Media Literacy

SIFT (The Four Moves) is a method developed by Mike Caulfield to instruct researchers on how to evaluate online information. Any information and graphics provided on this guide can be attributed to Caulfied's original blog post from June 19, 2019, entitled "SIFT (The Four Moves)"

SIFT as an acronym is meant to inspire students confronted with an online source to make "moves" (i.e., take actions) that will allow them to rationally determine the validity of it's claims. These steps are:

1. Stop
   • This step encourages you to pause and reassess before you go any further. There are two definitions to this step:
     • Consider your familiarity with the source, the source's reputation, and the reputation of the claim. If you don't have this information (or enough information to make a decision) move on to steps 2-4. Do not share a source unless you have this sort of information.
     • Avoid Rabbit Holes. If you are looking at the other steps and find yourself in a fact-checking loop or frequently going off on tangents to check information, pause and remind yourself of what you're actually trying to accomplish. In the words of Caulfield:

If you just want to repost, read an interesting story, or get a high-level explanation of a concept, it’s probably good enough to find out whether the publication is reputable. If you are doing deep research of your own, you may want to chase down individual claims in a newspaper article and independently verify them.

Please keep in mind that both sorts of investigations are equally useful. Quick and shallow investigations will form most of what we do on the web. We get quicker with the simple stuff in part so we can spend more time on the stuff that matters to us. But in either case, stopping periodically and reevaluating our reaction or search strategy is key

2. Investigate the Source
   • Figure out some background information on your source before you dive in. Again, in Caulfield's words:

Now, you don’t have to do a Pulitzer prize-winning investigation into a source before you engage with it. But if you’re reading a piece on economics by a Nobel prize-winning economist, you should know that before you read it. Conversely, if you’re watching a video on the many benefits of milk consumption that was put out by the dairy industry, you want to know that as well.

This doesn’t mean the Nobel economist will always be right and that the dairy industry can’t be trusted. But knowing the expertise and agenda of the source is crucial to your interpretation of what they say. Taking sixty seconds to figure out where media is from before reading will help you decide if it is worth your time, and if it is, help you to better understand its significance and trustworthiness.

3. Find better Coverage
   • This is for when you're focusing on the claim and not the source itself
     • Is the claim true/false? Is it controversial or is it part of a general consensus?
   • Isolate your claim, find the best sort of source available on it, and/or check (i.e. scan) several reputable sources to find out what the expert consensus is.
   • Note: You don't have to agree with the consensus, but should use it for "the context and history" (Caulfield, 2019) as a starting point for your evaluation
4. Trace Claims, Quotes, and Media to the Original Context
   • Find the original context and see if your claim/quote/piece of media was accurately represented
     • What was the bigger picture / the larger story?
   • If you have a claim/citation:
     • Go back to the original source
     • Did the citation accurately represent the paper/element of the paper being cited?
   • If you have a quote
     • Find who originally said it, where it was originally said, and the full context in which it was originally said. 
     • Was the smaller quote a faithful representation of its general meaning?
   • If you have a piece of media (e.g., video, picture, etc.):
     • Find the original piece of media
       • Hint: See our section on reverse image searching to find out how you can accomplish this
     • Does the media appear to be edited? Was it manipulated? Was it clipped in a way that was misleading? Is it in its original form, but being applied to the wrong situation? (Example: AP news photographs being used by others in a misleading manner)