Newswise — EAST LANSING, Mich. – With little more than 50 days until the Nov. 5 presidential election and a debate to unpack, coverage of the candidates will continue to ramp up online, on TV and on social media. With so many different sources and modalities to receive information, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.
Media literacy — the ability to analyze messages and their sources to determine credibility — continues to be critical for the American electorate.
Michigan State University experts can comment on how to be a vigilant news consumer during election season, explain how misinformation spreads and provide insight on how to stay informed in today’s digital world.
Dustin Carnahan, associate professor of communication, studies how citizens engage with the political information environment and how these practices influence their beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. His recent research focuses on misinformation and deepfakes, which are images or recordings that have been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said.
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“Media literacy has become ever important in an increasingly noisy and confusing media landscape. The rise of alternative ‘news’ outlets, misinformation and manipulated content has made it difficult for people to distinguish fiction from reality. Perhaps the most concerning trend in this regard is the rapid emergence of AI, which can contribute to the production of highly realistic images and videos that can deceive even the most attentive citizens (e.g., deepfakes). The development of skills aimed at differentiating real and fake content, such as identifying the signs of questionable content, employing verification practices, and engaging in reverse image searches, has become vital in helping citizens navigate this landscape.”
Listen to Carnahan discuss debates, misinformation and media literacy on the MSUToday podcast.
Danielle K. Brown is the 1855 Professor of Community and Urban Journalism and an associate professor in the MSU School of Journalism. Brown specializes in analyses of media representations and narrative change, social movements and activism, and identity and political psychology. She is the founding director of the LIFT Project — an engaged research effort aimed at identifying networks of trusted messengers in Black communities in the Midwest to understand their effects on civic and democratic life; create, network and allocate resources needed to inform Black communities better; and build new opportunities for sustainable reparative narrative change.
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“The number of places and spaces for consuming media have multiplied in recent years. Media literacy is critical for sorting through what information is out there about any particular topic, what part of that information is truly informative, and what part of that information is misleading or malicious. Survey after survey suggests that people spend an incredible amount of time on social and digital platforms consuming information, and these platforms have a sneaky way of making people think they are informed. But the mechanisms for ‘fact checking’ that many social media platforms offer are flawed and imperfect, and personal media literacy becomes our most critical defense system.
“Most importantly, research suggests the average person thinks they are immune to misinformation and disinformation in a way other people are not. In other words, many people subscribe to the idea that disinformation affects other people and not ‘me.’ But humans and AI have worked together to make disinformation and misinformation much more complicated, deceitful and inconspicuous than ever before. This election season, media literacy is the armor we need for threats that are much more deceptive, like targeted and personalized messaging that misleads or convincing AI-generated images that convince you your polling line is too long.”
Christina L. Myers, assistant professor of journalism, studies depictions of the Black experience in news, music and sports. She is also a freelance journalist who focuses on the intersection of race, culture, identity and policy. She has previously worked as a political reporter for the Associated Press, national desk writer for NBC News Channel and equity reporter for the State Newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina.
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“Media literacy is essential, especially during election seasons. It holds particular significance for often marginalized groups, including Black communities, as they are a consequential demographic of voters that can potentially shift the election results. Media literacy empowers individuals to make informed decisions, resist misinformation and voter suppression, and advocate for their rights and interests. By fostering critical thinking and active engagement with media, it ensures that the voices of Black communities are not just heard, but also respected in the political arena.”
Maria D. Molina, assistant professor of advertising and public relations, researches how technology shapes what we share on social media and how we respond to artificial intelligence tools that curate user-generated content. Fake news and the role of memes in disseminating misinformation are two of her major focus areas.
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“When we think of media literacy, especially as it pertains to assessing the credibility of online information, there is this great focus on the source of the message and advising people to pay close attention to who the source of news is and their expertise in the subject matter. However, in the era of social media, where all of us can be sources of information, and in the era of AI, where we see an increased amount of information produced by AI, this assumption of source expertise is: 1) not easy to distinguish and 2) not the only factor that people use to assess the information they encounter.
“In my research, I keep finding that aspects like the modality (text, audio, video, memes) of information and how closely information matches the identity of users are important predictors of credibility. Thus, media literacy should focus beyond source characteristics to aspects like the modality of information presentation and cognitive biases (like identity congruence of information) that play a role in assessing the truthfulness of online information.”
Dante Chinni is the director of the American Communities Project, a research effort based in the MSU School of Journalism that analyzes the country by looking at 15 different community types. Chinni is also a political and data journalist for the Wall Street Journal.
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“In a world shaped by millions of ‘channels’ of information, understanding how to judge and analyze media is an essential skill for the survival of society.
“In our work with American Communities Project, an issue that arises over and over is ‘bubble thinking,’ people who live in a certain place and who have certain kinds of friends and acquaintances find it almost impossible to see outside of the bubble in which they live.
“In a sense, Americans and people everywhere have to learn to think more like journalists when dealing with news and information. They need to be skeptical about what they see and hear, but avoid being cynical about the world.”
Marisa A. Smith is an assistant professor in the Department of Advertising + Public Relations and the School of Journalism. Her research investigates information in digital environments and examines the sociopolitical influence of these messages, with an emphasis on race and identity.
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“Political news often contains biased content with the express purpose of activating emotional responses among audience members or swaying attitudes in a way that benefits a political candidate. News across various mediums — print, television and online — can try to target their audience members based on their identity, whether it be race, gender, partisanship, etc. Media literacy encourages audiences to be more active in how they view and understand political news. As election coverage ramps up, it is important to view news with a critical lens: Are you receiving facts about the candidates and their policies, or is the content presented in a way that provokes an immediate, strong emotional response, such as fear or threat? Media literacy helps audiences differentiate news from strategic political disinformation that aims to manipulate audiences for political or financial gain.”
Perry Parks, associate professor of journalism, studies the process of “doing journalism” — examining how news is conceived, produced, shared and received by audiences.
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“One shortcoming of many media literacy efforts is that they encourage audiences to be equally skeptical of all media content — which places the burden of verifying and fact-checking onto individuals. In some contexts, encouraging people to ‘do their own research’ can lead them down rabbit holes of conspiracy and disinformation. It would be more helpful to guide people to seek out generally reputable, recognizable and reliable information sources so they can offload most of the verification work to trained, well-meaning folks who do that for a living. It would also be helpful if our legacy media organizations would stop amplifying political figures they know to be dishonest, which just encourages universal distrust.”
Jarrad Henderson is the artist in residence in the MSU School of Journalism. A four-time Emmy Award winner, he has produced impactful content in large newsrooms for over a decade, specializing in access to visual storytelling education, documentary filmmaking, photojournalism, video editing, media entrepreneurship, media literacy, mentorship and professional development.
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“This election season has already brought on unprecedented amounts of altered visual content to potential voters. To the untrained eye these images, often generated and manipulated with AI tools, can pass as factual endorsements. We’re already swamped in this season of mis/disinformation and these deliberate tactics, meant to gain favor with younger voters, deserve more deliberate scrutiny.”
Anjana Susarla is the Omura-Saxena Professor of Responsible AI in MSU’s Broad College of Business. Her research interests include the economics of information systems, social media analytics and the economics of artificial intelligence. She regularly comments on AI, policy regulations and politics in national media outlets.
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“In today’s world, digital platforms are acting as gatekeepers, using algorithmic recommendations to decide which stories get priority and to micro-target individuals with personalized newsfeeds using the enormous data they have on user preferences. As consumers of information, we need to be aware of how targeted advertisements and digital platform tools shape the information ecosystem that we are part of.”
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