Did your mother call you to tell you about that new miracle cure for Alzheimer's disease? Did your Facebook feed pop up with an article on a factory farm of pigs intended for human transplant harvesting? Did one of your friends tweet that Pumpkin Spice Lattes and ice cream cause cancer? You might have heard any or all of these stories, but there's one thread connecting all of them: they're not true.
The ability to tell accurate news from fake news is an important skill that you'll use for the rest of your life. This guide will give you valuable insight in telling fact from fiction, plus a chance to exercise your newfound skills.
Please feel free to share this guide with others. If you are a librarian or teacher, you are welcome to use this guide and its contents for your own purposes. Portions of this guide were created by KT Lowe, Librarian at Indiana University East and Corliss Lee, Librarian at UC-Berkeley.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please note that I do not give permission for any part of this LibGuide to be used for any for-profit endeavors, including publication.
There are four broad categories of fake news, according to media professor Melissa Zimdars of Merrimack College.
CATEGORY 1: Fake, false, or regularly misleading websites that are shared on Facebook and social media. Some of these websites may rely on “outrage” by using distorted headlines and decontextualized or dubious information in order to generate likes, shares, and profits.
CATEGORY 2: Websites that may circulate misleading and/or potentially unreliable information
CATEGORY 3: Websites which sometimes use clickbait-y headlines and social media descriptions
CATEGORY 4: Satire/comedy sites, which can offer important critical commentary on politics and society, but have the potential to be shared as actual/literal news
No single topic falls under a single category - for example, false or misleading medical news may be entirely fabricated (Category 1), may intentionally misinterpret facts or misrepresent data (Category 2), may be accurate or partially accurate but use an alarmist title to get your attention (Category 3) or may be a critique on modern medical practice (Category 4.) Some articles fall under more than one category. Assessing the quality of the content is crucial to understanding whether what you are viewing is true or not. It is up to you to do the legwork to make sure your information is good.
