Case Study: A Guide to Identifying Fake News

Describe the major news event that you’ve chosen to examine. Which five stories about this event have you selected, and where did you find each story?

What similarities and differences between sources do you see as you analyze the coverage? What patterns present themselves?

Were any of the sources that you identified problematic? Explain why or why not. If some sources were problematic, what do you think motivated the specific media organizations or websites to present or frame the stories the way they did? Are they trying to promote a certain political perspective? Trying to confuse the news audience? Something else?

Consider any fake news stories you’ve read and the possible motivation(s) behind each story. Consider the category of fake news each story falls into (satire, hoaxes and hucksters, opinion entrepreneurship, propaganda, or informationanarchy). Based on the category, how harmful might these particular news stories be to democracy? Why?

Describe your action plan for this fifth stage of the critical process. What will you do and how will you do it?