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I just read a *great* paper on digital literacy.
The authors explore how three different groups—Stanford students, professional academic historians, and fact checkers—evaluate the reliability of online information.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3048994
The authors explore how three different groups—Stanford students, professional academic historians, and fact checkers—evaluate the reliability of online information.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3048994
tl;dr — the fact checkers are very good at this, whereas the students and history professors alike are terrible.
What's the difference? Fact checkers read laterally instead of vertically.
What's the difference? Fact checkers read laterally instead of vertically.
Lateral reading means leaving the site one is trying to evaluate and learning about it from external sources—wikipedia, newspaper articles, etc.
Vertical reading is close reading of the site itself, trying to ascertain reliability from subtle cues therein.
Vertical reading is close reading of the site itself, trying to ascertain reliability from subtle cues therein.
Lateral reading is much more effective and efficient.
As the authors explain, "the close reading of a digital source, when one doesn’t yet know if the source can be
trusted (or is what it says it is)—proves to be a colossal waste of time."
As the authors explain, "the close reading of a digital source, when one doesn’t yet know if the source can be
trusted (or is what it says it is)—proves to be a colossal waste of time."
Lateral reading is easier than ever on the web; it's designed for that sort of approach. The authors quote @holden:
Lateral reading is how you quickly ascertain the three critical questions we recommending asking in our book:
1. Who is telling me this?
2. How do they know it?
3. What are they trying to sell me?
In comparison, figuring that out by vertical reading is extremely difficult.
1. Who is telling me this?
2. How do they know it?
3. What are they trying to sell me?
In comparison, figuring that out by vertical reading is extremely difficult.
Students often looked at the wrong things—a .org URL, the quality of the web design, conformity to basic scientific publishing standards. The professional historians in the study, for their part, lacked even the basic search skills needed to get answers.
By contrast, the fact checkers do what I've learned is essential as I've tried to navigate the bullshit and astroturfing and snake oil-selling and careerism and punditry that has come with the COVID pandemic. Go outside of the source to learn about the source first and foremost.
For me a key take-home is that these skills can be taught, but be aren't teaching them. This is a huge opportunity to improve digital literacy.
Kudos to @samwineburg and Sarah McGrew on a superb piece of work.
Kudos to @samwineburg and Sarah McGrew on a superb piece of work.
