Abstract
The rise of social media platforms and the subsequent lack of traditional gatekeeping mechanisms contribute to the multiplied spread of scientific misinformation. Particularly in these new media spaces, there is a rising need for science education in fostering a science media literacy that enables
students to evaluate the credibility of scientific information. A key determinant of a successful credibility evaluation is the effectiveness of the criteria students apply in this process. However, research suggests that existing credibility criteria are often not integrated into students' actual
social media evaluation behavior. This hints to a lack of transferability of the existing criteria. As a consequence, knowledge about how learners evaluate credibility in social media is a first step in closing this gap. In the present study, we report results from six focus groups with 21 10th-grade
students (M = 15 years, 57% female, 38% male, 5% nonbinary) about their usage
of different credibility criteria in the case of social media posts about climate change. The data were analyzed through qualitative content analysis and as a first step assigned to established credibility dimensions of content
(what?) and source-related criteria (who?). Additionally, given the complexity of social media, we also added a composition-based category (how?). In a second analysis step, we adapted our subcategories to the recently proposed credibility heuristic by Osborne and Pimentel. The findings
suggest that students generally take criteria from all three heuristic credibility dimensions into account and combine different criteria when evaluating the credibility of scientific information in social media. Based on the application of the credibility criteria to the heuristic, implications
for the development of teaching materials for fostering science media literacy are discussed.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sce.21855?af=R
On Sat, 27 Jan 2024, Internetado wrote:
With the growing specialization and politization of science, the idea
that the common man should be able to detect anything but the simplest statistical shenanigans is completely absurd.
The only way is the way of reputation where journalists take on that
role, and by _not_ engaging in polarization and click-bait build their reputation as trust worthy sources of scientific editors and writers.
But media today as completely abandoned that role,
and politicians,
in order to get easily controlled populations, have worsened the
quality of schools.
Add to that wokeism and cultural relativism which does not value
science and objective fact, and you have a recipe for our current
disaster
and why authoritarianism is on the rise.
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