By Anna Corbett-Neal, Co-Editor-In-Chief
In light of recent events, I feel it is necessary to start talking about media literacy.
Media literacy, according to the Oxford dictionary, is “the ability to critically analyze stories presented in the mass media and to determine the accuracy or credibility.”
This is something that I feel many people, not only those in our generation but everyone in the age of social media, have struggled with. We have AI and fake news articles from less-than-credible sources thrown at us daily.
My desire to write this was sparked by an encounter I had with an individual over the most recent Super Bowl halftime performer, Bad Bunny. I'd mentioned that I loved Bad Bunny’s music and was incredibly excited for what he had in store for the performance, and this person proceeded to express his dislike for the artist due to some articles he had seen, which I knew to be untrue. The articles have sparked rumors and have circulated across many sites.
He told me he’d seen an article on Facebook that said Bad Bunny had burned American flags and spoken openly about his hatred for this country, which is in stark contrast to what I saw during the performance.
I was angered by this conversation because I knew the source he had tried to cite was an untrue story meant to slander the name of the Puerto Rican artist, most likely charged by recent events occurring in America, such as deportations of Hispanic people.
That was the moment I decided to write this story to hopefully inform others of how to find information from reputable sources.
I have one piece of advice: Never trust any source explicitly based on social media. An algorithm is feeding you information that it detects you already agree with, therefore making an unbiased source almost impossible to find.
Every informational article will have the following things: contact information, an author, supporting sources from research, a recent posting to ensure all news is up to date, and a headline that sparks interest but isn't misleading.
I, as well as many others, have fallen victim to misleading articles written by AI that required I investigate further to ensure I wasn’t being shown false information meant to cater to what AI suspected I believed.
Everyone has been a victim of AI generation and confirmation bias, but it is our job to dig deeper and hopefully become proficient in media literacy.
PHOTO: Courtesy, Unsplash
