Media Literacy Archive

Improve Your Arguments: Russo-Ukrainian War Edition

TLDRUpFront: As we approach the first full week the InfoMullet provides a special "improve your arguments" Russu-Ukranian War edition. 

The Paradox of Popper’s Paradox

TLDRUpFront: In this "Improve Your Argument" post we cover everything everyone gets wrong by quoting Popper's Paradox of Tolerance.

MediaLiteracy: Marking-Up a Misleading Meme on School Guidance from the CDC

TLDRUpFront: Red lines are located under any statement in this meme that is false, misleading, or missing key context such as "if feasible" or "where possible." A link to the actual CDC Guidance page this meme was created from is included below.

InfoMullet: Adjusting our Mental-Model of COVID-19

TLDRUpFront: A growing fear in the United States is that COVID-19 may kill millions. This fear is based on an incomplete mental-model of how viruses work fed by COVID-19 reporting that highlights facts in isolation from context and triggering our cognitive biases in how we evaluate risk. This InfoMullet provides a mental model for understanding

Media Literacy: Spotting Suspect Surveys

Media Literacy: It's not enough to be able to spot click-bait websites or suspect headlines. Understanding what makes an opinion poll suspect is just as important. But that doesn't mean to ignore all statistics out-of-hand. FiveThirtyEight has put together a guide for spotting shoddy work that doesn't require an advanced degree in math. It requires

Media Literacy: Play Niche With Others

Media Literacy: A guide to niche-source news sites and how to evaluate them. For absolutely no reason whatsoever...the focus of this post is on niche sites covering government and government-related news.

Media Literacy: Osama bin Laden not pictured

TLDRUpFront: A commonly circulated photo purports to show a young Osama bin Laden vacationing in Sweden. By digging into the provenance and biographical details disputing this claim we learn more about him, about media literacy, and crayons.

HistoricalMullet: Tracking Ukrainian Crisis in Live Time with Wikipedia

TLDRUpFront: Media literacy in tracking the Russian-Ukranian War in live time.