Social Bots und Fake News - Was EU- und UNESCO-Referenzrahmen zum Lernen im digitalen Zeitalter darüber (nicht) sagen

Abstract

Over recent years, international organisations like the EU and UNESCO have set up a number of proposals, models and frameworks that seek (i) to map and to conceptualize digital literacy and related concepts, e. g. information, digital or media literacy, digital competence, digital skills and (ii) to formulate policies and recommendations based on the conceptualizations developed. The resulting frameworks, such as Digital Competence (DigComp) developed by the EU, or Media and Information Literacy (MIL) developed by UNESCO, have a strong formative power on a global scale. Affected are policies, laws, regulations, research activities, and academic disciplines like media pedagogy and mindsets. Do these frameworks consider the effects of disruptive attempts by digital media to intervene in public debates e. g. social bots, fake news and other manifestations of biased or false information online? Do they offer avenues for reflection and action to address them? Guided by these questions, this paper studies the flagship frameworks on digital education of the EU and UNESCO, DigComp and MIL. It finds biases in both frameworks. To different degrees, both tend to overemphasize the practical and instrumental use of digital literacy.

The Use of Critical Thinking to Identify Fake News: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Fake News and Social Media. A number of authors [6,15] are in agreement that social media, the leading source of news, is the biggest driving force for fake news. It provides substantial advantage to broadcast manipulated information.…”

“…It is an open platform of unfiltered editors and open to contributions from all. According to Nielsen and Graves as well as Janetzko, [6,15], people are unable to identify fake news correctly. They are likely to associate fake news with low quality journalism than false information designed to mislead.…”

“…They are likely to associate fake news with low quality journalism than false information designed to mislead. Two articles, [15] and [6] discussed the role of critical thinking when interacting on social media. Social media presents information to us that has been filtered according to what we already consume, thereby making it a challenge for consumers to think critically.…”