Misinformation vs. Disinformation EOTO

                                               

In 2021, society likes things to have a short and easy way to call things. Most of the time we rely on acronyms like - "gtg", "brb", "ttyl". Yet, we also use the phrase fake news which also coincides with misinformation and disinformation. Fake news is purposefully crafted, sensational, emotionally charged, misleading or totally fabricated information geared to the mainstream news services.Misinformation is UNintentionally spreading false/inaccurate information while disinformation is INtentionally spreading false/inaccurate information. As you can see, the two go hand in hand with each other so it's easy to get them confused.

We see both of these terms in our everyday lives without even realizing it. The society that we live in, specifically my generation, likes to believe everything that we see - whether that's on instagram, tik tok, twitter, or anything with a big, intriguing headline that stands out. The best example of misinformation and disinformation I've always connected the two with was the game telephone. Within telephone, one person tells a short sentence/phrase and it gets passed around. You'll always have a person who genuinely can't hear the person who is whispering and the person who wants to change it to be the jokster of the game. This is a perfect information of misinformation and disinformation. 

As a society, we tend to be heavily influenced by misinformation/disinformation. We are susceptible to misinformation. Once we hear new information, we tend to believe it and if we hear corrections we develop a bias based off of that information even though the information we might've heard could very much be false. Specifically with disinformation, we are easily manipulated through the 6 degrees of manipulation. As a society, we are easily fooled with news articles that we see on a day to day basis. Most of the articles that are evaluated to be under the disinformation category use the 6 degrees of manipulation to appeal to our ethos, pathos, and logos.

Society this..Society that... This will always be in the counterpart when we talk about technology or adapting to new things. Yet, with fake news (misinformation and disinformation), it affects our society deeply. Since our society tends to be "lazy" and likes information"quick" this allows us to interpret and share information that may harm society. Instagram as well as Facebook have a relatively new feature (within the past two years) that tries to block false/divisive information when people repost each others stuff. 

                                                

There's so much information circling around on the internet, the media, and by word of mouth, that we need to start going the extra mile. There's so much information regulating that we should know how to determine whether it is fake news. 

While doing my research for this blog post and the EOTO presentations, Brian Southwell, helps break down the beginning steps that will help target fake news. 

• Analyze the source
• Identify- who is writing it ?
• Intent - what is your intent? what is the author's intent?
• Authoritative Resources - Background information
• Evaluate - does it follow through with what you're doing - entertainment, school work,etc