SMART MEDIA
Evaluating Media:
Today we are going to be looking at FAKE NEWS - how it’s made, and how you can make sure you don’t fall for the fake!
There are some clues when you are trying to decide whether what you are reading online is true or not.
The first thing to look at is the URL (web address) for the site that published the story. Some fake sites try to fool you by choosing names that mimic a real site but with small differences. Most companies use short URLs because they are easier to remember and type, so URLs with added, unnecessary letters are often fake sites.
By yourself, or in pairs complete the following slide to see if you can spot a real from a fake by moving the check into the correct box. Explain what helped you decide in the how do you know text box.
How do you know?
Sometimes someone shares a news story without a URL. In those cases, here are some clues to use:
a) A story starts with a picture of something that would interest us, like a cute dog, a celebrity, or an unusual stunt. But when we click, the story has little or nothing to do with the picture.
b) Instead of letting you decide for yourself, people who are trying to convince you to agree with them sometimes use things like boldface, ALL CAPS, underlining, or exclamation points to get you to think what you’re seeing is important. Real journalists don’t use those formatting tools.
c) To get you to read a story, some people include words in the headline like “shocking” or “outrageous” or “surprising.” They know words like that make us curious. But real journalists let the news speak for itself. They tell the story and let us decide if it is shocking or surprising.
Your task today is to create a fake news story.��Make up a fake URL��Create a catchy (and misleading) title using: ‘shocking’, ‘outrageous’, ‘surprise’ (or something else you think of)��Mislead your audience by using remove.bg or png image search to make a fake photo.
Here is an example of how you can set your article up:
Download your image(s) and the post it on your blog.
Remember in our blog we must also talk about the learning we did and why we did it. List some things you have learned from today’s session as well.