Debunking, verification, and fact checking are often used interchangeably, sometimes causing confusion, but there are differences. Many of us might be familiar with the series MythBusters, which specialised in testing urban legends, popular myths, and movie scenes. Each episode disproves or confirms a “myth”.
Debunking is literally the act of exposing the falseness of a claim. From this point of view, while verification and fact checking is the process we use to inspect the accuracy of an information, debunking is like the final act. We might find an information to be true after fact checking it and then of course we can’t debunk it.
Can we fact check everything?
Apart from the studies supporting the necessity of fact checking, another argument beside it is that it is still a better option than regulating the rights of free speech. And as we arrive at the topic of free speech the discourse becomes really heated and politicised. While we can observe that traditionally the whole political spectrum agrees that misinformation and fake news are a real problem which had to be treated, none of them found a better solution which is acceptable for every party than fact checking.
Media literacy
An important part of fact checking is to know what you're reading, and who wrote it and why? In other words you need media literacy. The role of
fact checking and verification has changed, professionals are no longer able to verify such a huge amount of data, therefore the credibility of the information we absorb is questionable. Despite this many people still dismiss media as harmless entertainment and claim they aren't influenced by its messages. However, research findings consistently demonstrate that people are impacted by the media messages they consume. The first attempts to educate citizens about media literacy can be traced back to the 1920s, 1930s anglo-saxon countries. The objectives were to teach analytical skills to media users (consumers) and to protect the youth from media by warning them against its consumption. These endeavours were condemned to fail as the population got hooked on mass media, which after moving into the homes of millions, started to expand and be present in more and more aspects of life. The topic of media literacy still needs more attention but authors in general observed that media literacy education can reduce the impact of harmful messages transmitted by the media. Most of the countries do not have standardised media literacy curriculum in educational institutions, the responsibility is left to the school or to the teacher to tackle the problem.
fact checking and verification has changed, professionals are no longer able to verify such a huge amount of data, therefore the credibility of the information we absorb is questionable. Despite this many people still dismiss media as harmless entertainment and claim they aren't influenced by its messages. However, research findings consistently demonstrate that people are impacted by the media messages they consume. The first attempts to educate citizens about media literacy can be traced back to the 1920s, 1930s anglo-saxon countries. The objectives were to teach analytical skills to media users (consumers) and to protect the youth from media by warning them against its consumption. These endeavours were condemned to fail as the population got hooked on mass media, which after moving into the homes of millions, started to expand and be present in more and more aspects of life. The topic of media literacy still needs more attention but authors in general observed that media literacy education can reduce the impact of harmful messages transmitted by the media. Most of the countries do not have standardised media literacy curriculum in educational institutions, the responsibility is left to the school or to the teacher to tackle the problem. AI is coming
The latest trend in our media landscape is that AI is taking over much of the textproduction being published on internet blogs and news outlets. Many news outlets are in reality just publishing articles to generate clicks and income from advertising. These new stories are spread widely through social media in so-called clickbait articles. In the very near future, these articles will be produced using AI technology, but this trend will soon spread to other media production as well. Cnet that write articles about technology news have been using Chat GPT to write articles for some time now, and this will affect the future jobs of the content creation industry all over the world.
