(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Finland Prepares Students to Identify Propaganda and Misinformation [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2023-03-21

A classroom in Finland where students learn how to identify propaganda and misinformation.

Americans are constantly confronted with propaganda and misinformation on the airwaves and the Internet. Former President Trump and Fox News talking heads are lying machines. Late night television had a heyday making fun of Congressman George Santos (a/k/a drag queen Kitara Ravache), but the reality is that there are a lot of Republican liars in the House of Representatives. 147 of them voted to block the 2020 Presidential election.

In an October 2022 report by the Open Society Institute in Sofia, Bulgaria, Finland ranked first out of 41 European countries on the ability of the Finnish people to identify and resist misinformation. This was the fifth time in a row that Finland was the highest-ranking country. A major reason for Finland’s success is its school programs. Finland has an especially strong overall educational system that includes media literacy starting in preschool and a systematic approach to teaching students to identify fake news.

A national media literacy curriculum was developed by the Finnish government in 2014 after Russia targeted the country with fake news stories. The attacks helped educators and government officials understand that students were coming of age in a “post-fact” period. In a typical middle-level lesson, student read a news articles or view a TikTok video and discuss the purpose of the article or video, how and when was it written or created, the creator’s motivation, and its central claims.

Developing skills needed to identify propaganda and misinformation is now included across subject areas. In math, students examine the way statistics can be manipulated in reports. In art classes, students discover how an image’s meaning can be distorted. In history classes, students analyze notable propaganda campaigns in the past. Language teachers help students discover how the choice of words can be used to twist meaning and confuse or deceive readers.

The United States was not included in this survey, however studies show that media misinformation and disinformation have are increasing and trust in media outlets is extremely low. According to Gallup, only 34% of Americans trusted the mass media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly compared to 76% in Finland. Twenty-eight percent of American adults reported they do not have very much confidence in newspapers, TV and radio and 38% said they have none at all.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/21/2159588/-Finland-Prepares-Students-to-Identify-Propaganda-and-Misinformation

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/

You are viewing proxied material from magical.fish. The copyright of proxied material belongs to its original authors. Any comments or complaints in relation to proxied material should be directed to the original authors of the content concerned. Please see the disclaimer for more details.