Critical thinking resources, media literacy

If you’re trying to encourage friends and family to analyse the media they consume and to think more critically, you may find the resources below useful.

Games and quizzes that can reveal vulnerability to disinformation.
Test yourself, and send to friends and family.

• Find the fake! “This fun, interactive quiz provides a way for families to improve, discuss and test their knowledge of fake news”.

• Go Viral! game, supposed to reduce susceptibility to Covid misinformation for up to three months (UK)

Learn more about misinformation and disinformation.

• Introduction to Media Literacy (US)

• Navigating Digital Information (US - 10 video episodes)

Go deeper - learn more about psychological warfare, misinformation and disinformation.

• A guide to prebunking (US)

• Media Literacy Index (Bulgaria)

• Decision Education - for children (US)

• Facts, frames, and (mis)interpretations: Understanding rumors as collective sensemaking (US)

Examples - challenging misinformation and disinformation

• Robust local public service media should be a good source of pre-bunking as proximity can encourage trust.

• National public service broadcasting - for example BBC Radio 4’s More or Less dismantling YouTuber John Campbell’s claims about excess deaths from the covid-19 vaccine.

• Crowd-funded lobbying - Stop Burning Stuff

• Target advertisers - make disinformation as unprofitable as possible.
  Stop Funding Hate.

• Fact-checking on social media can lead to corrections (but pre-bunking is better). Net Zero pamphlet.

• Détournement / format hijacking. E.g. Using traditional song to undermine organisations that claim to be traditional. Suella Braverman's Wrong by the MarshFamily.

First-person accounts from people who have developed their critical thinking skills

• How I Escaped the Alt-Right Pipeline - JimmyTheGiant

Organisations

• Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington

News notes

• Kate Starbird, key researcher in the fight against election misinformation – who herself became the subject of an intensive misinformation campaign – has said her field gets accused of “bias” precisely because it’s now mainly rightwingers who spread the worst lies.

TV shows

• The Truth vs Alex Jones is a very good documentary - it lays out the financial incentives behind horrifying disinformation. Trailer.