This post is about media literacy: it’s long because it contains a lot of tips gleaned from my years teaching science communications. It focuses a lot of attention on science literacy, but it applies to other fields as well. Besides tips, also find some questions to consider and links near the end for places to turn to help separate the real from the bogus in our daily information diet.

What is certainty?

According to Merriam-Webster, certainty stresses being free of doubt based on objective proof. It shouldn’t be confused with certitude, which is more about faith in something that doesn’t require, or can’t provide proof. Some people even think certainty is the same thing as holding convictions: which is a person’s strong belief in something not necessarily backed by objective proof.

The difference is important. What is proof? Is an anecdote proof? Is a hunch proof? Is a gut feeling proof?

Certainty is a slippery word. It can be psychological: as a deeply held belief like that of unshakeable faith (what Merriam-Webster defined as certitude or conviction) or it can be epistemic—or objective—in essence, based on evidence. It doesn’t mean it’s infallible. Generally, science provides a process for coming to a consensus. Like, we once thought the Earth is flat. Evidence proved it is not (really, it’s not).

Somewhere along the way huge segments of our modern world have become disconnected from knowledge. Their certainty shifted from objective to subjective. They believe it because they want to. And thus, Flat Earthers contend with great conviction that Earth is flat. We have circled the globe with ships, with planes, with satellites and with space capsules. We have seen the shape of our planet in lunar eclipses. We’ve even taken pictures from space of our blue (round) marble.

Why not let people think what they want?

I’ve written about how certainty in an uncertain world can lead us to catastrophize risk or to ignore a threat, in both cases resulting in negative outcomes. It can lead to science denialism and conspiracy theories, and thus inaction on important issues that can kill us. I’ve also talked about how the way we tell the science story matters.

Olin Hall wrote for the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities:

“Without a shared factual world, we cannot talk, argue, or disagree with others; we are left with nothing to do but talk to those with whom we already agree. In a world without facts, we risk undermining the venture of politics as Arendt understood it: to create together a common world, one as unruly, disorderly, and argumentative as such togetherness demands.”

Not long ago a local policymaker told me scientists can’t be trusted because they are paid to “make up” evidence to get grants and push a political agenda. His “proof” was research from the 1960s that postulated we could be headed for another ice age.

The holes in this argument are glacier-sized and represent a complete misunderstanding about how science works: that we hypothesize, test, review, critique, test again and come to a working understanding and theory. And sometimes we shift our understanding of what is occurring due to new information. He dismissed expertise about our modern understanding of climate change because scientists are paid (and that old 1960s study). Are researchers supposed to build computer models, collect ice-core samples, conduct air monitoring, report data, peer review new studies, etc. and work 40-plus hours a week for free? Instead, he deferred to trusted political opinion leaders who are generally paid much more than a research scientist to express an opinion that is backed up by “gut feelings,” wishful thinking, and, often, a political agenda.

Both are paid. Both allegedly have agendas. Which one should we put our trust in?

Yeah, it’s basic: Science.

Why does it matter?

It matters because we live in a world where some opinion leaders encourage wishful thinking, agenda-pushing, gut-feeling conspiracy theories that can kill: from vaccine skepticism to climate change denial. Those opinion leaders make millions, billions, off people’s fears: of the other, of change, of difference, of whatever fear attracts listeners/viewers/readers. From denying events like the Sandy Hook shooting, to quacks hawking cure-alls, some of which are deadly. It’s about big pharma, big oil, big polluters wining and dining pundits and politicians, offering lucrative deals or funding “think tanks” that tell us that it’s economic suicide to regulate their industry.

The public supports public policy with their votes, but often with limited understanding of an issue. In turn, lawmakers allocate research funding and implement policy based on their own limited knowledge and at the insistence of constituents or lobbyists. When it comes to highly complex issues, especially involving science and technology, most people have an insufficient sense of the underlying science, principles, methods used, impacts, risks or benefits to have an informed opinion or make decisions.

It’s about media literacy

Media literacy used to be easier. Media had strict rules it had to follow to be licensed to broadcast on the public airwaves. Journalism was ubiquitous. There were literally hundreds of newspapers in each state competing to get it right. You might have sensational grocery aisle tabloids like the Weekly World News and its diet of human-animal hybrids and alien abductions, but you also had an army of news reporters checking facts under a code of ethics, attempting to do their due diligence to establish the truth.

Was it perfect? No. Minority voices and stories seldom claimed space. “If it bleeds, it leads” headline makers dominated. But there were many reporters serving as watchdogs, correcting the record, digging deeper, and uncovering scandals. We still had stories that made for conspiracy—like the John F. Kennedy assassination—but no one really doubted he was dead.

But now, anyone can have a platform (look at me!) even as journalism has been ground down to a few outlets held by monied interests with their own agendas. AI and deep fake images and videos challenge even the most discerning consumers. Weighing “truth” becomes an exercise in both trust and gut feelings, and this is where things go horribly wrong. We have inherent confirmation bias: we tend to seek out stories that reinforce our preexisting beliefs. We don’t want to deal with the cognitive dissonance of being proven wrong.

Be media literate!

Media literacy is that act of looking beyond the AI summary and first hits on a Google search to find out where the information comes from, and how that source is funded. Is the coverage paid for by a special interest? Or is the newspaper owned by an oil company with the intent of mixing positive fossil fuel industry press with local news to fill the hole left when independent news sources were parted out and killed? Is the source a think tank that leans to the right (e.g. CATO) or far right (e.g. Heritage Foundation) or left (e.g., Center for American Progress)? Is it the blog of a researcher with expertise in that field? Or is it someone with an agenda to push?

Then there’s reading the research.

We aren’t all equipped to read every study, and often, in the process of translating and amplifying study results, we end up over-simplifying. The difference between a scientific “breakthrough” and just the everyday progression of science can be confusing. The difference between “correlation” where a link is found, and “causation” where we can say Thing A is a direct result of Thing B is often lost on both the public, and the journalists covering science.

Does your information source have an agenda? Is it click bait? Is it trying to be first out the gate without time to be vetted? People have limited time to read, but the news media also have limited space and time and reporters to cover all the information. This means they may rely on press releases and don’t go further in their exploration of funding and methods and context. Or editors may forego coverage of less “sexy” topics to focus on scandals. Complex issues, such as explaining the mechanisms of climate change or mRNA technology become lost in the need to simplify and shorten to the point where the consumer of the information gains very little understanding or context.

It can be dangerous to have a little information.

We can’t all be experts. But we can recognize when we don’t know enough. Both an expert and a literate researcher recognize where they have gaps in their knowledge. Both an expert and a literate researcher know that knowledge isn’t static.

What’s an expert?

• Someone who listened to a podcast talking about Vietnam War vets is not an expert on the Vietnam War.
• A person who has read a couple of books about the Vietnam War and watched a PBS documentary is not an expert. They may have more background on the subject than their buddies, but it doesn’t make them an expert.
• An undergrad with a major in history who did a research paper on the Gulf of Tonkin incident is not an expert on the Vietnam War.
• A Masters in American history is not necessarily an expert on the Vietnam War.
• A historian with a PhD in 20^th century history is not necessarily an expert on the Vietnam War.
• A Vietnamese person currently living in Vietnam is not necessarily an expert on the Vietnam War, though they may have cultural insights that give them expertise in some aspect of that war and its aftermath.
• A Vietnam War veteran is not necessarily an expert on the Vietnam War. They may have expertise on some aspect of their deployment and personal experience, but they aren’t necessarily an expert on the history, aftermath, and politics of the war.
• A historian whose sole focus has been the study of the Vietnam War is generally considered an expert. However, that person may lack key areas of expertise that could be filled in by Vietnamese oral histories and cultural knowledge, or a French, U.S. or Vietnamese witness’s perspectives.

The expert knows what they don’t know.

If you’re doing research to argue an informed opinion, you may want to take the route of a media literate researcher, while a media literate reader will want to hone different skills for sifting through the noise.

A literate researcher can gain some expertise by consuming the works of experts. But they will always recognize the gaps in their knowledge. They will always have enough knowledge to also be dangerous.

A literate researcher discerns between opinion pieces—even those by avowed experts can be slanted or cherry-picked to advocate a position—and rigorous research that strives to be unbiased. Research may have interpretations. But it usually isn’t expressing an “opinion”: “data using the methodology described above, show that Result A happened during Function B, leading us, based on the body of scientific knowledge we cited above, to the conclusion that Hypothesis C is correlated (or not).”

Be a literate researcher

• What sources are relied on?
• Check the about pages of a website: what’s the mission? Who is on the board?
• Follow the money: who funds it?
• Who else makes this claim? How many sources for this information are out there? (Do all the examples of this go back to a social media claim?)
• Who do those sources cite? Do they cite anyone to support their statements?
• Is it based on qualitative or quantitative data and how rigorous was the methodology?
• Does it appear AI-generated? Follow the links, do they support the AI summary?
• Does it over generalize?
• If it’s research, check Google Scholar. A peer-reviewed paper will have a title, author(s) and their affiliations. It cites its sources, describes its methodology, identifies literature that it’s building upon and reports its findings. Are others citing it and if so, are they rejecting or supporting the claims? Why?
• Is it published on an advocacy or marketing site? How does it address that appearance of bias?
• Are there obvious variables that haven’t been addressed?
• Does it appear to deal with reputable sources of data?
• Does it reach conclusions that don’t appear supported?
• Are there a lot of caveats about the data?
• If advocating a position, does it fairly represent opposing views and refute them persuasively without generalizations and based on evidence?
• Is the evidence anecdotal, or is it based on research?
• Are claims cited?
• Are the sources outdated?
• Do they explain their methods of obtaining info?
• What does the summary leave out?

If the information is in a newspaper or a magazine intended for the general public, no matter how skilled the journalist, the information is being interpreted, translated and aggregated for your consumption. What the journalist or their editor found important is what you will see. It has already gone through at least two levels of distillation. Great for basics, but not necessarily the place to build an argument.

Who is being interviewed? A politician isn’t necessarily an expert on the topic. She may not even be an expert on policy. She has an opinion, perhaps based on information provided in consultation with experts, but also filtered by a lot of people who have their own agendas. She might be a primary source for what happened today in the House during a vote, but that’s politics: based in opinion.

Even the kind of information makes a difference. Is it an aggregation of a story? Is it quoting someone else’s summary?

If it claims to be original research, is it:

• a lab report or study result,
• an analysis that places new findings in context of existing knowledge,
• a meta-analysis where a whole body of research is compared (but which have all used different methods),
• a literature review that examines all the theories on some aspect of a discipline,
• a critique that looks at holes or errors in our understanding or conduct of research,
• an essay that tries to place it in a larger context,
• an informative or explanatory piece that simply provides the background on a subject or a persuasive argument advocating for some action or to build a case?

Whew.  All of these have different levels of rigor, and different expectations for their conclusions.

And then there’s peer review. But what about journal mills and fakes? AI has led to both journalism scams, scientific journal articles that are AI written and riddled with errors, or that are used to pad researchers’ CVs with “fake” letters and even publishing research under an academic’s name, without their knowledge, to allegedly add credibility to the journal.

Hoo boy, it’s getting difficult. And based on the time between when the research is conducted and when it’s published, other studies could come out that refute it. This is why multiple sources are so necessary.

Be a literate reader

If you just want to know if what you’re seeing is real, there are a few less taxing approaches you can take.

Faced with an article about new research, especially when it claims a breakthrough, here’s a couple of questions to think about:

• What does the article suggest is the key takeaway
• What do you think is the key takeaway?
• Is it new or contradictory information to the way you have thought about things before?
• Does it challenge other positions on the topic?
• What appears to be the purpose of the author? To inform? Persuade? Take Action?
• Do you feel inclined to agree or disagree with the article’s premise? Why? Where does that feeling come from? Is it your previous understanding and personal views, or something about the evidence provided or the arguments made?
• Is there something missing? Are there questions that aren’t answered, or possible impacts or issues that don’t appear to be addressed?
• Are there larger contexts that are suggested by the text? Does the author address them?

Overwhelmed with information: What now?

It’s overwhelming. We are inundated with news, factoids, entertainment, tidbits, social media, bombast and gossip. How do we find signal through all that noise? What’s credible?

Unsure whether you believe an image or video?

• Try using Google Images to reverse look up an image to see where it has appeared. Sometimes it reveals the original image didn’t include that damning detail.
• A variety of sites also claim—to varying degrees of success—that they can detect if an image is AI-generated, for example Sight Engine.
• A recent NPR story has a few more suggestions for identifying AI slop videos, plus a short quiz to see whether you can identify the signs.

Is that story true?

• Most of us know Snopes, though they can’t conceivably cover everything out there, they do capture quite a few of the fake stories in circulation, especially about celebrities and popular media.
• The Annenberg Public Policy Center runs a fact checking service that captures many current events through Factcheck.org and the Poynter Institute runs Politifact.
• Additional fact checkers exist, and local news organizations often run fact checks, especially during election season.

Independent and Nonprofit News

Independent and nonprofit news sources often are not beholden to the whims of large corporate owners. In the U.S., the Institute for Nonprofit New’s search tool can help people find local or regional nonprofit news outlets, such as my local Wisconsin Watch.

• ProPublica is a nonprofit investigative online news source whose deep investigations have forced policy changes.
• The Associated Press and Reuters are independent news sources that cover national and international news with a focus on as close to objective reporting as possible.

A lot of people didn’t read this far. I get it. I spend way too much of my time on social media pointing out fake stories and posting links to fact checkers. I’m becoming that person (and annoying my friends). I don’t want to suggest we could become a real life Idiocracy, (but boy it sometimes feels like we’re heading there), but if we want to survive these times of misinformation it’s more important than ever to strive to be media literate.

Cover photo of the sun shining through clouds over Lake Mendota, in Madison Wisconsin, by Meg Turville-Heitz

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