Confronting Fake News and Misinformation (KF_044)
About Study Course
Objective
Society in general and each individual depends on information to make their political and economic decisions, but can all information be trusted? Someone may feel that mass manipulation and disinformation are the part of ancient history, but they are becoming more prominent part of our daily lives because of increasing depdence on technology. This course addresses the renewed phenomemon of fake news, misinformation/disinformation and its related concepts; then focuses more explicitly on psychological factors that make people vulnerable to misperceptions and conspiracy theories. Students will develop sustantive expertise in how to measure, diagnose and repond to false believes in digitial environment. This course includes practical learning excercices and special simulation game to strenghten crital thinking skills.
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge of communication, public relations or journalism.
Learning outcomes
Students will learn to:
- Understand the use of key concepts misinformation/disinformation, fakes news;
- Understand the power of news media and information;
- Identify key characteristics of real news: verification, accountability, indepencence and multiple perspectives;
- Evaluate the reability and accuracy of sources in news stories and other information;
- Deconstruct news stories;
- Use news and other information to counter disinformation/misinformation.
- Multidisciplinary teambuilding and collaboration;
- Solving complex problems;
- The ability to communicate in order to generate path-breaking solutions to complex problems.
- Ability to screen and critically review media, especially digitial media content;
- individually and in groups summarize, discuss and present topic-relevant problems;
- apply theoretical knowledge into practice.
Study course planning
| Study programme | Study semester | Program level | Study course category | Lecturers | Schedule |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elective courses, C-kursi | 1 | Free choice | Lāsma Šķestere |
