Cases of Misinformation and Misinterpretation

Did you try to find Professor Hildegard Black's Oddities of Historyweb site? If so, did you have any luck? If you weren't able to find any information did you think you  were using poor search technique or did you begin to use critical thinking to question my example? The fact is the web site is pure fiction. It doesn't exist. I made it up to illustrate my point. If you questioned it, good for you!

 Some Real Stories

The more you do research on the Internet, the more poor information you will run across. Professor Black isn't real, but all of the web sites and incidents that follow are real. You can check them out if you like.

 Recruiting College Athletes

Two of my students were doing research on the recruiting of college athletes. They knew college athletes often get help gaining admissions to college, so they did a search using the key words, athlete  collegeentrance exam. They were surprised at how many places had an example of a test and called me over to take a look. They asked me if I had ever seen the test and I told them I had. As I walked away I almost fell on the floor when  heard one of them say, "I can't believe how easy it is!"

If you have an Internet connection, do a search using those words. Examine what you find. I think you will find out why I had to fight to keep from laughing. Go ahead. Do the research before reading on. I will wait.  If you don't have an Internet connection, read on and I will explain. First read the first few questions of the test.    

Their comment told me they weren't reading critically. The questions were so easy, because this was a humorous article that had been circulated thousands of time on the Internet. They didn't examine the web  site it was on to see what kind of site it was. Apparently they didn't even read the title carefully. Do you know of any test that has a three-week time limit?

Election 1996

Before the 1996 presidential election, a friend of mine asked me to visit her class web projects. One student had done a web site that pointed to all of the major candidates running for President. As I looked down the  list of Democratic candidates on his project, I came across the name, Patrick Paulsen, along with the following quote from the site.

"Perennial presidential candidate Pat Paulsen is the first aspirant to the oval office to run his campaign via the Internet, he says. From his hillside home in California, Paulsen will not only keep the public and press  advised of his own activities in behalf of the Democratic nod, but will answer "relevant" questions from prospective constituents, fans, friends and opposing candidates by way of email which he calls "yesterday's  on ramp to the information super highway, tomorrow's Post Its."

I almost fell off of my chair from laughing. It was obvious the student had done a good deal of research to  find the different candidates. Unfortunately, it was equally obvious he didn't evaluate the material at the web sites he located, at least not at this one.

If you aren't rolling on the floor, there is nothing wrong with your sense of humor (or mine). Neither the student nor the teacher was even born when Pat Paulsen ran for president for the first time in the 1968 Presidential election.

If the student had taken the time to examine the contents of the site beyond the home page. He might not have recommended it. At the very least, he would have handled it differently.

You can visit what is left of the Pat Paulsen site. Today there is just the home page with some missing graphics and broken links, but it is enough to give you and idea of what he saw. Here's the site:

http://www.archive.org/pres96/demfring/pat.htm

If you have an Internet connection, visit the site. Then do a little searching for information on Pat Paulsen and  see if you figured out why I laughed so hard when I saw the name. Don't go on to the next section until you are ready to check whether you are correct.

The Rebirth of a Candidate

By now you may have found out Pat Paulsen is a comedian who was a regular on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, a hit show in the 1960's. The first time he ran for President was as a weekly comedy sketch  during the 1968 season. Internet offered him an opportunity to get in front of an audience again and the web site was his stage.

So what's the big deal?

You may not think this is a big deal, but the simple fact is, you MUST be careful about information you retrieve or you will be misinformed. You must be careful of what you post or you will misinform others. In  this case, all of the student's hard work was put in question, because he published on obvious error that suggested a lack of careful research.

Getting Serious

All of these examples humorous are in may ways, but there is plenty of information on the Internet that is intended to provide false and misleading information, because they want you to think the way they do. There  are hate groups who believe they are superior to others. They promote hate and violence through the use of lies, propaganda, and tricks that appeal to your emotions.

This is what advertising attempts to do. It is one thing to use these types of tricks to get you to make a  purchase. It is something entirely different to use these tricks to get you to hate someone, to commit a crime, or participate in violence.

If you learn about how words can be used to persuade people to do things, you will be arming yourself against these hate sites. You may even save yourself a few dollars when you learn how companies are  getting you to spend money on expensive brands and getting you to buy things you do not really need.
 
 

There aren't many place on the net that have information that is easy for kids to understand.  Here are two that will teach you about propaganda and misleading information and hate groups.  I suggest having your  parents help you with these sites. They may be tough to understand, but media awareness is serious business and worth the effort.  The Institute of Propaganda Analysis  http://weber.u.washington.edu/~scmuweb/propag/contents.htm Media Awareness  http://www.intergate.bc.ca/personal/twist/aware.html Educating about hate groups  http://www.splcenter.org/

Evaluating the Quality of Information on Web Sites

The first thing you should do is to read the material and ask yourself if it makes sense. Is there information  you question? Does information seem to be missing? Answering yes to any of these questions is an indication the information may not be reliable, but that doesn't mean it isn't reliable. Here are some questions  to ask and things to look for that will help you decide on the usefulness of the information.

1) Who created the page? Was it an unidentified person or is there an email link to communicate with them? What makes them an expert?

2) Was the page created by an organization? If so, what is the purpose of the organization?

3) What is the purpose of the page and who is the audience?

4) Does the author tell you the source of the information so you can check it? Is there a bibliography?

5) Is the information current?

6) Are there links to other reliable places that contain information that can verify their information?

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