Authentic information

Firstly how do we know if information is credible. One important thing to consider is the credentials and expertise of the sources writer.

According to the article by Tseng and Fogg (1999 as cited by Shen et al., 2018),it is argued that integrity or “belief” is not the objective nature of the information itself, but ultimately the opinion of the consumer. The truthfulness and presumed expertise of the information source was described as the most important factors in creating perceptions of credibility (Shen et al., 2018).

Recent studies by the Stanford History Education Group (2016 as cited by Johnston., 2018) on how students evaluate information showed that, in general, knowledge on the internet was not adequately analysed by students across varying school levels  (Johnston, 2018).

Then there was an Australian national digital engagement survey of 2,448 young people aged 12 to 17 years by the Office of the eSafety Commissioner & Department of Education and Training (2016 as cited by Johnston., 2018) found that participants spent significant chunks of their time online, but were still sceptical when it came to believing what they were reading or seeing (Johnston, 2018).

While the study showed that more young people trusted television, the fact that at least half of the students in the study still trust websites and social media instantly, indicates that many school students do not analyse social media and online sources effectively (Johnston, 2018). So it can be seen that evaluation of sources is critical.

A second important factor to be considered is there are people out there deliberately making fake news articles and their whole intent is to deceive.

One example of this was given in the New York Times (20, is a false rumour that Hillary Clinton and her top aides were involved in various crimes snowballed into a wild conspiracy theory over the course of a few weeks that they were running a child-trafficking ring out of a pizza parlour in Washington. The rapid evolution of the false theory showed how an armed North Carolina man was led by a powerful combination of fake news and social media to investigate the rumours about the pizza spot (Schulten., & Brown, 2017).

This shows that fake news is deliberately put out there so always keep this in mind.