A research guide in association with the Make Believe exhibition. This guide aims to keep you informed about misinformation, providing tips and tricks to help you with your own navigation on the high seas of information.
There are a number of fact checking sites that can be checked when checking the veracity of information shared online. They all stress the importance of being impartial, non-biased and transparent, and the International Fact Checking Network was created in part to ensure that these organisations remain politically and commercially neutral:
IFLA Statement on Fake News. https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/1239
The International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) provide some good frameworks for approaching fake news and potentially unreliable media sources. They have produced a great How To Spot Fake News infographic, providing a focus on some key issues encountered with fake news – especially the need to check other sources. You can use these eight steps to help identify the credibility of a news article.
Western Sydney University's News and Media Centre have recently published a new report titled Online misinformation in Australia: Adults' experiences, abilities and responses (2024). Based on a study of 2115 Australian adults from all walks of life, the report highlights the issues that arise from experiencing an overwhelming influx of information, especially via social media use. These issues are compounded by a lack of education about media and information literacy, and critical tools to help guide, interpret, and make sense of online news and media.
Concerningly, most participants in the study were not confident in their ability to identify online misinformation, despite reporting that they encounter online misinformation each week - frequently around the topics of economics, celebrity, and crime or crisis. Social media networks like Facebook and Instagram have been flagging items that present misinformation and disinformation, which ensure that social media users can be alerted to these practices. However, recent and concerning announcements from these platforms' owner regarding the discontinuation of third-party independent fact checkers should be reason enough to approach with caution any information found on social media.
In any case, more sophisticated mis- or disinformation can slip through without being reported or otherwise detected. Many news organisations are driven by advertising and bringing more users to their sites, so clickbait headlines, and the ease of sharing news articles online do not necessarily reflect deep engagement with the content. Social media plays into this with the "echo chamber" effect, where alternative or opposing information on particular topics is filtered out in favour of similar information. The Online Misinformation in Australia report suggests that a lack of deeper engagement with media content, as well as general cynicism about media platforms, can lead to misinformation being spread more readily.
Overall, the report highlights the need to increase opportunities for free and accessible media literacy education to help people to more readily identify misinformation. Happily, more countries are adopting broad frameworks for critical education tools like information and media literacy. The Australian Media Literacy Alliance (AMLA) have developed their own framework, identifying the key concepts, competencies, and knowledge indicators for media literacy, which they define as "the ability to critically engage with media in all aspects of life."
Algorithm – predetermined sequence of steps that a computer follows to solve a problem or accomplish a task. Social media platforms utilize algorithms to sort and prioritize content for each user based on factors like viewing behaviour and content preferences.
Artificial intelligence (AI) – computer programs that are trained to tackle problems that are typically challenging for computers to solve. These programs learn by processing data, refining their methods and responses to enhance accuracy.
Clickbait – something - often an over-the-top headline - that encourages people to click on a link on a website.
Confirmation bias – the tendency for people to assume that new information confirms or conforms to their existing beliefs.
Deepfake – images and other types of media (videos, audio) fabricated with artificial intelligence.
Disinformation – false information intentionally shared to discredit or undermine public discourse.
Dog whistle – the use of coded or suggestive language in political messaging to garner support from a particular group without provoking opposition.
Echo chamber – when a person encounters opinions and beliefs - usually on social media - that align with and reinforce their own, and alternative viewpoints are filtered out.
Fake news – news articles which convey false information under the guise of objective journalism.
Fact-checking – the process of verifying the truthfulness and accuracy of official, published information, including politicians' statements and news reports.
Meme – an idea that spreads person to person throughout a culture by propagating rapidly (or virally), and changing over time. Memes are often encountered as picture-and-text based images on social media.
Misinformation – either factual information incorrectly reported, or incorrect information reported as fact.
Moral panic – public anxiety or alarm in response to a problem seen as threatening the moral standards of society.
Post-truth – when emotional appeals have more influence than facts and logical arguments.
Propaganda – true or false information that attempts to persuade or mislead an audience, often with political connotations, and often associated with information produced by governments.
Trolling – the intentional posting of offensive or provocative content in an online community to incite reactions or disrupt discussions.
Viral – when an image, story or video is shared quickly amongst many internet-users.
Website content is often changing and sometimes quite ephemeral in nature. Theses web archiving tools show what a website looked like at a particular point in time - and tracks it across points in time. This is also useful if a link is 'dead' and website no longer exists
Since 1998 SLV has been collecting online content such as websites, blogs and media. These vary from one-off standalone to scheduled titles gathered over time, presented as closely as possible to how they were originally. While SLV focus is primarily Victorian, as a partner in the National Library of Australia's PANDORA Archive, we offer access to material nationwide for all users.
Many titles are offered as part of curated collections. Cultural festivals, sporting events, election campaigns are among the many collections available. Collections involving nationwide collaboration are frequent with the most significant of recent years being Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic and Australia, 2020-2022, a multi-level record of life during the pandemic in Australia which features a significant contribution from State Library Victoria.
The Library curates a selection of archived Victorian websites which are searchable through our catalogue. Use the keyword 'pandora' as part of your search to find web archived content. You can also use the filters to the right of the page to select 'web resources' as a Resource Type or 'PANDORA electronic collection' as a series.
The National Library of Australia (through it's Trove platform) has an archive of Australian website snapshots organised into themed sub collections. The Australian web archive pulls together records archived in PANDORA, Commonwealth government websites archived multiple times a year (previously know as: The Australian Government web archive) and the Australian Domain Harvest collection ('.au' content harvested annually)
Curated snapshots can be browsed across a wide range of topics such as Government & Law, Health. Politics and People & Culture.
Established by the National Library of Australia, the Pandora web archive is a collaboration between a number of cultural institutions. It can be searched by keyword or by website URL. Most have multiple snapshots that show how different websites have changed over time.
The Internet Archive, a non-profit library of millions of free texts, movies, software, music, and websites, hosts the Wayback Machine, which contains archived snapshots of millions of websites from around the world.
