There is so much information online it can be really hard to process everything
that we see. And it's not always clear who has produced the content,
and for what reason, and whether it can be trusted.
Historically people didn't have to worry so much about the reputation of the media that they relied on. Those sources were limited and content was coming directly from an authoritative source.
But online there are so many different groups publishing and sharing information
through different channels and all the different motives. These include:
news organizations. governments, political campaigns, businesses,
advocacy groups, think tanks, universities, community groups, individuals, and more. Very
often we get information shared by friends, family, or celebrities. And
while we recognize the person who shared it we don't know anything about the original source.
So when we're consuming information it's really important to gain some context
about the information source, including the purpose behind the message. When investigating
sources there are key questions we want to ask: One is, who's responsible for the
information that we're looking at? And two is, what is the reputation of the source?
These are simple skills that we can use to find answers to these questions which
Mike will begin to show you in the next video. You might be surprised
by how simple it is to build a habit of investigating sources.