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Single online Identity, versus multiple online identities, versus total anonymity

Authenticity is a key argument made for the benefit of having just one identity. It stands to reason that if everything you post online can be easily attributed to you, this makes everything you post appear more trustworthy because it’s tied to your reputation and credibility, it’s also easier and less time consuming to manage just one identity, (Futurelearn, 2018). Continue reading →

Reflection Topic 2 – ‘Fake News’: Who is responsible?

My initial stance regarding the problem of fake news was slanted towards placing all responsibility on the individual for assessing whether information online is false or not. However reading Luke’s comment allowed me to reflect on just how impractical it is for the average reader to critically assess each article or story they read to judge its validity, due to the amount of time it would take. Continue reading →

Brave New World – Developing the skills for evaluating “Fake News”

False information published online can be designed to further a political agenda, or simply to generate revenue through misleading titles, article descriptions and media in the form of “clickbait”. “Information gap theory” offers some insight into why clickbait is successfully, when a reader sees a snippet of a fake news article they will draw upon their background knowledge of that subject (Golman and Loewenstein 2015). Continue reading →