Improve online research to improve media literacy

“It’s hard: a recent Nature study found that the more time you spend on the internet trying to validate what is true and not true, you more you go down the rabbit hole of false information. Those who believe outlandish theories are generally people who think of themselves as more intelligent than the average person, have a lot of time to do their own research on the internet, and are convinced that everyone else is being duped.”

Devi Sridhar, “The appointment of Robert F Kennedy has horrified public health experts. Here are his three most dangerous ideas”, The Guardian, November 17, 2024

That quote caught my attention. A lot of us might question something and go out to the internet to do some Googling. The idea that the more you research on the internet, the more likely you will end up believing some misinformation just contradicts the idea of online research and media literacy.

How does one do online research to maintain good media literacy and to stay away from crackpot conspiracy theories?

Original Article: what does this have to do with media literacy?

The original article from The Guardian had nothing to do with the topic of media literacy; it was about the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. Now, there is a concern about his belief in some “crackpot” ideas: 1) his being anti-vaxxer; 2) his promulgation of raw milk; 3) his holding anti-pharmaceutical conspiracies. One other thing not mentioned in the article but is part of his goal as Secretary of HHS: getting rid of fluoride in water.

The question becomes: how did he get by these beliefs? Did he do internet research to verify his ideas? And why did he land on those theories?

The interesting quote about rabbit holes is found at the very end of the article. But the real jewel is the Nature study providing findings into how one can end up believing wacky stuff.

The Nature Study on internet research

Here’s a summary by CoPilot on that study paper:

“Certainly! Here’s a more detailed summary of the findings from the study:

The study, published in Nature, investigates the impact of using online searches to evaluate the veracity of news articles, particularly misinformation. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the study found that using search engines to verify the truthfulness of false news articles actually increases the likelihood of believing them. This phenomenon is attributed to the fact that search engines often return low-quality information, which can corroborate the false information.

The researchers conducted five experiments, combining survey data with digital trace data collected using a custom browser extension. They found that the effect of increased belief in misinformation was concentrated among individuals who were exposed to lower-quality search results. Interestingly, the study also found that searching online increased belief in true news from low-quality sources, but there was inconsistent evidence that it increased belief in true news from mainstream sources.

The findings highlight the need for media literacy programs to ground their recommendations in empirically tested strategies and for search engines to invest in solutions to the challenges identified. The study underscores the importance of improving the quality of information returned by search engines to prevent the spread of misinformation.”

CoPilot

That quote is a good concise description of the paper in the journal because that paper is rather long and can be dense, but I do encourage you to read it. There were five studies to probe different questions about doing research online. All the different facets of the studies point to the idea that the more you do online research, the higher the likelihood you will believe misinformation to be true.

How should one do research to improve media literacy?

The study tried to determine why doing online research was increasing the probability of believing false information. There were two things I gleaned from the study that were causing the errant beliefs from research: 1) the ideological bent of the researcher and 2) the high/low quality of the sources.

The ideological bent? It is what it is. I can’t do anything about it.

But the quality of your sources is where you might be able to do something. You need to know which sources are high quality and which ones are low in order to assess the veracity of the information. The study mentioned NewsGuard which unfortunately is subscription based.

However, somewhere in the search results I found a link to get a free extension for Microsoft Edge. Apparently, Microsoft is funding this extension for us to use. I’m going to have to test this out. Unfortunately, right now it wants me to log in which I don’t know what that means.

I turned to CoPilot and asked it for ways to determine high quality news sources and it provided me two sets of sources: factchecking sites and high-quality news sites.

Media literacy tool 1: factchecking sites

At present time, here are some factchecking sites that has been recommended.

• FactCheck.org
• Snopes
• PolitiFact
• Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC News)
• TruthorFiction.com

That’s as of 12/1/2024.

By the way, I’m fairly comfortable with using those sites as factcheckers because after much experimentation with CoPilot, I get a sense that CoPilot will give you the “safe” answer to avoid problems with hallucinations. It’s not going to give you sensationalist or salacious information unless you figure out how to get around its guardrails.

Media literacy tool 2: high quality news sites

Here are some high-quality news sites – those that have stood the tests of time so far.

1. Associated Press News
2. BBC
3. C-Span
4. Bureau of Investigative Journalism
5. Christian Science Monitor
6. The Economist
7. NPR
8. ProPublica
9. Reuters
10. USA Today
11. Wall Street Journal
12. FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
13. The PEW Research Center

Your favorite news site not on the list? It might be because it may be more partisan than those listed above. I noted that the New York Times, The Atlantic, Washington Post are not on the list, and I thought they were highly reputable. They do seem to try to adhere some code of journalistic ethics, as far as I can tell.

How does this affect finance or FP&A?

Well, there is this thing called ESG, a hot potato topic. I think ESG is regarded as “woke” so some companies, especially the international ones, are going to walk a tightrope here. I believe in Europe ESG reporting could be required but here in the US, it’s a question mark.

Florida and Texas may not like ESG reporting and may ban them. I’m not sure the legality of these things.

But this is the tightrope companies are faced. The environmental part of the ESG concerns climate change and some people don’t believe in climate change, although I do suspect there are less and less climate deniers, after the past few years. The past few years have been atrocious with the high heat waves extending across the US. I don’t hear as much from the climate deniers.

But if anyone is going to have to produce the status reports for ESG reporting, that is likely to be finance. Finance is going to have to keep on top of the news on climate change and ESG to make sure they are prepared for ESG reporting. Maybe their company today does not believe in ESG but maybe tomorrow a new CEO will support ESG reporting.

The trend seems to be more and more ESG reporting. (But then I look at DEI and see what is happening there.)

Just be prepared.

Closing remarks

After having read the Nature study, I realize that I will have to be careful when performing research because I could research myself into believing crackpot ideas. It’s not enough to just do the research. How one does the research is important.

That study does comport with some news stories about people doing research and falling for misinformation. Remember QAnon? I think one of their stock phrases is “do the research”.

I also recall an article, way back in 2015 or 2016, maybe written by Washington Post, about a lady who had retired. To keep her mental facility up, she would play crossword puzzles. But she still fell for the disinformation. There was a guy who was putting out disinformation as a joke but added at the headline level a warning that the following information was false.

Still, she ignored that warning and believed that false information.

I think because she wanted it to be true.

There’s that ideological bent.