Fake News
Beyond Fake News by
The world is swimming in misinformation. Conflicting messages bombard us every day with news on everything from politics and world events to investments and alternative health. The daily paper, nightly news, websites, and social media each compete for our attention and each often insist on a different version of the facts. Inevitably, we have questions: Who is telling the truth? How would we know? How did we get here? What can we do?　 Beyond Fake News answers these and other queries. It offers a technological and market-based explanation for how our informational environment became so polluted. It shows how purveyors of news often have incentives to mislead us, and how consumers of information often have incentives to be misled. And it chronicles how, as technology improves and the regulatory burdens drop, our information-scape becomes ever more littered with misinformation. Beyond Fake News argues that even when we really want the truth, our minds are built in such a way so as to be incapable of grasping many facts, and blind spots mar our view of the world. But we can do better, both as individuals and as a society. As individuals, we can improve the accuracy of our understanding of the world by knowing who to trust and recognizing our limitations. And as a society, we can take important steps to reduce the quantity and effects of misinformation.
Call Number: Main: PN4888.F35 M33Pub. date: 2020
Fake News, Propaganda, and Plain Old Lies by
Are you overwhelmed at the amount, contradictions, and craziness of all the information coming at you in this age of social media and twenty-four-hour news cycles? Fake News, Propaganda, and Plain Old Lies will show you how to identify deceptive information as well as how to seek out the most trustworthy information in order to inform decision making in your personal, academic, professional, and civic lives. * Learn how to identify the alarm bells that signal untrustworthy information. * Understand how to tell when statistics can be trusted and when they are being used to deceive. * Inoculate yourself against the logical fallacies that can mislead even the brightest among us. Donald A. Barclay, a career librarian who has spent decades teaching university students to become information literate scholars and citizens, takes an objective, non-partisan approach to the complex and nuanced topic of sorting deceptive information from trustworthy information.
Call Number: MAIN: PN4784.F27 B37Pub. date: 2018
Fake News in an Era of Social Media by
Over the last few years, social media has expanded to become a key platform for news dissemination and circulation, and a key orginator and propogator of 'fake news'.. Nations, governments, organisations and societies are now coming to terms with the unpredictable and debilitating consequences of fake news. The propagation of news containing falsehoods has been linked to an increase in measles cases, surges in youth crimes, the spread of pseudo-science, compromised national security, and more. Some even perceive it as a global threat to democratic systems around the world. In this book, the authors examine factors influencing the spread of fake news, and suggest ways to combat it by exploring the key elements which enable and facilitate this phenomenon.
Call Number: MAIN: HM742 .F335 2Pub. date: 2022
A Field Guide to Lies by
How to recognize misleading announcements, statistics, graphs, and written reports revealing the ways lying weasels can use them. How do we distinguish misinformation, pseudo-facts, distortions, and outright lies from reliable information?
Call Number: BC177 .L48ISBN: 9780525955221Pub. date: 2016
The Propagation of Misinformation in Social Media by
There is growing awareness about how social media circulate extreme viewpoints and turn up the temperature of public debate. Posts that exhibit agitation garner disproportionate engagement. Within this clamour, fringe sources and viewpoints are mainstreaming, and mainstream media are marginalized. This book takes up the mainstreaming of the fringe and the marginalization of the mainstream. In a cross-platform analysis of Google Web Search, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, 4chan and TikTok, we found that hyperpartisan web operators, alternative influencers and ambivalent commentators are in ascendency. The book can be read as a form of platform criticism. It puts on display the current state of information online, noting how social media platforms have taken on the mantle of accidental authorities, privileging their own on-platform performers and at the same time adjudicating between claims of what is considered acceptable discourse.
Call Number: eBookPub. date: 2023
Understanding Statistics
The Misuse, Misrepresentation, and Politicization of Statistics in American Society by
The Misuse, Misrepresentation, and Politicization of Statistics in American Society critically examines the early measurement efforts of several government agencies responsible for some of the most widely watched social indicators on unemployment, life expectancy, crime, and population. It argues that official statistics are dubious at best, better seen not so much as objective barometers of social life but rather as socially constructed metrics that are easily manipulated and often politicized. This book argues that official statistics powerfully frame social reality, ultimately helping to determine who counts and what matters in society. It makes the case that, as with other types of official accounts, data derived from government sources needs to be regarded skeptically and systematically investigated. This book concludes that official statistics are a kind of sanctioned cover up of everyday reality, hiding the true extent of joblessness, distorting the real increase in life expectancy, obscuring where crime actually happens, and understating the undeniable growth of minority populations.
Call Number: MAIN: HA179 .P37ISBN: 9781Pub. date: 2022
- Spurious CorrelationsSee how easy correlation can be confused with causation.
Spurious Correlations by
"Spurious Correlations ... is the most fun you'll ever have with graphs." -- Bustle Military intelligence analyst and Harvard Law student Tyler Vigen illustrates the golden rule that "correlation does not equal causation" through hilarious graphs inspired by his viral website. Is there a correlation between Nic Cage films and swimming pool accidents? What about beef consumption and people getting struck by lightning? Absolutely not. But that hasn't stopped millions of people from going to tylervigen.com and asking, "Wait, what?" Vigen has designed software that scours enormous data sets to find unlikely statistical correlations. He began pulling the funniest ones for his website and has since gained millions of views, hundreds of thousands of likes, and tons of media coverage. Subversive and clever, Spurious Correlations is geek humor at its finest, nailing our obsession with data and conspiracy theory.
Call Number: MAIN: PN6165 .V55Pub. date: 2015
Understanding Statistics and Experimental Design by
This open access textbook provides the background needed to correctly use, interpret and understand statistics and statistical data in diverse settings. Part I makes key concepts in statistics readily clear. Parts I and II give an overview of the most common tests (t-test, ANOVA, correlations) and work out their statistical principles. Part III provides insight into meta-statistics (statistics of statistics) and demonstrates why experiments often do not replicate. Finally, the textbook shows how complex statistics can be avoided by using clever experimental design. Both non-scientists and students in Biology, Biomedicine and Engineering will benefit from the book by learning the statistical basis of scientific claims and by discovering ways to evaluate the quality of scientific reports in academic journals and news outlets.
Call Number: eBookPub. date: 2019
Podcasts and Videos
- Fake News, Information Literacy and Teaching College StudentsCirculating Ideas episode 113: William Badke
- Fake News, Information Literacy and EpistemologyCirculating Ideas episode 104 Interview with Lane Wilkinson
Confirmation Bias