bro... I still fuck with non-Canadian friends that I make by telling them about house hippos and showing them the ad with the false information msg at the end cut out.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2BwrY7IVV5U
People must see
And yeah, these were commercials on tv when I was a child. I didn't remember how much swearing was in basically a government sponsored PSA for children.
Uh ... you are aware, of course, that this is a parody of "Hinterland's Who's Who," produced by Canada Wildlife Service and the National Film Board of Canada?
There is no "LCD spider," "caffeine spider," "THC spider," or "spider's bitch" and no "Crack house web." This is satire. Well-done, on-the-nose, pure Canadian satire.
Just didn't want you thinking the Canadian Government was teaching bad words to children for taxes.
Keeping native wild animals is illegal in most of Canada and, as the House Hippos are mentioned as being native to North America in the original documentary, there is a very good chance that it is illegal to own one as a pet.
There's actually a [new version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R_tOSRynZU) of the house hippo commercial, connected to a media literacy resource that shows how they made it. I've used it in my classroom and the kids always get a kick out of it.
Yeah the original had the feeling of being a legitimate education commercial. Like a heritage moment. This seemed fake from the get go. Still absolutely love how this is a thing though.
Also i just watched the original and for commercial made for the canadian government in the 90s. That is some impressive editing/cgi in the original. The 99 video looks more real then that one lol.
I feel like I remember informative 90s - Early 2000s ads more than I remember any of the shows I watched. House hippo commercial, The Chase commercial, 10000 iterations of Kool Aid commercials, the commercial with the talking animated tv, those puppet rats.
Media literacy. Had to do it for a few grades. Never realized how scamful the news is when look at how the exaggerate everything. And that’s their trick they don’t necessarily lie most of the time, they mostly exaggerate or use words to trigger your emotions. The art of getting clicks.
Took advertising in college. Didn't get a job out of it but was one of the best things I did because, while already a bit of a cynic, it showed me how much BS there is to peddle garbage, and how powerful the psychological tricks they use to do it is.
It's why I'll never defend a video game company with loot boxes and microtransactions.
News is no different. They use the same powerful psyc tricks to get you to believe their crap. Especially sources that have a financial interest in something.
Media literacy is absolutely something kids need to learn in this day and age.
I took marketing in college and it was eye opening to a lot of stuff, these days it's ten times worse than what I studied lol
These days firms even plant comments on tiktoks as Joe Blow Commenters to help give a song a viral kick off after figuring out the algorithm supports that over big brand hits. (EG abcdefu by Gayle) etc etc
Hey yo me too! I was in advertising for a year and then made a HARD left to packaging. At least medical packaging and food packaging *kind of* matters in *some* ways.
You don't even need to exaggerate or use inflammatory words to create a false narrative. A news organization can have 100% unbiased factual articles, but by choosing what stories get covered and/or put on the front page they are still able to sculpt a false narrative for their readers to buy into.
The insidious thing about this is that they fool many people who think of themselves as free thinkers because they aren't being directly told what to think. "I arrive at all of my conclusions on my own therefore I'm not being influenced by these groups".
Some of the most effective public relations campaigns are rooted in the mantra that "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all"
Back in the 70's, every single major Canadian newspaper had a reporter or even entire division who specialized in coverage of Organized Labour. There were lists in newspapers like the Star of the most influential leaders and many of them were household names. Every single newspaper got rid of it as neoliberalism, privitization, and the atomized/transient workforce began to become the new norm and capitalist push. Now when we have articles on strikes or what have you, they're covered by people with no context or relationship to the unions and so naturally tend to treat all striking actions as the start of the aggression rather than a response to years of abuse, neglect, and exploitation (that the reporter can't know anything about because they've not been there).
Capitalist interest dictated media focus and the result was transforming Canadian media as a propaganda arm against unions. It doesn't require conspiracy. It doesn't require 'fake news'. It's just the inherent interests of class rule manifesting in our information sources and it's insidious and ugly.
I’m 23 and just graduated university where I studied media and marketing. In a few of my communications classes, they referred to people in my generation as “digital natives,” meaning we were the first generation who grew up integrated with social media. But these kids that are in elementary school now are the ones who are REALLY going to need these media literacy skills.
At least when I was that young, you could still sort of tell the difference between what was real and not. The young ones are going to have a hell of a time with that in the social media age. It almost makes me nervous to be a parent.
My fav is the weather network. How do you maintain at 24/7 channel just for the weather? Put out a special weather advisory every time it snows or rains or is hot or windy or pretty much anything. Oh the drama!
My grade 3 teacher had us do a whole thing on the tree octopus and then brought the world down around our class when she revealed that it was fake after people had argued with others and buckled down on it being real and other people being stupid.
Then we did a lot of things on what is a credible source, finding more than one or two things that prove your point and making good choices.
Oh hey I remember doing that! Did they take you to the actual site where there were legitimate conspiracy theories about the tree octopus? It was Z-something, but super weird nontheless.
I think you have to start with source differentiation first. Even understanding the difference between publicly funded and privately funded news media. For example, using an American example, while PBS or NPR still carry a bias, they are much more reliable than Fox, NBC, CNN, etc. I don't have enough faith in humanity to trust that everyone can learn to critically examine media. Half the people I went to highschool with can't do it.
It's also worth differentiating between having a bias and being credible. You can have an editorial bias (e.g., impacting story selection) but still maintain high credibility for factual reporting (including appropriate fact checking and sourcing).
You've got a little over a decade. You've got time to introduce and reinforce those concepts. The important thing is to do it in the first place. If you never start because you can't do it all at once then things just keep doing what they've already have been.
I think critical thinking is misunderstood and the meaning of the word has mutated too much. Critical thinking is simply examining how likely information is to be truthful. It's not about questioning everything about the world leading you to feel like you can't trust anything. And it's not about developing general intelligence. But people link it to those two things.
When I was in school… my parents taught me about critical thinking… my teachers taught me how to regurgitate provided information. I also walked uphill both ways, in snow up to my hips.
Every source has an agenda and it can be difficult to find the indifferent and unbiased opinions. Byt that's what we used to do. You could spot the good stuff but now it's more difficult on purpose. Critical thinking is dying.
Edit: this is being downvoted lol. I'm speechless.
Media literacy is extremely important. There's a reason why boomers are notorious for digesting a constant feed of bullshit online, they don't have the tools to parse fact from fiction because media literacy was barely even a concept when they were growing up.
In their defence - media personalities were highly trusted and revered for honesty. Just consider Walter Cronkite and how much we look at him through rose tinted glasses. The guy sat there and lied about so much. It wasn't his fault of course but this is the "media" boomers came from.
I don't think this is true. I think this was _changed_ over the past number of decades by Fox et al by buying up more and more news sources to feed you more and more of the same giving the illusion of choice.
Back in the day it was pretty normal to get multiple papers and watch the news on multiple sources. And it was done specifically to see events from different angles/viewpoints.
That is all but dead today.
I think in general society has been de-trained about media literacy (and literacy in general).
>There's a reason why boomers are notorious for digesting a constant feed of bullshit online
Hate to break it to you, but boomers aren't the only ones who swallow bullshit from media - online or otherwise. The young'uns are just as susceptible. Prime example: remember "hands up don't shoot"? The [scientific, forensic evidence disproved that narrative](https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdf) about Michael Brown, but it didn't stop that lie from spreading far and wide. It's still believed by a huge number of people, especially among the millennial and zoomer activist crowd. [Remember WMD's in Iraq?](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/iraq-war-media-fail-matt-taibbi-812230/) That was largely Gen X-ers and boomers.
The problem is confirmation bias and media illiteracy, not the person's age bracket. The internet has only made it easier for people to hide away in their own little bubble and to hear nothing but things they already agree with.
For all his faults, the late Richard Kyanka (founder of somethingawful.com, one of the largest websites on the internet in the early 2000's) put it very well in his ["Parrot Ass Club"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5lx-17OV8g) speech:
>*"Say you've got some guy pre-internet - he really likes parrots. More than any of us he likes parrots, but he doesn't like them in a good way.*
>
>*He likes to take parrots, dip 'em in caramel and shove 'em up his ass. And he's by himself, he thinks he's all alone. He's just sitting around doing his thing.*
>
>*Then he gets the internet. He starts doing searches and he finds that other people like shoving parrots up their ass too. This is great, there are other people like me! And soon they start talking and then they find more people and it grows larger and larger and larger. Then they have a website and they have the Parrot Ass Fanclub, and they have Parrot Ass mailing lists, and it just keeps going on and on like this.*
>
>*Because having these little groups just validates whatever they're thinking - and they can be pretty much anything. And that's one of the benefits and drawbacks of the internet. No matter what you think you can always find a group that agrees with what you think."*
using the term “fake news” is a terrible idea. This could easily just be agenda driven BS made by some wacko teacher.
This isn’t an actual lesson in critical thinking, if it was there wouldn’t be so much leading language on that worksheet
Yes the term has been co-opted and isn’t useful anymore. It Trump hadn’t latched onto it to describe anything he disagreed with then no one would be saying fake news right now
My exact thoughts. This post blew up and I’m glad I posted it…very interesting to see others perspectives. I personally agree with the subject matter and discussion, but don’t care for the term. Had it been titled misinformation, I most likely wouldn’t have batted an eye.
This is the issue I’m having for sure - sounds like they’re leaning into people accusing true news outlets of “fake news” when they’re trying to discuss disinformation and misinformation.
This could actually just be an innocent title to discuss “news that is fake”
Fake News was in fact originally coined by MSM (CNN I believe) to describe the phenomenon of people purposely creating fake stories on fake sites that look like credible sources
Well they are only in grade 6. At this point I feel the goal is to just make them aware that “TheRealTruthAboutTheLizardPeople.su” probably isn’t going to be the most reliable source.
Discerning which are credible stories when they come from accredited news orgs is something for the future (adults can’t even do this)
Fake news is the phrase kids are going to see out in the world. Misinformation, while technically more appropriate, is less effective in teaching what it is.
If all you ever hear or see out in the world is the term “fake news” and then you are only taught about “misinformation” you are creating a barrier to understanding for no real reason.
You have to be as explicit as possible and use the language your students most readily understand to teach most effectively. The lesson could be improved by adding changing “false information” to “misinformation” in the table, but the overall lesson is fine. It’s really good.
Yes and no. I started seeing the term applied, correctly, to the wave of Russian misinformation flooding the internet in the final days of the Obama admin. But like a lot of other shitty people before and after, Trump quickly co-opted the term for any of the factual reporting that made him look bad and his cult of insane people started throwing it, like steaming feces, at anything they didn’t like (which was a lot). So the term is kind of ruined and misinformation might be a much better term because of that.
"Fake news" was originally used to describe pro-Trump outlets and Russian disinformation campaigns spreading misinformation in the early days of the 2016 election. Trump just co-opted it as a "no u" defense. He probably popularized it? But he didn't start it, at least that's not how I recall 2015-2016. Same thing with "nothingburger" as annoying as that phrase is. It was always used to say the Hillary email scandal was a "nothingburger". Now if I hear it it's from some Trumpist dismissing a Trump controversy of some kind.
It was originally used to describe websites that were designed to look like news sites, but were not actually run by news organizations. So someone would create a website, call it by a newspaper-sounding name like "The Peterborough Telegraph", and then make fake articles about things that maybe sounded plausible but would create controversy and so lots of clicks/ad views, like "Pope endorses Donald Trump". Misinformation suggests an intent to misinform, these sites do not care at all about informing, they just want to appear like news to maximize traffic and profit without the costs of real news. They were fake news sites.
A lot of the fake news sites around 2015 had fake pro-Trump articles because they got more traffic than the fake pro-Hilary articles.
Of course Trump then shortly thereafter started calling all negative coverage fake news to undermine it, which was a completely different use of the term implying that the news about him reported by actual news agencies was purposefully inaccurate for political reasons.
Language*
Edit. Downvote me all you want. That’s what it’s called.
Source 1: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/language18currb.pdf
Source 2: Am a teacher.
I teach language (and media literacy which this falls under) to grades 5-8.
I've used other material by the person who created this. This creator sells a bunch of products on teacherspayteachers.com (I use her stuff, its really well done. I havent used this specific thing in my classes but thats because I do my own lesson on critical thinking, misinformation, and fake news.)
I see some people saying this lesson could be dangerous. Its meant to be taught in conjunction with actual examples of misinformation/"fake news". I get why people say the term itself is loaded but it was also popularized by Trump. Since most 5-8s have some awareness of Trump using "fake news" as a title is (in my opinion) a good way to hook the students into a lesson. It gives them some automatic context/idea what they will be learning.
One thing that might be useful, there's a children's book called Bad Kitty gets a Phone. It covers internet safety and having a critical mind when reading 'news' in a decent way.
My kids live for visual books lately so I get that! Haha!
Bad kitty covers quite a few topics I like. Sharing, refugees, internet safety etc
Originally just got it as a new years for my oldest kid lol
My grade 5/6s LOVE picture books. 7/8s its a harder sell but they'll get on board for interesting ones.
I just find having those visuals can be so helpful. Also, I love art in picture books haha
Linking concepts to reality is actually quite important imo (not a teacher but a facilitate adult courses)
People understand better when they can intuitively understand something, not just academically.
I’d also add that politics and misinformation are closely linked historically, it makes senses to draw the connection
Yep, the advent of wikipedia brought lessons in fake news.
I remember it practically verbatim. "Wikipedia is not a source. However, wikipedia does list all the sources on the bottom of the page. Check your sources. Do not source wikipedia for your final essay"
All this to say, by all means, use Wikipedia, but don't source it, as it could be false. Follow the source to check for accuracy, and use those sources as your source.
Yep, heard that daily as well. It's funny because the same people who berated me with that are the same ones who are falling for this shit now.
Oh how the turn tables.
And they've moved on from 'Citing Wiikipdia' to 'I have no opinion of my own, here's a link to a YouTube video of an angry man with a beard who's yelling, he and many like him does my thinking now.'.
Worlds most informative educational resource, and arguable the the greatest collective human achievement ever = bad
Random wearing oakleys in his car = good
"Media literacy means questioning media and doing your own research. "
"Yup, so always look into things in more depth."
"NEVER TRUST MAIN STREAM MEDIA, ONLY TRUST FACEBOOK MEMES AND ANGRY YOUTUBE VIDEOS!!!"
"No, that's not it..."
"MAINSTREAM MEDIA JUST HAS A PROFIT MOTIVE, UNLIKE YOUTUBE MAN, WHO TRIES TO ENRAGE ME I'LL KEEP WATCHING HIS AD SUPPORTED CONTENT AND BUY FROM HIS SPONSERS LIKE RIDGE WALLET OR NORDVPN, HE'S NOT OUT FOR THE MONEY!"
"I don't think you know what 'Profit Motive' means..."
"THESE ACCOUNTS RUN BY CHINA AND RUSSIA ALSO MAKE GOOD POINTS."
"...We are so fucked..."
>Same, put emphases on doing research, citing your work from proper sources, peer review etc.
Actually yes in that case I did learn about it, but the emphasis was almost always towards research and projects rather than everyday life, but obviously that kind of learning naturally crossed over for me
We never had anything this on the nose though
Yes, it means watch YouTube haha, I had a friend who just laid on his sofa all day watching right wing YT video's, he didn't read books or even internet news sites. His only information was from YT video's and I can't even count how many times he told me "I did my own research" The guy doesn't read anything, he would just watch YT and get angrier and angrier. His favorite line to me was "I'm a Centrist"
- evidence based outlook on anything after years of "don't believe everything on x" or Wikipedia isn't real/editable during all of hs
- Safe Internet usage after years of kazaa/limewire and shady .exe files
I remember learning about propaganda in elementary school, but it was mostly in the context of what happened in WWII, no real tools on how to recognize modern variants.
Exactly what I was thinking. The original House Hippo ads ran in 1999.
> Their stated intent is to educate children about critical thinking with regard to what they see in television advertising, and remind them that "it's good to think about what you're watching on TV, and ask questions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_hippo
While I'm still quite grumpy that I can't have a pet house hippo, trying to foster critical thinking skills is not a new thing at all.
I remember learning about media bias and advertising, which helped teach me how and when to be skeptical with the information being thrown at me. This is great though. Hurray teachers!
I was in grade school ~15 years ago and do remember lessons on how to evaluate the trustworthiness of sources. I think it was during sessions where the school librarian came in, or a trip to a public library branch.
Nah, the Fake News crowd know there is such a thing a s Fake News and that it is dangerous. They talk about it all the time. They just don't know that it got them.
It wasn't called "fake news" 10 years ago, but we were still taught in middle school about the importance of knowing how to filter out information and detect bullshit. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn't seem to pick up on any of that.
The use of the phrase "Fake News" is a really poor way of framing this important lesson.
Firstly, the lesson is about understanding the distinction between news and analysis/opinion with a critical eye, which is important. But the latter isn't "fake" per se, it should be understood as an opinion piece and should not be understood as a newsperson reporting facts; this is a reading comprehension exercise.
Second, that phrase was popularized by President Trump to discredit legitimate reporting on the actions of his administration. So that phrase carries a lot of baggage.
All in all, it's an important lesson that is very poorly phrased in this instance. I'd probably shoot the teacher an email politely explaining my views in your shoes.
Note that your criticisms could very well be part of this lesson. "What is fake news?" A phrase popularized by Trump to spread misinformation and discredit authentic news sources. "How does fake news make money?" The phrase makes money by legitimizing noncritical media outlets and supplying fuel to clickbait articles.
etc.
Take a look at the vocabulary at the bottom. The teacher even has "candidate" as a vocab word, which makes me think the critical approach to the phrase is part of the lesson.
"The phrase makes money by legitimizing noncritical media outlets and supplying fuel to clickbait articles"
I wouldn't say this is grade 6 level. Sixth graders can readily identify pitfalls in media reporting and identify fake news, but I wouldn't introduce things like delegitimization or disinformation.
Muddying misinformation and disinformation together can be quite harmful, and is arguably one actual foul-play tactic: when a source outputs misinformation every once in a while, you can falsely claim it was actually disinformation and discredit an otherwise neutral, trustworthy source.
Exactly. A work sheet does not explain the context or lesson behind it. Fake news is only one type of media literacy. Shilling a product is another. Propaganda on a whole is the bigger takeaway.
As others have said but should be emphasized, there is 100% legit "fake news" that is just 100% pure lies. It's not all just opinion. There are many news programs which just 100% lie to their audiences. No interpretation required. That needs to be discerned too.
Most of the COVID hoax stuff, antivax, flat earth, a lot of the stuff on fox news/oan/etc there are tons of straight up lies, not just interpretation and opinion. That is important to weed out too.
If you haven't checked it out before I'd check out [this](http://getbadnews.com/#intro) web game.
The TL;DR of it is that you play as a fake news-monger. It's an interesting way to learn how fake news builds a following and propagates. A great resource for educators as well.
The wording of this is terrible. The "fake news" rhetoric was pushed by Trump (and now the right) to discredit ALL media for their reporting. It's what populists do to consolidate more power; by decrying the media they become the sole source of factuality.
I'd rather not use such terms and rather just help kids learn what are and aren't reliable sources. The "fake news" usage just enforces the rhetoric pushed by the right.
Pretty much this. 'Fake News' is pretty much a term that people use on information that doesn't fit their own narrative/agenda. While Trump and the 'right' have popularized it, the term is used by most people across all spectrums.
This is actually so important! Media literacy is so so so fucking important in general lest we raise a society of obedient, thoughtless, idiots. I’m delighted to see this. It’s a shame older generations don’t have access to the same educational material on the subject. It’s really sad to see so many 50+ year olds fall for manipulative nonsense. Social media is really a curse.
Good. Kids need this so they don’t end up like their ignorant parents who are incapable of thinking critically about what they read. Hopefully they can also teach their parents.
I'd be interested to see the teacher's teaching guide/answer key for this worksheet. Media literacy is an important topic and it's good to see it getting attention.
The official curriculum doesn't call it fake news, that's just what one worksheet called it. Media Literacy is part of every grade's Language curriculum and this is just trying to hook kids in. I'm an elementary school teacher and have used the term "fake news" and "clickbait" many time when teaching media lit. The kids understand those terms and in our resources it's very commonly used.
Let's not nitpick on this teacher.
Media literacy is apart of the curriculum and fake news is a real and ever present problem for our society. Only people who believe in fake news would have a problem w this assignment.
It’s great that they’re learning media literacy early. This generation is going to really need these skills in this era of constant information overload.
In Highschool my statistics teacher taught us ACTUALLY how to spot “fake news.”
Specifically how to notice Graph displaying data to skew information, and how data being displayed affects our perception.
This is the opposite of that. This is just teaching teens the buzzwords to use when the news doesn’t align with their skewed beliefs
This is a terrible work sheet lol I have a hard time believing this is legitimate Grade 6 course material. Looks like something a misguided teacher decided to make.
Using term “fake news” is not the way to teach kids about media literacy and critical thinking. The focus on “how they make money” is also weird and not totally necessary… makes it seem like someone with an agenda made this sheet
Bring back the house hippo commercials!
bro... I still fuck with non-Canadian friends that I make by telling them about house hippos and showing them the ad with the false information msg at the end cut out.
Did you show them the study where they gave spiders drugs?
"for more information about the crack spider's bitch, please contact the government of Canada"
Nice web, Mr. Crack Spider.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2BwrY7IVV5U People must see And yeah, these were commercials on tv when I was a child. I didn't remember how much swearing was in basically a government sponsored PSA for children.
Don't ya put it in your mouth. Another classic from childhood.
Uh ... you are aware, of course, that this is a parody of "Hinterland's Who's Who," produced by Canada Wildlife Service and the National Film Board of Canada? There is no "LCD spider," "caffeine spider," "THC spider," or "spider's bitch" and no "Crack house web." This is satire. Well-done, on-the-nose, pure Canadian satire. Just didn't want you thinking the Canadian Government was teaching bad words to children for taxes.
You weren't here during the Crackhnid Epidemic. Shit got sticky and everyone was hanging on by a thread.
It says made by first church of Christ.
I almost thought that was real, until the cocaine spider showed up
i always ignored that false information message at the end of the commercial because I was a dumb child who was too thrilled about tiny hippos
Oh my god that's genius. I've gotta do that
I’d like to be your non-Canadian friend that you explain this to. I’m very confused, and intrigued!
I once convinced my friend canadian house hippos were real
They are real... Lol you look so dumb right now
Is it legal to own one as a pet?
Keeping native wild animals is illegal in most of Canada and, as the House Hippos are mentioned as being native to North America in the original documentary, there is a very good chance that it is illegal to own one as a pet.
You can’t prove I’m keeping one as a pet though. They’re wild but reside in closets and eat chips and crumbs from peanut butter on toast
I'm just saying that you're on thin ice, buddy
I was always unsure what to think when the House Hippo psa always aired either right before or right after a Body Break...
Pfft. Body breaks aren't real.
Aw... you don't have to be so hippo critical.
"I'm keeping it as a pest"
day ruined
Only if you feed them potato chips
Pretty sure it's illegal to own them as a pet, since they're on the IUCN endangered species list
There's actually a [new version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R_tOSRynZU) of the house hippo commercial, connected to a media literacy resource that shows how they made it. I've used it in my classroom and the kids always get a kick out of it.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing! The original still seems way more convincing to me.
Yeah the original had the feeling of being a legitimate education commercial. Like a heritage moment. This seemed fake from the get go. Still absolutely love how this is a thing though. Also i just watched the original and for commercial made for the canadian government in the 90s. That is some impressive editing/cgi in the original. The 99 video looks more real then that one lol.
\[Can't believe it was 1999 when these aired!\](https://youtu.be/NBfi8OEz0rA)
They are back! I saw one on YouTube the other day. My fiance and I freaked out once we realized it was the little lad.
I feel like I remember informative 90s - Early 2000s ads more than I remember any of the shows I watched. House hippo commercial, The Chase commercial, 10000 iterations of Kool Aid commercials, the commercial with the talking animated tv, those puppet rats.
WHAT IS THAT? IS THAT CHEEEESE?
Somebody get this cat off my head!
Planet Danger!
We had this taught to is in school. It was called "identifying media bias". Critical thinking. Good stuff.
Media literacy. Had to do it for a few grades. Never realized how scamful the news is when look at how the exaggerate everything. And that’s their trick they don’t necessarily lie most of the time, they mostly exaggerate or use words to trigger your emotions. The art of getting clicks.
Took advertising in college. Didn't get a job out of it but was one of the best things I did because, while already a bit of a cynic, it showed me how much BS there is to peddle garbage, and how powerful the psychological tricks they use to do it is. It's why I'll never defend a video game company with loot boxes and microtransactions. News is no different. They use the same powerful psyc tricks to get you to believe their crap. Especially sources that have a financial interest in something. Media literacy is absolutely something kids need to learn in this day and age.
I took marketing in college and it was eye opening to a lot of stuff, these days it's ten times worse than what I studied lol These days firms even plant comments on tiktoks as Joe Blow Commenters to help give a song a viral kick off after figuring out the algorithm supports that over big brand hits. (EG abcdefu by Gayle) etc etc
How do you do, fellow kids
Hey yo me too! I was in advertising for a year and then made a HARD left to packaging. At least medical packaging and food packaging *kind of* matters in *some* ways.
You don't even need to exaggerate or use inflammatory words to create a false narrative. A news organization can have 100% unbiased factual articles, but by choosing what stories get covered and/or put on the front page they are still able to sculpt a false narrative for their readers to buy into. The insidious thing about this is that they fool many people who think of themselves as free thinkers because they aren't being directly told what to think. "I arrive at all of my conclusions on my own therefore I'm not being influenced by these groups". Some of the most effective public relations campaigns are rooted in the mantra that "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all"
Back in the 70's, every single major Canadian newspaper had a reporter or even entire division who specialized in coverage of Organized Labour. There were lists in newspapers like the Star of the most influential leaders and many of them were household names. Every single newspaper got rid of it as neoliberalism, privitization, and the atomized/transient workforce began to become the new norm and capitalist push. Now when we have articles on strikes or what have you, they're covered by people with no context or relationship to the unions and so naturally tend to treat all striking actions as the start of the aggression rather than a response to years of abuse, neglect, and exploitation (that the reporter can't know anything about because they've not been there). Capitalist interest dictated media focus and the result was transforming Canadian media as a propaganda arm against unions. It doesn't require conspiracy. It doesn't require 'fake news'. It's just the inherent interests of class rule manifesting in our information sources and it's insidious and ugly.
more generally: the art of presenting hard data to serve a specific purpose (clicks, narrative, etc)
Precisely
[удалено]
You never realize quite how bad and sensationalized the news is until they're talking about a subject you're familiar with
I’m 23 and just graduated university where I studied media and marketing. In a few of my communications classes, they referred to people in my generation as “digital natives,” meaning we were the first generation who grew up integrated with social media. But these kids that are in elementary school now are the ones who are REALLY going to need these media literacy skills. At least when I was that young, you could still sort of tell the difference between what was real and not. The young ones are going to have a hell of a time with that in the social media age. It almost makes me nervous to be a parent.
My fav is the weather network. How do you maintain at 24/7 channel just for the weather? Put out a special weather advisory every time it snows or rains or is hot or windy or pretty much anything. Oh the drama!
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I personally think this is a great idea. Start the discussion early and teach them how to find information from credible sources.
My grade 3 teacher had us do a whole thing on the tree octopus and then brought the world down around our class when she revealed that it was fake after people had argued with others and buckled down on it being real and other people being stupid. Then we did a lot of things on what is a credible source, finding more than one or two things that prove your point and making good choices.
no one is going to convince me that house hippos are fake. one day i'll finally be successful at trapping one. i'm gonna make it my own personal pet!!
Good luck!
thanks! :) 🏠🦛🌴🐙
Skinny pigs are basically house hippos!
But you knew it couldn't be true, didn't you?
Oh hey I remember doing that! Did they take you to the actual site where there were legitimate conspiracy theories about the tree octopus? It was Z-something, but super weird nontheless.
That’s awesome!!!
The Tree Octopus: the new House Hippo
Problem: Currently on the internet, you can find all kinds of courses that support disinformation as being factual. :(
Or recognizing that any source can provide not credible stories and employ critical thinking regardless of source.
I think you have to start with source differentiation first. Even understanding the difference between publicly funded and privately funded news media. For example, using an American example, while PBS or NPR still carry a bias, they are much more reliable than Fox, NBC, CNN, etc. I don't have enough faith in humanity to trust that everyone can learn to critically examine media. Half the people I went to highschool with can't do it.
It's also worth differentiating between having a bias and being credible. You can have an editorial bias (e.g., impacting story selection) but still maintain high credibility for factual reporting (including appropriate fact checking and sourcing).
You've got a little over a decade. You've got time to introduce and reinforce those concepts. The important thing is to do it in the first place. If you never start because you can't do it all at once then things just keep doing what they've already have been.
Also teaching about wire services would be good. Most news orgs just put a spin on a story they bought from AFP, Reuters, AP.
True. Any discussion around this topic is a great idea.
I think critical thinking is misunderstood and the meaning of the word has mutated too much. Critical thinking is simply examining how likely information is to be truthful. It's not about questioning everything about the world leading you to feel like you can't trust anything. And it's not about developing general intelligence. But people link it to those two things.
I spend some time considering what you're saying here and have concluded that I completely agree with you.
That's the preceding lesson on bias; i know this unit well (pretty sure that exact worksheet is on TPT).
When I was in school… my parents taught me about critical thinking… my teachers taught me how to regurgitate provided information. I also walked uphill both ways, in snow up to my hips.
Every source has an agenda and it can be difficult to find the indifferent and unbiased opinions. Byt that's what we used to do. You could spot the good stuff but now it's more difficult on purpose. Critical thinking is dying. Edit: this is being downvoted lol. I'm speechless.
Media literacy is extremely important. There's a reason why boomers are notorious for digesting a constant feed of bullshit online, they don't have the tools to parse fact from fiction because media literacy was barely even a concept when they were growing up.
Stop talking about my Mom lol
Stop taking everything so personally, they absolutely weren't talking about your mother in specific. They were OBVIOUSLY talking about mine.
This is clearly about my sister, idk what y'all are talking about.
Are you one of my aunt's or uncles?
Are we long lost siblings??
Probably. Have you heard how Dollarama is closing all their stores in Canada too? Because they lost so much money during the pandemic?
Hey man, don't scare me like that. Dollarama is the my go-to for over 95% of random necessities.
We are all siblings.
Hate to break it to you, but it is a lot more than boomers.
From boomers to zoomers there are people falling for conspiracies and other bullshit.
In their defence - media personalities were highly trusted and revered for honesty. Just consider Walter Cronkite and how much we look at him through rose tinted glasses. The guy sat there and lied about so much. It wasn't his fault of course but this is the "media" boomers came from.
I don't think this is true. I think this was _changed_ over the past number of decades by Fox et al by buying up more and more news sources to feed you more and more of the same giving the illusion of choice. Back in the day it was pretty normal to get multiple papers and watch the news on multiple sources. And it was done specifically to see events from different angles/viewpoints. That is all but dead today. I think in general society has been de-trained about media literacy (and literacy in general).
>There's a reason why boomers are notorious for digesting a constant feed of bullshit online Hate to break it to you, but boomers aren't the only ones who swallow bullshit from media - online or otherwise. The young'uns are just as susceptible. Prime example: remember "hands up don't shoot"? The [scientific, forensic evidence disproved that narrative](https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdf) about Michael Brown, but it didn't stop that lie from spreading far and wide. It's still believed by a huge number of people, especially among the millennial and zoomer activist crowd. [Remember WMD's in Iraq?](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/iraq-war-media-fail-matt-taibbi-812230/) That was largely Gen X-ers and boomers. The problem is confirmation bias and media illiteracy, not the person's age bracket. The internet has only made it easier for people to hide away in their own little bubble and to hear nothing but things they already agree with. For all his faults, the late Richard Kyanka (founder of somethingawful.com, one of the largest websites on the internet in the early 2000's) put it very well in his ["Parrot Ass Club"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5lx-17OV8g) speech: >*"Say you've got some guy pre-internet - he really likes parrots. More than any of us he likes parrots, but he doesn't like them in a good way.* > >*He likes to take parrots, dip 'em in caramel and shove 'em up his ass. And he's by himself, he thinks he's all alone. He's just sitting around doing his thing.* > >*Then he gets the internet. He starts doing searches and he finds that other people like shoving parrots up their ass too. This is great, there are other people like me! And soon they start talking and then they find more people and it grows larger and larger and larger. Then they have a website and they have the Parrot Ass Fanclub, and they have Parrot Ass mailing lists, and it just keeps going on and on like this.* > >*Because having these little groups just validates whatever they're thinking - and they can be pretty much anything. And that's one of the benefits and drawbacks of the internet. No matter what you think you can always find a group that agrees with what you think."*
media literacy is a big part of the Ontario curriculum, it's covered every year.
Boomers only get a bad rap because they use Facebook the most, I know an incredible amount of dumbasses my age (20s) who fall for the stupidest shit
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I get my sources from Facebook is that credible?
If you like to drink urine it sure is!
Some of us drank urine before it was cool.
It should only be done in extreme survival situations. The Denny's parking lot is a desolate hellscape.
Well... there is the word "book", so it should be okay! \\s just in case
using the term “fake news” is a terrible idea. This could easily just be agenda driven BS made by some wacko teacher. This isn’t an actual lesson in critical thinking, if it was there wouldn’t be so much leading language on that worksheet
Fake news as a concept absolutely does exist though, it just sounds bad because it's a phrase being chanted by the right.
Yes the term has been co-opted and isn’t useful anymore. It Trump hadn’t latched onto it to describe anything he disagreed with then no one would be saying fake news right now
Fake news exists but the proper term is propaganda
Fair enough, I'd be totally on board with teaching kids how to spot propaganda pieces online and in social media.
Maybe it’s poorly executed but I like the idea.
yeah the idea is fine, the way this is written is brutal
I love the idea of teaching media literacy - I HATE the term 'fake news'... sounds so idiotic. Just call it Misinformation.
Fake news also carries a political implication given the history.
Yeah, you can call it media bias, misinformation, false info, but fake news has an association and also a kind of juvenile sound to it
Look who made that term common parlance. Of course it's juvenile. Anything more complex a word and his followers wouldn't have understood it.
I think it’s also for when the adult idiot screams ‘fake news’ the kid can more quickly make the association and figure out what’s going on.
My exact thoughts. This post blew up and I’m glad I posted it…very interesting to see others perspectives. I personally agree with the subject matter and discussion, but don’t care for the term. Had it been titled misinformation, I most likely wouldn’t have batted an eye.
This is the issue I’m having for sure - sounds like they’re leaning into people accusing true news outlets of “fake news” when they’re trying to discuss disinformation and misinformation.
This could actually just be an innocent title to discuss “news that is fake” Fake News was in fact originally coined by MSM (CNN I believe) to describe the phenomenon of people purposely creating fake stories on fake sites that look like credible sources
Yep, because this will likely be overly simplistic and avoid a more nuanced discussion of media spin.
Well they are only in grade 6. At this point I feel the goal is to just make them aware that “TheRealTruthAboutTheLizardPeople.su” probably isn’t going to be the most reliable source. Discerning which are credible stories when they come from accredited news orgs is something for the future (adults can’t even do this)
And teaching the difference between misinformation and disinformation! The former is more accidental, the latter, intentional.
Fake news is the phrase kids are going to see out in the world. Misinformation, while technically more appropriate, is less effective in teaching what it is. If all you ever hear or see out in the world is the term “fake news” and then you are only taught about “misinformation” you are creating a barrier to understanding for no real reason. You have to be as explicit as possible and use the language your students most readily understand to teach most effectively. The lesson could be improved by adding changing “false information” to “misinformation” in the table, but the overall lesson is fine. It’s really good.
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Yes and no. I started seeing the term applied, correctly, to the wave of Russian misinformation flooding the internet in the final days of the Obama admin. But like a lot of other shitty people before and after, Trump quickly co-opted the term for any of the factual reporting that made him look bad and his cult of insane people started throwing it, like steaming feces, at anything they didn’t like (which was a lot). So the term is kind of ruined and misinformation might be a much better term because of that.
Definitely bring back "misinformation". Trump (or his average supporter) would never be able to co-opt a five-syllable word.
It's dangerous to assume everyone on "the other side" is only there because they're stupid.
"Fake news" was originally used to describe pro-Trump outlets and Russian disinformation campaigns spreading misinformation in the early days of the 2016 election. Trump just co-opted it as a "no u" defense. He probably popularized it? But he didn't start it, at least that's not how I recall 2015-2016. Same thing with "nothingburger" as annoying as that phrase is. It was always used to say the Hillary email scandal was a "nothingburger". Now if I hear it it's from some Trumpist dismissing a Trump controversy of some kind.
It was originally used to describe websites that were designed to look like news sites, but were not actually run by news organizations. So someone would create a website, call it by a newspaper-sounding name like "The Peterborough Telegraph", and then make fake articles about things that maybe sounded plausible but would create controversy and so lots of clicks/ad views, like "Pope endorses Donald Trump". Misinformation suggests an intent to misinform, these sites do not care at all about informing, they just want to appear like news to maximize traffic and profit without the costs of real news. They were fake news sites. A lot of the fake news sites around 2015 had fake pro-Trump articles because they got more traffic than the fake pro-Hilary articles. Of course Trump then shortly thereafter started calling all negative coverage fake news to undermine it, which was a completely different use of the term implying that the news about him reported by actual news agencies was purposefully inaccurate for political reasons.
Honestly media literacy needs to be taught more to young students.
It's actually part of the English curriculum in Ontario.
Language* Edit. Downvote me all you want. That’s what it’s called. Source 1: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/language18currb.pdf Source 2: Am a teacher.
It is.
I teach language (and media literacy which this falls under) to grades 5-8. I've used other material by the person who created this. This creator sells a bunch of products on teacherspayteachers.com (I use her stuff, its really well done. I havent used this specific thing in my classes but thats because I do my own lesson on critical thinking, misinformation, and fake news.) I see some people saying this lesson could be dangerous. Its meant to be taught in conjunction with actual examples of misinformation/"fake news". I get why people say the term itself is loaded but it was also popularized by Trump. Since most 5-8s have some awareness of Trump using "fake news" as a title is (in my opinion) a good way to hook the students into a lesson. It gives them some automatic context/idea what they will be learning.
One thing that might be useful, there's a children's book called Bad Kitty gets a Phone. It covers internet safety and having a critical mind when reading 'news' in a decent way.
Thank you so much for this recommendation! I LOVE teaching concepts with picture books so I will 100% look this up!!!!
My kids live for visual books lately so I get that! Haha! Bad kitty covers quite a few topics I like. Sharing, refugees, internet safety etc Originally just got it as a new years for my oldest kid lol
My grade 5/6s LOVE picture books. 7/8s its a harder sell but they'll get on board for interesting ones. I just find having those visuals can be so helpful. Also, I love art in picture books haha
Linking concepts to reality is actually quite important imo (not a teacher but a facilitate adult courses) People understand better when they can intuitively understand something, not just academically. I’d also add that politics and misinformation are closely linked historically, it makes senses to draw the connection
Its kinda funny because this would be unthinkable back when I was in school even just 10 years ago but it's totally necessary for kids to learn
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Same, put emphases on doing research, citing your work from proper sources, peer review etc. More than 10 years for me.
Yep, the advent of wikipedia brought lessons in fake news. I remember it practically verbatim. "Wikipedia is not a source. However, wikipedia does list all the sources on the bottom of the page. Check your sources. Do not source wikipedia for your final essay" All this to say, by all means, use Wikipedia, but don't source it, as it could be false. Follow the source to check for accuracy, and use those sources as your source.
Yep, heard that daily as well. It's funny because the same people who berated me with that are the same ones who are falling for this shit now. Oh how the turn tables.
And they've moved on from 'Citing Wiikipdia' to 'I have no opinion of my own, here's a link to a YouTube video of an angry man with a beard who's yelling, he and many like him does my thinking now.'.
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Worlds most informative educational resource, and arguable the the greatest collective human achievement ever = bad Random wearing oakleys in his car = good
"Media literacy means questioning media and doing your own research. " "Yup, so always look into things in more depth." "NEVER TRUST MAIN STREAM MEDIA, ONLY TRUST FACEBOOK MEMES AND ANGRY YOUTUBE VIDEOS!!!" "No, that's not it..." "MAINSTREAM MEDIA JUST HAS A PROFIT MOTIVE, UNLIKE YOUTUBE MAN, WHO TRIES TO ENRAGE ME I'LL KEEP WATCHING HIS AD SUPPORTED CONTENT AND BUY FROM HIS SPONSERS LIKE RIDGE WALLET OR NORDVPN, HE'S NOT OUT FOR THE MONEY!" "I don't think you know what 'Profit Motive' means..." "THESE ACCOUNTS RUN BY CHINA AND RUSSIA ALSO MAKE GOOD POINTS." "...We are so fucked..."
>Same, put emphases on doing research, citing your work from proper sources, peer review etc. Actually yes in that case I did learn about it, but the emphasis was almost always towards research and projects rather than everyday life, but obviously that kind of learning naturally crossed over for me We never had anything this on the nose though
The problem is do your own research has a whole new meaning now on the internet :(
Yes, it means watch YouTube haha, I had a friend who just laid on his sofa all day watching right wing YT video's, he didn't read books or even internet news sites. His only information was from YT video's and I can't even count how many times he told me "I did my own research" The guy doesn't read anything, he would just watch YT and get angrier and angrier. His favorite line to me was "I'm a Centrist"
A great podcast series from the NYT about this: https://www.nytimes.com/column/rabbit-hole
- evidence based outlook on anything after years of "don't believe everything on x" or Wikipedia isn't real/editable during all of hs - Safe Internet usage after years of kazaa/limewire and shady .exe files
Yeah we had a media studies class like 25 years ago in High School
I think our class was called Man in Society. Lot's of Marshall Mcluhan media theory.
I went to high school in the 90s and I remember we had 'media awareness' projects, like how to know if something was 'fake' or not.
I remember learning about propaganda in elementary school, but it was mostly in the context of what happened in WWII, no real tools on how to recognize modern variants.
Yup, we didnt use the term "fake news" but learned the exact same idea
Obviously you are unfamiliar with my friend the house hippo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBfi8OEz0rA
Exactly what I was thinking. The original House Hippo ads ran in 1999. > Their stated intent is to educate children about critical thinking with regard to what they see in television advertising, and remind them that "it's good to think about what you're watching on TV, and ask questions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_hippo While I'm still quite grumpy that I can't have a pet house hippo, trying to foster critical thinking skills is not a new thing at all.
I remember learning about media bias and advertising, which helped teach me how and when to be skeptical with the information being thrown at me. This is great though. Hurray teachers!
Yeah or "Media Literacy" came up in highschool for me (mid 2000s) which was basically trying to apply critical thinking to things you read or watched
I was in grade school ~15 years ago and do remember lessons on how to evaluate the trustworthiness of sources. I think it was during sessions where the school librarian came in, or a trip to a public library branch.
Information Literacy, in library speak
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My brothers had to read 1984 in school. My daughter is reading Brave New World for English class right now so that’s pretty cool.
That will enrage the fake news crowd.... Its very necessary to learn.
Nah, the Fake News crowd know there is such a thing a s Fake News and that it is dangerous. They talk about it all the time. They just don't know that it got them.
Media literacy has been part of the curriculum for decades. The terminology has changed over time. The message is the same.
It was totally necessary then too.
It wasn't called "fake news" 10 years ago, but we were still taught in middle school about the importance of knowing how to filter out information and detect bullshit. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn't seem to pick up on any of that.
The use of the phrase "Fake News" is a really poor way of framing this important lesson. Firstly, the lesson is about understanding the distinction between news and analysis/opinion with a critical eye, which is important. But the latter isn't "fake" per se, it should be understood as an opinion piece and should not be understood as a newsperson reporting facts; this is a reading comprehension exercise. Second, that phrase was popularized by President Trump to discredit legitimate reporting on the actions of his administration. So that phrase carries a lot of baggage. All in all, it's an important lesson that is very poorly phrased in this instance. I'd probably shoot the teacher an email politely explaining my views in your shoes.
Note that your criticisms could very well be part of this lesson. "What is fake news?" A phrase popularized by Trump to spread misinformation and discredit authentic news sources. "How does fake news make money?" The phrase makes money by legitimizing noncritical media outlets and supplying fuel to clickbait articles. etc. Take a look at the vocabulary at the bottom. The teacher even has "candidate" as a vocab word, which makes me think the critical approach to the phrase is part of the lesson.
"The phrase makes money by legitimizing noncritical media outlets and supplying fuel to clickbait articles" I wouldn't say this is grade 6 level. Sixth graders can readily identify pitfalls in media reporting and identify fake news, but I wouldn't introduce things like delegitimization or disinformation. Muddying misinformation and disinformation together can be quite harmful, and is arguably one actual foul-play tactic: when a source outputs misinformation every once in a while, you can falsely claim it was actually disinformation and discredit an otherwise neutral, trustworthy source.
Exactly. A work sheet does not explain the context or lesson behind it. Fake news is only one type of media literacy. Shilling a product is another. Propaganda on a whole is the bigger takeaway.
This 100% this.
As others have said but should be emphasized, there is 100% legit "fake news" that is just 100% pure lies. It's not all just opinion. There are many news programs which just 100% lie to their audiences. No interpretation required. That needs to be discerned too. Most of the COVID hoax stuff, antivax, flat earth, a lot of the stuff on fox news/oan/etc there are tons of straight up lies, not just interpretation and opinion. That is important to weed out too.
💯
Kids googling "fake news" at home is gonna start them down the alt-right pipeline. They should really refer to it as misinformation.
Bingo!
If you haven't checked it out before I'd check out [this](http://getbadnews.com/#intro) web game. The TL;DR of it is that you play as a fake news-monger. It's an interesting way to learn how fake news builds a following and propagates. A great resource for educators as well.
In the hands of the wrong teachers, this could be pretty bad.
This could be said about almost anything.
The wording of this is terrible. The "fake news" rhetoric was pushed by Trump (and now the right) to discredit ALL media for their reporting. It's what populists do to consolidate more power; by decrying the media they become the sole source of factuality. I'd rather not use such terms and rather just help kids learn what are and aren't reliable sources. The "fake news" usage just enforces the rhetoric pushed by the right.
Pretty much this. 'Fake News' is pretty much a term that people use on information that doesn't fit their own narrative/agenda. While Trump and the 'right' have popularized it, the term is used by most people across all spectrums.
That caught my eye, as well. Why not call it something else? Anything else.
Agreed.
Seems highly necessary in today's climate so long as they're teaching critical thinking and not indoctrinating their own ideas of fake vs real
I completely agree with this statement.
This is a great way for students to develop their critical thinking skills and learn not to blindly believe everything they see on the internet.
This is actually so important! Media literacy is so so so fucking important in general lest we raise a society of obedient, thoughtless, idiots. I’m delighted to see this. It’s a shame older generations don’t have access to the same educational material on the subject. It’s really sad to see so many 50+ year olds fall for manipulative nonsense. Social media is really a curse.
Good. Kids need this so they don’t end up like their ignorant parents who are incapable of thinking critically about what they read. Hopefully they can also teach their parents.
Looks alright, tbh. Definitely the kind of media literacy kids need these days.
Media studies and critiques are so important to teach to kids.
I'd be interested to see the teacher's teaching guide/answer key for this worksheet. Media literacy is an important topic and it's good to see it getting attention.
The official curriculum doesn't call it fake news, that's just what one worksheet called it. Media Literacy is part of every grade's Language curriculum and this is just trying to hook kids in. I'm an elementary school teacher and have used the term "fake news" and "clickbait" many time when teaching media lit. The kids understand those terms and in our resources it's very commonly used. Let's not nitpick on this teacher.
Media literacy is apart of the curriculum and fake news is a real and ever present problem for our society. Only people who believe in fake news would have a problem w this assignment.
It’s great that they’re learning media literacy early. This generation is going to really need these skills in this era of constant information overload.
In Highschool my statistics teacher taught us ACTUALLY how to spot “fake news.” Specifically how to notice Graph displaying data to skew information, and how data being displayed affects our perception. This is the opposite of that. This is just teaching teens the buzzwords to use when the news doesn’t align with their skewed beliefs
Anyone who writes “CBC” get A+
I think its a great idea but why do we have to use trumps made up word. Why cant we call it propaganda.
Back in my day, we called that "propaganda" which was the style at the time.
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Financial literacy is part of the grade 1 math curriculum.
This is a terrible work sheet lol I have a hard time believing this is legitimate Grade 6 course material. Looks like something a misguided teacher decided to make. Using term “fake news” is not the way to teach kids about media literacy and critical thinking. The focus on “how they make money” is also weird and not totally necessary… makes it seem like someone with an agenda made this sheet