Peer Review

Fake News Guide

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Jan 2, 2021 by ICT Literacy

Bookmark

Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

According to the home page of this LibGuide: "This guide provides resources that can help you and your community be savvy media consumers and producers -- and be an informed and contributing citizen." LibGuides such as this one are essentially a list of resources and collection of links to help a person easily find information on a particular topic. This LibGuide begins with a succinct definition of fake news as well as some information about ten other types of misleading news. Other sections of this LibGuide provide a history of fake news, information about identifying fake news, information on literacies that can help address fake news (news, media, and information literacies), fake news and civic engagement, curriculum resources to address fake news, and information on how libraries are addressing fake news.

Type of Material:

Reference Material

Recommended Uses:

The Guide is designed for individual use, but it could certainly serve a class resource for further study on the topic of fake news.

Technical Requirements:

The Fake News Guide can be accessed by any internet browser.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

Define fake news
Learn historical background of fake news
Gain skills to discern fake news
(For instructors) Find ideas for curriculum when teaching about fake news.

Target Student Population:

Although some linked resources are for middle and high school students, this guide will be most effective for college level students and courses. Students of teacher education will find the middle and high school level resources useful. Students in communications, media, and basic writing courses will find this a useful resource when studying the topic of fake news.

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Users need to be able to read English and have basic skills for navigating with a web browser.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: This guide provides a pretty thorough list of resources for studying all aspects of fake news. The lengthy list of nearly thirty fact checking tools was especially helpful. The list of different types of misleading news is also very helpful, since these are sometimes confused with fake news. A list of resources that provide students an opportunity to try their hand at evaluating news stories is also an incredibly useful aspect of this Guide.
Concerns:: The civic engagement section was well done, but felt more tangential than the other sections. Given the sheer number of materials already here, it may not be necessary. As is to be expected with any list of web links, there were a few broken links encountered at the time of this review.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: The Guide is a great reference tool for students of fake news. It is comprehensive in scope, providing resources for the key aspects of fake news. Each key aspect, indicated by easy-to-navigate tabs, is well organized into sub-topics, which prevents the shear number of resources listed from being overwhelming. Different sections of the Guide can be used in different ways to achieve teaching and learning goals.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: The layout and organization of the Guide makes it easy to navigate and use. Writing is clear and direct.

Other Issues and Comments:

The curriculum section for instructors is excellent. I would recommend this site to anyone who is teaching a survey course exploring the relationship between mass media and society.

At the time of this review, the guide had last been updated within the previous 2 months, so the information was up to date.

Creative Commons: