Learning Intention :
To understand the ways in which technology, aka. the algorithms designed to monetise your attention, have fragmented society.
How the role (& profitability) of the traditional news media is being further eroded by the epidemic of fake news.
Idea One:
Beware online “Filter Bubbles” Eli Pariser
Considers how our social (media) experiences have been fragmented and fractured.
We are living in an echo chamber inside a filter bubble.
Be prepared to define the following terms or explain the idea…
- Personalised Search Results
- Filter Bubble
- “Informational Vegetables and Informational Dessert”
- Broadcast vs Narrowcast
- Algorithmic Gatekeepers
- Why should we consume media which are challenging or uncomfortable?
- What did they dream the internet could be?
- What is the, ‘Web of One?’
Class Discussion Topic
So what?
Idea two
How Fake News Grows in a Post-Fact World – Ali Velshi
Explains how we have ended up in a post-fact world
A mainstream media journalist making a case for the mainstream traditional journalist.
Some ideas to discuss, some terms to define.
- Reliable sources
- Do you agree with his definition, ‘Fake news…sows confusion that obscures basic facts, thereby impeding necessary debate?’
- Sponsored Content
- Delegitimise journalism
- Holding power to account
- Alternative facts
- ‘Fake news’ is crowding out ‘real news’ – very postmodern.
- Algorithms decide on the news you see based on where you are online.
- Clickbait, cookies and…algorithms.
- You are more likely to repost salacious, sensational or negative news.
Class Discussion Topic
What does living in a post-fact world mean for democracy?