The spread of fake news is a threat to people’s trust in EU institutions. In response, the European Parliament’s STOA panel introduced the European Science-Media Hub, which allows journalists, scientists and politicians to verify information and exchange views.
Transcript:
Fake news plagues not only politics but the scientific world.... With new technology now part of our daily lives, it's essential to trust that the information we're getting is correct. That's particularly true in the scientific field, which can be highly complex. If I have to think of one example of disinformation in science, I would go back to 2008, where you had the launch of the LHC, the CERN accelerator. People were fearing at the time that it would create small black holes that would swallow the earth. According to a recent survey, 80% of European citizens have already come across false or misleading information online, at least several times a month. This crisis of confidence worries the European Parliament. A negative message can become viral very fast. We realise that we need to response to that by making sure that citizens will have the option to another truth or what we consider to be scientific based evidence. In June 2018, the European Parliament's Panel for the Future of Science and Technology launched the "European Science-Media Hub". A platform designed to inform, educate and bring together journalists, scientists and political decision-makers. The idea is to improve journalist's tools for knowledge and information checking and for networking with scientists. It also offers to political decision-makers a point of contact to exchange views. We, science journalists cover science, which has become very international and we also cover industries, corporations which are also very international, and politics which has become European. So we absolutely need to network internationally internationally to tackle the big challenges of our job. This Media Hub can help us do that. The European Science-Media Hub and science journalists give European citizens credible information from verified sources. It will also monitor the most searched-for scientific subjects online and in the press, sharing trends with the public. It's a crucial step towards a healthier access to information.
An excerpt from Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage - Episode 11, The Persistence of Memory, 1980. Professor Sagan explains how many books we can read in our lifetime and recommends, "the trick is: to know which books to read." Background music by Armenian-American, Alan Hovhaness: Symphony No.4.
“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”
Media Bias in Amsterdam Violence November 16, 2024
In the wake of an ugly eruption of violence on the streets of Amsterdam, the media coverage of the story has been put under the microscope with editors scrambling to revise headlines, rework narratives, and reframe video content.
Contributors: Dana Mills – Writer, Local Call and +972 Magazine Marc Owen Jones – Associate professor, Northwestern University Qatar James North – Editor-at-large, Mondoweiss Samira Mohyeddin – Founder, On The Line Media
On our radar: Incoming president Donald Trump has appointed Elon Musk - one of his most vocal supporters - to co-lead the brand new Department of Government Efficiency. Meenakshi Ravi looks at Musk's new role and how he could use his influence to get favourable government treatment for his companies.
The Headline Fixer
Throughout Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, critics have been tearing apart the media coverage - especially by news outlets in the United States.
Feature blurb: Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has shone an often-unflattering spotlight on media coverage by mainstream US news outlets. Such failings jump out at us because they often come in the form of headlines. Historian Assal Rad explains the mission she has undertaken to "fix" misleading headlines.
Manufacturing Ignorance: Manipulation in the Misinformation Era by SLICE Experts - October 14, 2023.
Tobacco, climate change, pesticides,... Never has scientific knowledge seemed so vast, detailed and shared. And yet it appears to be increasingly challenged.
It is no longer surprising to see private corporations put strategies in place to confuse the public debate and paralyze political decision-making. Overwhelmed by excess of information, how can we, as citizens, sort out fact from fiction?
One by one, this film dismantles the workings of this clever manoeuvre that aims to turn science against itself.
Thanks to declassified archives, graphic animations and testimonies from experts, lobbyists and politicians, this investigation plunges us into the science of doubt. Along with a team of experts (philosophers, economists, cognitive scientists, political men, or even agnotologists), we explore concrete examples of doubt making and try to understand the whole process and the issues behind it.
Documentary: Manufacturing Ignorance Directed by: Franck Cuveillier and Pascal Vasselin Production: ZED, Arte France
Technological advances have revolutionized communications, connecting people on a previously unthinkable scale. They have supported communities in times of crisis, elevated marginalized voices and helped mobilize global movements for racial justice and gender equality.
Yet these same advances have enabled the spread of misinformation, disinformation and hate speech at an unprecedented volume, velocity and virality, risking the integrity of the information ecosystem.
New and escalating risks stemming from leaps in AI technologies have made strengthening information integrity one of the urgent tasks of our time.
This clear and present global threat demands coordinated international action.
The United Nations Global Principles For Information Integrity (PDF) presents a vision of a future in which power imbalances are redressed so that a small group of actors - including technology companies based in a handful of countries - no longer monopolize control over global information flows.
The principles envision an information ecosystem that delivers choice, freedom, privacy and safety for all, in which people everywhere can express themselves freely and make informed and independent decisions.
They put forward proposals to empower people all over the world by handing them greater control over the media they choose to consume, their own online experiences, and how their personal data is used.
The principles offer support to all those working to share facts in the public interest, as well as the vulnerable or marginalized voices that so often bear the brunt of targeted disinformation and hate campaigns.
Calls to action range from the legal obligations of States to the responsibilities of the tech sector to best practices for media and civil society.
What’s next? The American Psychological Association spoke to more than 100 leading psychologists to reveal the 12 top challenges facing the field and how psychologists are tackling problems. From the urgent need to fight misinformation in an election year to boosting worker well-being, and humanizing AI, psychologists are at the forefront of improving society’s most pressing issues.
The American Psychological Association is the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, with more than 157,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students as its members.
FactCheck.org: This nonpartisan project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania aims to reduce the impact of misinformation on public discourse.
PolitiFact: This Pulitzer Prize-winning website conducts fact-checks on statements made by public figures and in political advertising.
Snopes: This website investigates rumors and urban legends, often determining their origin and truthfulness.
Helpful Resources:
Ad Fontes Media: This organization uses a two-dimensional scale to rate news sources on both their bias and their reliability. Their "Media Bias Chart" (shown here and above) places sources on a spectrum ranging from "Least Biased" to "Extreme Left" or "Extreme Right," while also considering factors like factual reporting and the presence of propaganda.
AllSides: This platform aims to present news from various perspectives, allowing you to compare different viewpoints on the same issue. They also have a media bias rating system that considers bias from both a left-leaning and right-leaning perspective.
Good Country: The Good Country Index measures what each country on earth contributes to the common good of humanity and the planet.
Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC): This website provides detailed analyses of news sources, including their bias ratings and reliability assessments. They categorize sources on a scale from "Least Biased" to "Extreme Left" or "Extreme Right."
The Pew Research Center: This nonpartisan, nonadvocacy fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world.
The Poynter Institute: This non-profit journalism school offers resources and training on media literacy and identifying misinformation.
Assyria
\ã-'sir-é-ä\ n (1998)
1: an ancient empire of Ashur
2: a democratic state in Bet-Nahren, Assyria (northern
Iraq, northwestern Iran, southeastern Turkey and eastern Syria.)
3:
a democratic state that fosters the social and political rights to all of
its inhabitants irrespective of their religion, race, or gender
4: a democratic state that believes in the freedom of
religion, conscience, language, education and culture in faithfulness to the
principles of the United Nations Charter —
Atour synonym
Ethnicity, Religion, Language
»
Israeli, Jewish, Hebrew
»
Assyrian, Christian, Aramaic
»
Saudi Arabian, Muslim, Arabic
Assyrian
\ã-'sir-é-an\ adj or n (1998)
1: descendants of the ancient empire of Ashur
2: the Assyrians, although representing but one single
nation as the direct heirs of the ancient Assyrian Empire, are now
doctrinally divided, inter sese, into five principle
ecclesiastically designated religious sects with their corresponding
hierarchies and distinct church governments, namely, Church of the
East, Chaldean, Maronite, Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic.
These formal divisions had their origin in the 5th century of the
Christian Era. No one can coherently understand the Assyrians
as a whole until he can distinguish that which is religion or church
from that which is nation -- a matter which is particularly
difficult for the people from the western world to understand; for
in the East, by force of circumstances beyond their control,
religion has been made, from time immemorial, virtually into a
criterion of nationality.
3:
the Assyrians have been referred to as Aramaean, Aramaye, Ashuraya,
Ashureen, Ashuri, Ashuroyo, Assyrio-Chaldean, Aturaya, Chaldean,
Chaldo, ChaldoAssyrian, ChaldoAssyrio, Jacobite, Kaldany, Kaldu,
Kasdu, Malabar, Maronite, Maronaya, Nestorian, Nestornaye, Oromoye,
Suraya, Syriac, Syrian, Syriani, Suryoye, Suryoyo and Telkeffee. —
Assyrianism verb
Aramaic
\ar-é-'máik\
n (1998)
1: a Semitic language which became the lingua franca of
the Middle East during the ancient Assyrian empire.
2: has been referred to as Neo-Aramaic, Neo-Syriac, Classical
Syriac, Syriac, Suryoyo, Swadaya and Turoyo.
