Prof. Garcia | ENG 1121 - OL78 | Fall 2020

Micro-Activity #14: Continue the drafting of annotations

Trolling for Truth on Social Media

Joan Donovan

October 12, 2020

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trolling-for-truth-on-social-media/

This article analyzes how fake news coordinate with anonymous activists who make it their mission to make fake news appear real with the purpose of tricking, or ā€˜trollingā€™, news organizations into covering events that are not what they seem. These imposters take advantage of the internet to create fake headlines and add credibility to them by getting other imposters to act in accordance. This is dangerous to democracy and to a well-informed public because these imposter groups are motivated toĀ  ā€œimpersonate marginalized, underrepresented and vulnerable groups to malign, disrupt or exaggerate their causesā€. While one event is happening and being covered in the traditional news, the reality is that something else has made it happen for the purpose of curating a desired perspective that is contrary to the truth.Ā 

How Fake News Grows in a Post-Fact World

Ali Velshi

March 9, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkAUqQZCyrM

Ali Velshi speaks about how fake news is done with the intent to make viewers/readers distrust credible and established news sources. He makes the point that just writing news fakes by fake news websites is not meant to make people believe the fake information they are posting. Instead, their purpose is to sow doubt in the population so that the notion of objective true news seems impossible. And in that scenario, anything can be fake news and nothing can be trusted, which is what the perpetrators of fake news want to do.

1 Comment

  1. Ruth Garcia

    This is a start but you need to do a lot of work before these are done. Here are some things to think about:
    1. The citations are incorrect. You need to look up MLA citations–go to Purdue OWL to see that information: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_formatting_and_style_guide.html
    And then use Citation Machine or EasyBib to help you format. I think you can also sues Purdue OWL to format.
    2. In addition to summaries each annotation also needs your analysis (which includes your opinion and information about the genre, purpose, audience of the piece) and each annotation also lists quotations form the source.
    3. I’m not sure these sources are credible, though I can’t say because you do not full citations. You need to google the authors, producers, organizations, publishers that create them. And this will help you figure out the credibility.

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