On Thursday, May
25, 2017, at 6:30pm a special program on fake news will be presented
in Russell Library’s Hubbard Room. The
program, Fake News: Can you spot it? is a collaboration between the
Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) Journalism Department and Reference
and Instructions Librarians at CCSU’s Elihu Burritt Library. It began as an
hour-long interactive workshop delivered designed to define fake news and
develop strategies to fight it.
According to Craig Silverman, media editor of Buzzfeed, fake news traveled better online than mainstream news did in the three months preceding the recent presidential election (8.7 million hits to 7.3 million hits, respectively).
The program begins by defining fake news on a spectrum. There is a difference between actual fake news, misleading news, biased news, and (at the other end of the spectrum entirely) news that simply challenges a held belief.
Social media has made every information consumer into an information producer. It is our habit, when a piece of news makes us feel strongly, to share that piece of news with others. Given that, when we improve our abilities to determine news quality we do not just help ourselves; we help others too, as we let dubious news die instead of adding fuel to a false fire.
Presenters are: Theodora Ruhs, Professor of Journalism; Martha Kruy, Reference, Instruction and Assessment Librarian; Briana McGuckin, Reference and Instruction Librarian; and Susan Slaga-Metivier, Head of the Reference and Instruction Department, Elihu Burritt Library.
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