Posts Tagged ‘satire’
Myth busted
Posted on: February 26, 2020
I like a good joke as much as the next person.
For me, a good joke is a turn of phrase that is smart, observant, and above all, true to life. So I laughed at what one local satirist shared on Twitter.
But I stopped chuckling almost as soon as I started. The image was not hashtagged as satire and was meant to simulate a serious message from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
To be clear, the graphic is fake. It does not originate from the WHO, which has actual images busting myths about COVID-19.
I know that some will get the joke, but there are others who might propagate the image out of context and without checking for a source.
We do not need to add a “joke” to the existing dump of misinformation and disinformation. All these spread faster than COVID-19 and infect our capacity to think critically. But there is an inoculation — myth busting fuelled by skepticism.
How about clickbait?
Posted on: September 10, 2019
Long story made short: The Media Literacy Council (MLC) of Singapore was responsible for propagating wrong information. It declared that satire was a form of fake news.
Satire is not fake news. This news article cited two prominent individuals who have said so.
Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said earlier in May that the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (Pofma) targets only false statements that distort facts and not opinions, criticisms, satire or parody…
Associate Professor Leong Ching, dean-designate of students at the National University of Singapore said in a public post on Facebook that “satire is NOT fake news. It is exempt from POFMA”.
The MLC apologised (weakly) and removed its Facebook post and misleading graphic saying that it “gave the wrong impression that satire was fake news”.
Impression? The graphic made a clear statement — Header: Types of Fake News; sixth example: Satire.
Just apologise humbly and sincerely instead of using words that try to save face. If not you give the impression that you are neither sorry nor better informed.
Speaking of being better informed, clickbait is not necessarily fake news. If it was, most BuzzFeed headlines and some Today paper tweets are fake news. I am referring to sensationalist top 10 lists and gossip about celebrities and their kids. These do not count as fake news in my books. Drivel is not news.
Rant over. Viewed through an educator’s lens, this incident reminds me that an authority is not the same as an expert. Both can get things wrong, but an authority sees that as weakness so it is reluctant to admit it. This erodes trust.
There is another lesson. An agency might mourn the madness of a mob. But change the circumstances and we get the wisdom in the crowd. A small group of people in an authority can suffer from groupthink more than a large, loosely-connected group of people.
If you read my reflection to the end, the clickbait title worked. Was there fake news or bad information here?
Onion layers
Posted on: October 11, 2010
The Onion, the news satire website, is always good for a laugh, that is, provided you know that it’s poking fun at real life events or people!
One of their latest “news reports” was a stab at Justin Bieber (gag!).
Video source
But not everyone realized that it was satire. Here is a snapshot of group of local students and a teacher having a Facebook conversation about it (click to see larger version). I have blocked out the names and faces to protect their identities. (Bieber, on the other hand, needs no protection. Quite the opposite, really.)
It’s enough to make you cry. I’m not referring to The Onion, but to the use of English and the digital ignorance.
I won’t say much about the teaching and learning of English because that is the domain of English teachers. I will say that what I have captured is quite typical and yet still decipherable. (It is almost impossible to read the tweeny and teeny tweets that come my way accidentally because my handle is @ashley.)
What worries me is that the analysis and evaluation of digital resources does not seem to feature prominently in our schools. It is not taught or modelled in any significant way. You don’t need a special course or teacher to do this. It should be done in every academic subject by every teacher!
Yes, what I have captured is a snapshot. But any teacher who takes advantage of social media experiences this every day, perhaps several times a day. Put all these snapshots together and you see the bigger picture.
We need to teach our learners how to peel onions (or Onions) apart, layer by layer, to figure out if they are edible (have any worth). The process won’t be pleasant, but they must do this because they already live, study and work in the digital world.
Another dot in the blogosphere? 