angie oehrli 02 — Transcript

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1. 0:00there are a lot of ways that you can
2. 0:03combat
3. 0:04disinformation in your personal life one
4. 0:06of the most successful strategies that
5. 0:08you can use
6. 0:09is to get off that web page when you are
7. 0:12reading
8. 0:13a particular news story or watching a
9. 0:15video
10. 0:16the stanford history education group has
11. 0:18done some research on this and they have
12. 0:19found that the most successful fact
13. 0:21checkers do not just
14. 0:23uh just silently accept information that
15. 0:27they are
16. 0:28they are seeing at the time but if they
17. 0:30see something online
18. 0:31those folks are opening up a new uh tab
19. 0:34in their web browser and actively
20. 0:36looking up writers and organizations and
21. 0:38people who are quoted in a
22. 0:40particular news story and they're
23. 0:43looking at the relationship between
24. 0:45these individuals and organization
25. 0:46to the news story who is benefiting and
26. 0:49they're asking themselves these
27. 0:50critical questions in order to get a
28. 0:54better understanding of that particular
29. 0:56news story this is called
30. 0:57reading laterally and it's one of the
31. 0:59most successful strategies you can use
32. 1:02uh to combat disinformation in your
33. 1:04personal life
34. 1:06i would also say in in terms of
35. 1:08particular kinds of disinformation when
36. 1:10you're thinking about
37. 1:11or when you encounter statistics or
38. 1:14facts and things like that in particular
39. 1:16story
40. 1:16you want to ask yourself where did these
41. 1:18statistics come from
42. 1:20ethical journalists will be very
43. 1:22transparent
44. 1:23about where they get their information
45. 1:25and if they have polling information for
46. 1:27example
47. 1:28they will tell you more about what
48. 1:30questions were asked in a survey
49. 1:33who answered those questions when were
50. 1:35these questions
51. 1:37asked these kinds of information about
52. 1:40the
53. 1:41context of the the statistics will give
54. 1:44you a sense
55. 1:45of um sort of what those statistics
56. 1:48might mean and you might even feel more
57. 1:49confident
58. 1:50in the particular conclusion that that
59. 1:54journalist
60. 1:54comes to if you can understand sort of
61. 1:57the whole picture
62. 1:58about those uh about those uh
63. 2:01numbers that they are putting together i
64. 2:03mean
65. 2:05when you're doing that you can get a
66. 2:07sense of well who is
67. 2:08not included in the story one of the
68. 2:11other really
69. 2:12successful sort of questions you should
70. 2:14ask yourself is
71. 2:15whose voice is not being represented in
72. 2:17this story
73. 2:18what is missing from this story and this
74. 2:21is one of the most challenging things i
75. 2:22hear from students
76. 2:24they come to me and they say how am i
77. 2:26supposed to know
78. 2:27what's not in the news it's hard enough
79. 2:29to know what is in the news and now i
80. 2:31have to know what's not in the news
81. 2:33and the thing that i tell people in that
82. 2:36situation is
83. 2:37the best way to figure that out is to
84. 2:40read
85. 2:40widely to read things that you don't
86. 2:43agree with
87. 2:44to read about other perspectives on a
88. 2:46particular story to go beyond
89. 2:49press releases that have been uh put out
90. 2:52there about a particular
91. 2:54action so that you can get a more
92. 2:57well-rounded understanding of
93. 2:59issues and so um then you can start
94. 3:02realizing sort of
95. 3:04all of the the factors that go into a
96. 3:06particular issue and then you'll know
97. 3:08when something's not being represented
98. 3:10fairly in a particular story or not
99. 3:12represented
100. 3:12at all i mean it can be really difficult
101. 3:15to know
102. 3:16what's going on with particular issues
103. 3:18another really important strategy in
104. 3:21this
105. 3:22is is to just sit back
106. 3:26take a breath as you're reading
107. 3:28something and
108. 3:29and watching something and start to be
109. 3:33okay with understanding that sometimes
110. 3:36we don't
111. 3:37know what's going on be more comfortable
112. 3:40with ambiguity
113. 3:41there are times when it's really
114. 3:43difficult to know
115. 3:45when what is happening uh i would say
116. 3:47when news is breaking
117. 3:49it's really hard to know why something
118. 3:51is happening
119. 3:52and so you have to be more uncomfortable
120. 3:56with that uncertainty and and take a
121. 3:59breath take a step back
122. 4:00and sort of give the news organization
123. 4:04time to really understand what's going
124. 4:06on give yourself time to absorb those
125. 4:08things
126. 4:08and become more comfortable with not
127. 4:12knowing
128. 4:12what is going on it can be really
129. 4:15difficult
130. 4:16to have conversations with people about
131. 4:18these stories so when you are combating
132. 4:20disinformation
133. 4:22with another person and they are very
134. 4:24certain about something that's going on
135. 4:26what would convince you about
136. 4:30a particular issue may not be the same
137. 4:33thing
138. 4:33as what would convince that other person
139. 4:35i'm always skeptical
140. 4:37about these three-step strategies
141. 4:40that will help you combat disinformation
142. 4:44because uh it never seems as simple as
143. 4:47all of that because each story is
144. 4:49different and each person's response to
145. 4:51that story is different
146. 4:52and so i always try to come with a
147. 4:55an attitude of clarification in those
148. 4:58conversations when i have that person
149. 5:00who's really certain or
150. 5:01perhaps thinks very differently than i
151. 5:04do about that particular issue
152. 5:07i i want to know why they feel the way
153. 5:09they do
154. 5:10where did they get that evidence and
155. 5:13sort of what is going on in that
156. 5:15conversation
157. 5:16so that i can really understand and
158. 5:18perhaps even learn more
159. 5:20myself about the particular issue i i
160. 5:23really think
161. 5:24each time you are encountering a story
162. 5:26each person's response is different and
163. 5:28so you have to sort of
164. 5:30come at each story with a fresh set of
165. 5:33eyes each conversation that
166. 5:35involves this kind of information within
167. 5:37a different approach
168. 5:39and and really think of it as a unique
169. 5:43situation
170. 5:44and deal with it in that particular
171. 5:46moment if you're in these situations
172. 5:48where you're presented with some
173. 5:50information and you're
174. 5:52and you don't actively get off the page
175. 5:55and start looking at something else if
176. 5:57you're not
177. 5:57questioning the statistics that are
178. 5:59going in there if you are feeling
179. 6:01very certain about a particular
180. 6:04issue and you're not questioning that
181. 6:07sort of certainty and coming to it from
182. 6:09an un
183. 6:10thinking well maybe we don't know what's
184. 6:11going on right now and
185. 6:13and and if you're in a situation where
186. 6:15you're not asking who is not represented
187. 6:18in the story
188. 6:19uh and looking actively for what's
189. 6:21missing in stories and if you're
190. 6:23applying the same strategies in each
191. 6:26situation
192. 6:26or passively accepting this these kinds
193. 6:29of stories
194. 6:30i would say um
195. 6:34you need to ask yourself those questions
196. 6:37before you
197. 6:38share uh this what potentially could be
198. 6:42disinformation
199. 6:44uh one of the best ways you can combat
200. 6:47disinformation is
201. 6:51not sharing information that you haven't
202. 6:56confirmed in some way