Media Literacy

How do you know if a source is credible? What are the signs that a website is trustworthy? How can you identify the strengths and weaknesses of an article or study? This research guide can help you! Click through the pages to learn about tools and techniques for evaluating sources across different forms of publication and media. 

See the list below for definitions of media literacy terms. All terms, unless linked, are adapted from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

• Academic: (adjective) of, relating to, or associated with an academy or school especially of higher learning; based on formal study especially at an institution of higher learning
• A.I.; AI; or artificial intelligence: (noun) software, a program, or a set of programs designed to imitate aspects of intelligent human behavior
• Bias: (noun) an inclination of temperament or outlook; especially : a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment
• Credible: (adjective) offering reasonable grounds for being believed or trusted
• Deepfake: (noun) an image or recording that has been convincingly altered and manipulated to misrepresent someone as doing or saying something that was not actually done or said
• Disinformation: (noun) false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth
• Fake news: (noun) news that is not real, true, or genuine
• AI Hallucination: (noun) incorrect or misleading results that AI models generate. These errors can be caused by a variety of factors, including insufficient training data, incorrect assumptions made by the model, or biases in the data used to train the model.
• Media: (singular: medium) (noun) a means of effecting or conveying something: such as a channel or system of communication, information, or entertainment; a publication or broadcast that carries advertising; a mode of artistic expression or communication
• Media literacy: (noun) The ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication.
• Misinformation: (noun) incorrect or misleading information
• Social media: (noun) forms of electronic communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (such as videos)