Media Awareness Assignment AUDIO:
- What is disinformation?
Disinformation is false information, which is intended to mislead, especially propaganda issued by a government organization to a rival power or the media.
2. How does disinformation impact a community?
Obviously, the point of disinformation is to lead others away from a certain issue or problem, in favor of one that appears to be sometimes more positive or more acceptable to the brain. It is harmful because people deserve to know the reality of things and if disinformation keeps spreading, then it will just continue to be a problem.
3. Find and describe a recent real-world example where disinformation impacted a community.
There was a situation back in August 2021 where people had thought that taking horse medication could be a vaccine or cure for COVID-19. Despite doctors being concerned about the danger that comes with taking this medication for horses as a human, people still believe it would help. People on social media spread the idea to the point of a news story being made about it, even though the effects could be seriously harmful to humans. Doctors concerned with people using horse medication to treat COVID-19
4. Give an example/share an experience of how disinformation impacted you or your community.
An example of how disinformation has affected my community is a large number of anti-vaxers here in Vancouver. I’ve seen a few small riots about not wearing masks as well as people in stores without masks when restrictions were high. This affected the community by actively making themselves part of the problem by going against the things that will help.
5. How would you help your fellow classmates identify and stop the spread of disinformation?
A way my classmates and I could help identify misinformation and stop the spread of it would be that once we heard about a situation or issue, properly educate ourselves and do our own research before jumping to conclusions and possibly becoming part of the problem. Helping out by doing what would be best in the situation at hand and not making it worse.