Critical judgement in the information age. Discover three effective strategies to help students navigate online content with an agenda.

We’ve all heard the term ‘fake news’ thrown at journalistic institutions for some time now. Whether it truly exists or not is a question for another time, because right now there’s a related issue that requires our attention.

And that’s our ability to distinguish between questionable and valid online content. Especially amongst the youth of today.

What is questionable content? One that has an often hidden agenda.

Recently, Stanford University released a report showcasing exactly this issue.

In one example cited in the report, researchers set high school and university students a task to evaluate the credibility of information found on the MinimumWage.com website. After spending time on the site and reading various articles, only 9% of high school students and 6% of university students could identify that the site was actually a front for a right-wing organisation.

This is a big deal in an age of information wars.

The lack of critical judgement displayed by high school and university students in this example is, as we mentioned earlier, a challenge that’s bigger than fake news.

So the real challenge now is how we educate people, both young and old, to critically evaluate the perspectives and purposes of a website. In short, how do we help people distinguish between fact and opinion with an agenda?

Let’s begin with three simple strategies based on the findings of the Stanford Report.

1. Do your research OFF the website

Not sure if a blog or article is credible? Often the answer is to just check the publication date, the author’s credentials and so on. But, this approach underestimates how sophisticated and deceptive certain sites have become.

So we suggest you do your research OFF the site in question to search for clues as to the validity and balance of information it contains. Even simple things like conducting a google search of an author can provide invaluable information such as their political alignments and whether they are funded by an organisation with a particular agenda. So make the effort and search off the site - it’s the only way to be certain of credible information.

2. Check the reference list ON the site

Staying on the site? Then we suggest you go straight to the site’s reference list. If no reference list is provided, it may well be a good reason to be suspicious and do the off-site research we talked about earlier.

3. Look for adjectives

We all learnt about adjectives back in our school days, and, some of you are teaching them to others today. So why pay attention to them when assessing the credibility of an online article? Simply because they indicate the tone or mood of the message and suggest to readers how they should respond to the content of the site. A form of subtle manipulation if you like.

A savvy web user can identify adjectives, think critically about how these encourage them to view the content of the site, and then evaluate the message of the online content.

So there you have it. These three strategies offer a solid foundation when navigating online content. After all, the end goal is to digest information that comes from a trustworthy source and proves to be accurate.