Dealing with propaganda, misinformation and fake news
It is vital for schools to provide students with a solid education on media and information literacy as part of the curriculum.
Teachers must be well-trained in the subject to empower students with the necessary competences to critically understand and assess information reported by all forms of media.
Projects in partnership with national and local authorities and media organisations are encouraged.
Facts & figures
Two thirds of EU citizens report coming across fake news at least once a week.[1]
Over 80% of EU citizens say they see fake news both as an issue for their country and for democracy in general.[2]
Half of EU citizens aged 15-30 say they need critical thinking and information skills to help them combat fake news and extremism in society.[3]
What is propaganda, misinformation and fake news?
The terms ‘propaganda’, ‘misinformation’ and ‘fake news’ often overlap in meaning. They are used to refer to a range of ways in which sharing information causes harm, intentionally or unintentionally – usually in relation to the promotion of a particular moral or political cause or point of view.
It is possible to separate out three clearly different uses of information which fall into this category:
- Mis-information - false information shared with no intention of causing harm
- Dis-information - false information shared intentionally to cause harm
- Mal-information - true information shared intentionally to cause harm.[4]
Although none of these phenomena are new, they have taken on new significance recently with the widespread availability of sophisticated forms of information and communication technology. The sharing of text, images, videos, or links online, for example, allows information to go viral within hours.
Why is propaganda, misinformation and fake news important at school?
Since information and communication technology is so central to their lives nowadays, young people are particularly vulnerable to propaganda, misinformation and fake news. Young people spend a significant amount of their time watching television, playing online games, chatting, blogging, listening to music, posting photos of themselves and searching for other people with whom to communicate online. They rely heavily on information circulated online for their knowledge of the world and how they perceive reality. Many parents do not have sufficient technical competence to keep up with their children’s online activity, or educate them about the risks they might be facing. Schools, therefore, have a duty to provide young people with the critical and information skills which they cannot access at home.
“The significant rise of fake news as propaganda in recent years makes it critical that students have the skills they need to identify truth and discern bias.”[5]
The ability to respond critically to online propaganda, misinformation and fake news is more than a safe-guarding tool, however, it is also an important democratic competence in its own right. Analytical and critical thinking, and knowledge and critical understanding of the world, including the role of language and communication lie at the heart of the Council of Europe Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture. They are central to Digital Citizenship Education and Media and Information Literacy.[6]
“School is the one place where it is absolutely crucial to train future citizens to understand, to criticise and to create information. It is in schools that the digital citizen must begin and maintain constant critical thinking in order to attain meaningful participation in his or her community.”[7]
The ability to handle off-line as well as online propaganda, misinformation and fake news is also a key skill in a number of other school subjects, e.g., History, Social Studies, Science, Religious Studies and Art. Young people may study the use of nationalistic and patriotic slogans, or so-called ‘atrocity propaganda’ in WW1 in History, for example; or art forms designed to support particular ideologies in Art lessons.
Another area in which information and communication technology is becoming an issue for schools is through adverse comments made about teachers and schools on social media. Schools are finding that parents and others increasingly turn to social media when they have a dispute or disagreement with their school, e.g., over school rules, school policies, or staff behaviour. How to handle online critical or defamatory comments or campaigns of this sort has become a matter of concern for leaders and managers in some schools.[8]
What are the challenges?
There are a number of challenges facing schools wishing to take propaganda, misinformation and fake news seriously as an educational or social issue:
- Teachers’ own online activity and area of experience is often quite limited and frequently lags behind that of their students. This can make them reticent to take on this area of teaching and learning without a significant commitment to professional development.
- The speed with which technology and young peoples’ online activity changes makes it difficult for teachers to keep up-to-date with recent developments. Even professional development programmes can go rapidly out-of-date.
- It can be difficult finding a discrete slot in the school timetable where issues relating to the creation and sharing of information can be taught. While aspects may be raised in a number of subjects, it can be a problem finding a space in an over-full curriculum where the phenomenon can be dealt with head-on as an issue in its own right.
- The description ‘fake news’ does not mean there is such a category as ‘true’ news. All news is a selection and written to suit a particular audience for a particular purpose. Providing the depth of analysis and sophisticated skills that do justice to this topic can be a challenge for some schools, especially in terms of teacher competence and training.
“States should take measures to promote media and digital literacy, including by covering these topics as part of the regular school curriculum and by engaging with civil society and other stakeholders to raise awareness about these issues.”[9]
How can schools get active?
Providing training for teachers on media and information literacy is the key to raising the profile of the issue in schools. Even though it may have a tendency to date, training can at least alert teaching staff to the importance of this area of learning for their students. The more important teachers see the area, the more they will feel the need to continuously up-date their skills themselves.
While it is important to recruit as many teachers as possible to this work, it can be more effective in the long run to start by appointing an individual teacher, or a small team, to lead on media and information literacy in the school. This element of specialist expertise can be charged with:
- Keeping staff up to date with new developments in information and communication technology
- Training them in strategies for handling propaganda, misinformation and fake news
- Helping them integrate these issues into the curriculum of different subjects
- Leading on school-policy development and action planning in this area.
In addition to these sorts of developments, there are a number of other initiatives a school can take to meet the challenges of the rapidly changing world of online propaganda, misinformation and fake news. These include:
- Special days or events in school on the subject of propaganda, misinformation or fake news as a way of overcoming the problems of an over-crowded formal curriculum
- Peer education initiatives in which older students instruct and counsel younger students in the safe handling of information they access in the media
- Partnerships with outside professionals or companies with expertise in this area, e.g., journalists, IT companies, universities
- Virtual links with schools in other regions or countries enabling students to get a different perspective on news and current affairs
- Recruiting parents with expertise in information and communication technology to help with school policy development or work alongside teaching staff to enrich student learning.
[1] Flash Eurobarometer 464 , 2018
[3] Flash Eurobarometer 455, 2018
[4] Wardle & Derakhshan, H., 2017. Information Disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making. Strasbourg, France: Council of Europe.
[5] When is fake news propaganda?, Facing History and Ourselves, 2018
[6] Digital Citizenship Education Handbook, 2019
[8] Council of Europe: Managing Controversy: a whole school training tool, 2017
[9] OSCE: Joint declaration on freedom of expression and “fake news”, disinformation and propaganda
Resources on Dealing with Propaganda, misinformation and fake news
Related schools projects
Address:
Country:
Project: Literacia para os Media – Uma abordagem ao longo do 10.º ano [Media Literacy – an approach for year 10]
Working language during the project:
Themes of the Council of Europe campaign “FREE to SPEAK, SAFE to LEARN - Democratic Schools for All” covered:
- Dealing with propaganda, misinformation and fake news
Competences from the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (CDC) addressed and where / how they were integrated:
- Knowledge and critical understanding of the world: politics, law, human rights, culture, cultures, religions, history, media, economies, environment, sustainability
To foster a critical and attitude of intervention towards the surrounding reality and the media; to contribute to the development of informed and enlightened citizens. - Knowledge and critical understanding of language and communication
To teach how to understand audiences, identifying possible social differences as far as relationships and behaviour of audiences are concerned; to identify the "voices that are heard" in the media and the "voices that remain silent"; to think about the uses of the media; and to understand that the media content/messages do not have the same meaning to everyone - Responsability
To teach how to use the Internet safely; to develop the ability to perceive "good" and "bad" information – check the sources; to analyse the truthfulness and relevance of information; to teach how to make use of the many advantages that Internet has to offer; to learn how not to release personal data
Target group age range:
- 15-19
Level of education:
- Upper secondary education
Short description of the project:
This project was launched in 2018 after attending a Teacher Training Workshop called «Media Literacy and Journalism», which involved a partnership between the Directorate-General for Education and the Union of Journalists. The protocol was signed at the school headquarters of Cerco Cluster, in Porto.
This training workshop was expected to be in high demand, but as soon as the news was published in the newspaper “Público”, in August 2017, we immediately emailed the Union expressing our strong will and reasons to be chosen. We perceived, under a logic of curricular commitment, that our cluster lacked a space where the media would be critically analysed. Although the project started in September 2019, it had already been running since the previous school year in two classes whose teachers had attended the training workshop to verify its relevance (one year 10 class and one year 12 class). This school year the planned activities will be focused on fake news where the students will be invited to try out some apps to check the reliability of information, the origin of the images, so as to notice that often the image does not correspond to the text. It is expected that, in a reasoned way, there is the "recognition" that all of us, consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or not, have already contributed to this "plague", either by sharing the title only, either because it is funny or because it will encourage a discussion. We anticipate that one of the most interesting activities will be the perception or awareness, of how the same news is treated by the different media. The reflection shall be on the "voices that are heard" in the media and the "voices that remain silent" and the faces that give voice to the news. Are the media at the service of misinformation? Or are they a lens that distorts reality?
Aims/objectives
- Develop media literacy skills for secondary education students in the framework of the curriculum in reading, writing and speaking of Portuguese ;
- Create mechanisms for encouraging thinking about the information gathered;
- Distinguishing credible sources from non-credible sources;
- Raise awareness of the correct and clear use of information sources
Expected results/outcomes
- Encourage the students to use and decode the means of communication, including access to and the use of information and communication technologies; adopt appropriate behaviours and attitudes towards a critical and secure use of the Internet and social networks. (Education for Citizenship Reference);
- Encourage students to have a critical view of the media regarding both quality and accuracy of content;
- Encourage students to make a critical use of the media, given that the evolution of media technologies and the growing presence of the internet as a distribution channel allows a growing number of Europeans to create and disseminate images, information and content;
- Understand the economics of the media and the difference between pluralism and media ownership;
- Encourage students to be aware of copyright issues, essentials to a 'culture of legality', especially for young people, in their dual quality as consumers and content producers.
Changes
- Help young people to become critical thinkers and active content creators rather than passive consumers of online content and technology.
- Help young people to behave responsibly and ethically and, ultimately, to become more engaged and better informed citizens.
- Promote the exercise of a more enlightened and participatory citizenship.
Challenges you faced
- Possibility of working with students in a room equipped with computers;
- Need for continuing education and training of more teachers to make this project sustainable.
Time-frame of the project:
- Along this school year - from September 2019 untill June 2020
Council of Europe materials on citizenship and human rights education used while preparing or implementing your practice:
