MIL

Media and Information Literacy:

Its Impact Towards Students' Ability in Recognizing and Evaluating Fake News on Social Media

INTRODUCTION

• Fake news is not a new phenomenon.
• According to the World Economic Forum (2014), spreading of falsified news online has been one of the top ten perils of the society.

According to Global Digital Report (2018),

Philippines topped the world regarding social media usage (67 million users).

Source: We are Social

The number of social media users worldwide reached up to 3.196 billion, up to 13% annually.

The number of internet users worldwide in 2018 reached up to 4.021 billion, up to 7% annually.

• A study from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) revealed that false information travels six times faster than truthful news and it proliferates more people on Twitter.

vs.

Truthful information never got 1,000 tweets.

Top fake stories acquired as many as 100,000 tweets. To sum it up, fake news is more likely to be retweeted at 70%

Falsified news has increased online especially on social networking sites which allow the people with an ability to simply produce and share information at a greater pace, to a wider audience compared in the previous years.

It's been a good year!

• The quality of education in the Philippines has gradually decreased for years.
• The 2009 World Bank Philippines Skills Reports stated that university graduates are lacking in foundational skills, which includes critical thinking.

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• With the rise of technology and new media, the Department of Education came up with a creation of Media Literacy Task Force (DepEd- MLTF).
• They formulate and implement advocacy for the promotion of Media Literacy Education in schools and the integration of National Media Literacy Education (NMLE) in the Basic Education Curriculum (BEC).
• This is one of the reasons why Media and Information Literacy has been offered as a core subject in the K-12 Program.

Media and Information Literacy recognizes the primary role of information and media in our everyday lives. It lies at the core of freedom of expression and information - since it empowers citizens to understand the functions of media and other information providers, to critically evaluate their content, and to make informed decisions as users and producer of information and media content (UNESCO).

• Fake news on social networking sites is an extremely relevant and timely issue nowadays.
• The purpose of this proposed study is to identify whether the core subject, Media and Information Literacy, and other extraneous variables such as gender, academic performance, parent's educational attainment, influence students with their ability to recognize and evaluate information on social media.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

• WHY DO PEOPLE EASILY BELIEVE ON FAKE NEWS?
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• HOW TO ADDRESS STUDENTS' GULLIBILITY TOWARDS FAKE NEWS?
• Inoculation Theory
• WHY PROPOSED SOCIAL MEDIA AS A TYPE OF MEDIA FORM?
• Medium Theory

• COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY

- It refers to a psychological conflict resulting from holding two contradicting beliefs or attitude at the same time.

- In a post-truth era, facts are disregarded rather than appeals to emotions and beliefs.

• INOCULATION THEORY

- It has the same logic of vaccines where a weak form of virus is injected to a person, to strengthen his immune system against the disease.

- People are challenged to expose themselves with fake news in order to build resistance against it.

• Medium Theory

- It refers to how the means of human communication influence the meaning of communication.

- Due to the vast change brought by the Internet, people change the way they interact with information online. An unintended consequence of this is the rise of fake news on social networking sites.

Schematic Diagram

Respondents’ Ability to:

• Recognize fake news on social media

• Evaluate the credibility of information on social media outlet.

Respondents’ Demographic Profile:

• Gender

• Academic Performance

• Parent’s Educational

Attainment

• Year Level

Grade 11

Grade 12

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

1) With regard to the participants’ ability to recognize and evaluate fake news online, is there a significant difference in the scores of the respondents when grouped according to the following variables:

1.1 Gender

1.2 Academic Performance

1.3 Parent’s Educational Attainment

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

2) Is there a significant difference with regard to respondents’ ability to recognize and evaluate false information on social networking sites considering respondents (Grade 12) who took up Media and Information Literacy versus respondents (Grade 11) who have not yet taken up the said core subject, MIL?

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

3) Among gender, academic performance, parent's educational attainment, and the core subject, MIL, which variable has the greatest impact towards respondents’ ability in terms of:

3.1 recognizing fake news and;

3.2 evaluating credibility of information on social networking sites?

4) Does the result of the Focus Group Discussion validate the test results?

HYPOTHESIS

Ho 1: There is no significant difference among the variables: gender, academic performance, and parents’ educational attainment with regard to respondents’ ability to recognize fake news and evaluate information on social media.

Ho 2: There is no significant difference between participants’ ability to recognize and evaluate false information on social networking sites regardless of whether or not participants’ took up Media and Information Literacy.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

• STUDENTS
• TEACHERS
• ADMINISTRATORS
• GOVERNMENT
• FUTURE RESEARCHERS

SCOPE AND LIMITATION

There has been little research and literature published regarding fake news and misleading information on social media to date in this area (Kiernan, 2017).

• Respondents are coming from LDCU- Paseo del Rio Campus
• Limited to Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia
• Independent variables are limited to gender, academic performance, parents' educational attainment, year level
• Evaluation of fake news found online will be done though offline.
• All inferences obtained in the findings could only be for students in Liceo de Cagayan University- Paseo del Rio Campus and could not be generalized for all Senior High School in the country, or in Mindanao for that matter.

TITLE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

RESEARCH DESIGN

• Causal-comparative research design

RESEARCH SETTING

• LDCU- Paseo del Rio Campus

SAMPLING PROCEDURE

• Using Cochran's Formula (Grade 11- 169) (Grade 12- 168)

RESEARCH INSTRUMENTS

• Profiling of the respondents
• Adapted test to gauge respondents' ability to:

- recognize fake news

-evaluate credibillity of information online

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Credibility and Reliability of Instrument

• Pilot-testing is conducted
• Item analysis

Statistical Treatment

• Descriptive measures like frequency counts, percentages, and mean will be employed. To test the hypothesis of the study, T and F tests will be used depending on the actual groupings of the independent variables.