Inside the Media Literacy Tent Learning Methods of Fact-Checking

By Bernie Goldbach in Clonmel

WE WERE A CAMPING family several years before COVID and as a teen, I spent several weekends in a snow-covered campsite. I'm thinking about these passages of time as I head to the annual Media Literacy Ireland conference where I will learn about programmes to alert people to the importance of fact-checking things such as the challenges of winter weather.

The current Irish winter has been very challenging. I've slipped twice on black ice. On Irish social media there's a story going around about a young girl who died in a tent in Dublin. The story is plausible. During COVID, two homeless people were found dead in Dublin and the current winter weather is a lot worse than in 2020.

Although the temperatures can be fact-checked, the story of the young girl passing away in a tent cannot be confirmed. And yet several far-right groups and conspiracy theorists have lionised the imaginary woman to buttress their anti-immigration agendas.

[Twitter flooding the papers]

Throughout 2023, Media Literacy Ireland will be publicising campaigns that encourage people to look at the sources of information around them. During the next semester, I'm guiding 40 people through a series of topics related to digital transformation and emerging trends. Those students will see first hand how they can filter information to offset the powerful effects of algorithms that promote content merely because many people have read it or upvoted it.

We need to be more responsible with information we see online, perhaps by cross-checking its sources before we share it or electronically indicate we like it.

[Bernie Goldbach teaches digital transformation on the Clonmel Digital Campus.]