perceptions among a broad range of young adults in Sweden, this book discusses how the rapid digitisation of news has shaped young people's understanding of it, as well as how news is made relevant, trusted and used in the temporalities and spatialities of everyday life. This cutting-edge volume analyses the blurring boundaries between news and social media, facts and stories, highlighting how new media categories such as influencers and memes can take on the status of news for young audiences and shape their understanding of themselves and the world.




Ghosting the News


Book Description




STOP READING THE NEWS


Book Description




Savvy


Book Description

We face a crisis of trust because people feel there is no longer any truth. Singh and Luthra have written a highly-readable analysis of how it happened and how we might return truth to it's necessary prominence in a social media-infused society. An urgently needed book. - David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect and founder of Techonomy Media The new world of information is overwhelming, but it is not insurmountable. In Savvy, Shiv and Rohini offer hope - and important practical advice - for professionals trying to navigate amidst the chaos. This is a smart and useful book for anyone trying to gain a firmer footing in the Information Age. - Tom Nichols, author of The Death of Expertise andProfessor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College Fake news is nothing new. Technology has turbo-charged its spread leaving us inundated with misrepresentations, exaggerations, and outright lies. Finding the truth is like searching for a needle in a haystack. We are in a crisis of trust--no longer knowing who or what to believe. In the post-trust era, so much is out of our control, and yet there are ways in which we can inoculate ourselves. Savvy is a book about the human glitches that cause us to fall for alternative facts and what we can do to override them. In Savvy, we meet the social scientists who questioned the behavior of Nazi war criminals, Ivy League football fans, John F. Kennedy and more to better understand why human beings often suspend critical judgement and readily fall for fakeness. We also meet current CEOs, politicians, media moguls and artificial intelligence engines to examine why we put our trust in people, organizations and information that is biased (or blatantly deceptive) while doubting credible sources. Through examples from today's political and business headlines, Savvy guides you out of the post-trust era and includes science and analysis that makes you more informed and savvy in the business world and your personal life.




Automating the News


Book Description

From hidden connections in big data to bots spreading fake news, journalism is increasingly computer-generated. An expert in computer science and media explains the present and future of a world in which news is created by algorithm. Amid the push for self-driving cars and the roboticization of industrial economies, automation has proven one of the biggest news stories of our time. Yet the wide-scale automation of the news itself has largely escaped attention. In this lively exposé of that rapidly shifting terrain, Nicholas Diakopoulos focuses on the people who tell the stories—increasingly with the help of computer algorithms that are fundamentally changing the creation, dissemination, and reception of the news. Diakopoulos reveals how machine learning and data mining have transformed investigative journalism. Newsbots converse with social media audiences, distributing stories and receiving feedback. Online media has become a platform for A/B testing of content, helping journalists to better understand what moves audiences. Algorithms can even draft certain kinds of stories. These techniques enable media organizations to take advantage of experiments and economies of scale, enhancing the sustainability of the fourth estate. But they also place pressure on editorial decision-making, because they allow journalists to produce more stories, sometimes better ones, but rarely both. Automating the News responds to hype and fears surrounding journalistic algorithms by exploring the human influence embedded in automation. Though the effects of automation are deep, Diakopoulos shows that journalists are at little risk of being displaced. With algorithms at their fingertips, they may work differently and tell different stories than they otherwise would, but their values remain the driving force behind the news. The human–algorithm hybrid thus emerges as the latest embodiment of an age-old tension between commercial imperatives and journalistic principles.




Navigating College


Book Description

Leaving high school and going to college is complicated for everyone. But if you're a student on the autism spectrum who is about to enter higher education for the first time, it might be a little bit more complicated for you. Maybe you're worried about getting accommodations, getting places on time, or dealing with sensory issues in a new environment. Maybe you could use some advice on how to stay healthy at school, handle dating and relationships, or talk to your friends and classmates about your disability. Maybe you want to talk to someone who's already dealt with these issues. That's where we come in. Navigating College is an introduction to the college experience from those of us who've been there. The writers and contributors are Autistic adults, and we're giving you the advice that we wish someone could have given us when we headed off to college. We wish we could sit down and have a chat with each of you, to share our experiences and answer your questions. But since we can't teleport, and some of us have trouble meeting new people, this book is the next best thing. So as you go back to school, check out a copy of Navigating College for yourself or your loved one. We ve done this all before--let us help you out.