Fake News: Questions and Resources for Back to Class and All Year Round

Ah, fake news.  As a phenomenon, its truthiness is both fascinating (from an epistemological perspective, at least) and highly troubling (from the perspective of anyone who cares about information literacy, quality research, social justice, ...). Many anthropologists and others have spent a lot of time not only countering fake news messages -- the recently infamous Google Memo is a good example -- but trying to understand how and why fake news works. For instance, take Scientific American's Anthropology in Practice articles on "Understanding The Social Capital of Fake News" (28 November 2016) and "Three Historical Examples of "Fake News"" (1 December 2016).

Discerning valid arguments based on evidence from what might be called "fake news" has always been an important part of a university education. Yet, the challenges we face in how we teach this kind of critical thinking seem to be becoming ever more difficult in the current climate and through the proliferation of messages in our contemporary media.


Luckily, hardworking librarians exist to help uphold information literacy teaching and learning, like those at the Toronto Public Library. Toronto librarians have put together an accessible page on How to Spot Fake News that poses important questions to consider (and why to consider them) when assessing the validity of a message, article, post, or news site, as well as links to additional resources. While some of these additional resources are available only to TPL patrons, many more are accessible to anyone, such as this list of Research Guides:

• How Do I Spot Fake News? (University of Toronto Libraries) 
• Fake News: Resources (Indiana University East) 
• Fake News, Misinformation, and Propaganda (Harvard University) 
• Fighting Fake News: Start (Gustavus Adolphus College) 
• Evaluating Information - Applying the CRAAP Test (PDF) (Meriam Library) 
• How to Identify Fake News in 10 Steps (ProQuest)
• Updated 14 January 2018: The BBC has another 10 point checklist Fake news: Universities offer tips on how to spot it
• Updated 14 January 2018: And the TLDR version... check out this informative, accessible video from Quartz featuring journalist Damaso Reyes (3:05 minutes).

Now that you are armed with these great resources and questions, happy back to class!

Quick Links and further reading:

• What is ‘Fake News’? (Sociological Imagination, 2017)
• "Understanding The Social Capital of Fake News" and "Three Historical Examples of "Fake News"" (Scientific American's Anthropology in Practice, 2016).
• Anthropologists need to address the Google memo on its merits. Again. (Anthrodendum, 2017)
• How to Spot Fake News (Toronto Public Library)
• anthro everywhere!'s page on Reading Lists, Syllabi, & Teaching Resources including a link to the Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data Syllabus

Updated 14 January 2018

What's in a Word? The Importance of Recognizing the Etymology of Words

There have been a number of interesting posts lately about the 'unsavory' history of some everyday words and phrases in a growing discourse which argues that the use of slurs and unsavory language needs to be protected as one's right to freedom of speech.

In perusing social media of late, it's not hard to see how language has changed and the use of racialized, prejudiced, or derogatory language is becoming more common place (for example, see Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui's recent article in the National Observer entitled You know there’s a problem when you get 50,000 anti-Muslim emails in your inbox).

In a recent post, Adeshina Emmanuel explores the background of few phrases that don't typically show up in such reviews, including: No can do, uppity, long time no see, and peanut gallery.

Linguistic Anthropologist Sarah Shulist from MacEwan University has also recently pointed out the issue with arguing for the continued right to use these unsavory words by those in privilege. She argues that negative meanings are particularly potent and their meanings enhanced (read: prioritized, highlighted, understood, or run through conversations as an undercurrent) through their continued use (as slurs, through discussion or analysis...which she admits is what she's doing in her post) in discussion.

As for whether or not the use of slurs should continue under the guise of arguments defending free speech, she writes:

The loss of a few (or even a lot of) words from my repertoire doesn’t really hinder my communicative creativity all that much – it limits me verbally about to the same degree that not being allowed to hit people limits my range of acceptable arm motions. The fact that we strive for ideologies of maximal offensiveness allowed is yet another ugly feature of a structurally racist society.

Quick links and further reading:

• Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui's You know there’s a problem when you get 50,000 anti-Muslim emails in your inbox (10 March 2017, National Observer) 
• Common Words and Phrases That Have Seriously Racist Roots (attn.com)
• Sarah Shulist on Language Change, Racism, and White Ideologies
• more from anthro everywhere! on language

Bullshit! Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data Syllabus

We came across this syllabus the other day and can think of many ways in which these open access materials and their analysis can be used in anthropology classrooms, communication skills courses, as well as numerous other applications.

On their homepage, the authors write:

The world is awash in bullshit. Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Higher education rewards bullshit over analytic thought. Startup culture elevates bullshit to high art. 

The authors identify the following learning objectives:

After taking the course, you should be able to:

• Remain vigilant for bullshit contaminating your information diet.
• Recognize said bullshit whenever and wherever you encounter it.
• Figure out for yourself precisely why a particular bit of bullshit is bullshit.
• Provide a statistician or fellow scientist with a technical explanation of why a claim is bullshit.
• Provide your crystals-and-homeopathy aunt or casually racist uncle with an accessible and persuasive explanation of why a claim is bullshit.

Some of the highlights include:

1. Robert Matthews (2000) Storks deliver babies (p=0.008). Teaching Statistics 22:36-38
2. The Principle of Proportional Ink 
3. How do you know a paper is legit?  
4. Musicians and Mortality 

These are just a few of the many gems found in this treasure trove developed by Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West from the University of Washington.

All open access resources. The latest in 'personal education'.

Quick Links and further reading:

• Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data online syllabus
• anthro everywhere!'s:
• Imaginative Ethnography Syllabi (CIE) (February 6, 2017)
• Teaching Ethnography (January 26, 2017)
• Our page of collected Reading Lists & Syllabi Resources