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Teaching and Learning Resources

MediaWell compiles this running list of resources for people who want to educate others or themselves about dis- and misinformation, media, technology, and politics.

Have suggestions for our curated, crowd-sourced list? Contact us!

Introductory Readings

MediaWell – Defining “Disinformation”
MediaWell’s Research Review on Defining “Disinformation,”

MediaWell – Producers of Disinformation
MediaWell’s Research Review on Producers of Disinformation

Propaganda Critic
Multimedia resources to help audiences understand and decode propaganda and influence.

Guide to Misinformation and Fact-Checking
Introductory guide to concepts such as misinformation, fact-checking, and credibility

Resources

Arbiters of Truth
Arbiters of Truth is a weekly podcast on disinformation and misinformation.

CITAP Digital Politics
A series of reports from UNC-Chapel Hill’s Center for Information, Technology and Public Life.

Columbia U Teachers College: Media and Social Change
This podcast explored the Media and Social Change Lab, a hub for multimodal and digital scholarship that explores the relationship between media and social change.

Combating Information Manipulation: A Playbook for Elections and Beyond
A new playbook from the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) aims to help identify, respond to, and build long-term resilience to election-related information manipulation, attacks on information integrity and threats to delegitimize elections globally.

Countering Disinformation Guide
A guide to promoting disinformation integrity from the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening.

CoVaxxy
Tools for “visualizing the relationship between COVID-19 vaccine adoption and online (mis)information” from Observatory on Social Media.

COVID-19 Misinformation Types
Graphs and a coding schema for the most common misinformation narratives from the Ryerson University Social Media Lab.

A Critical Field Guide to Working with Machine Learning Datasets
Written by Sarah Ciston, Mark Ananny, and Kate Crawford, the guide is a resource to guide researchers toward thoughtful, accountable data stewardship. The guide is part of the Knowing Machines research project.

Critical thinking: Conspiracy theories, fake news, urban legends, and moral panics
If you’re teaching critical thinking and looking for timely and engaging material, why not try a conspiracy theory? A compilation of podcasts from Southern Connecticut State University.

Datasets for Social Media Research
A product of the SSRC’s Social Data Initiative, this spreadsheet aggregates a list of datasets available for social media research, focusing on elections but curated and released for us in studying specific themes or topics.

Disinformation Cases
Dis- and misinformation narratives about Covid-19 compiled by EU vs Disinfo.

Fake News: How To Spot Misinformation
An exercise in spotting misinformation from NPR.

Full Fact’s Research
A series of briefings by Full Fact aiming to provide good evidence about bad information.

How to Talk to Friends and Family Who Share Misinformation
A tip sheet from PEN America.

Iffy.News
Compilation of credibility ratings by Media Bias/Fact Check

Is that a Fact?
From the News Literacy Project, this podcast explores the origins of false narratives and the harm they cause.

Moon Disaster
An exploration of deepfake technology produced by the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality.

NPR: Untangling Misinformation Series
A podcast on how widespread misinformation is and attempts to overcome it.

Public Editor
A project of Goodly Labs and Berkeley Institute for Data Science, Public Editor is a transparent and non-partisan effort for citizens to label faulty reasoning in the news.

QAnon Anonymous
A podcast that analyzes the conspiracy theories of the QAnon group.

Reply All Podcast
A podcast covering fascinating narratives about life online.

Sawbones Podcast
Sawbones Podcast, a humorous, science-based discussion of bogus medicine throughout history, with timely episodes on vaccines and novel coronavirus.

Shorenstein Center Media and Politics Podcast
The Shorenstein Center Media and Politics Podcast features insight and expertise from leading voices at the intersection of media, politics and public policy.

Social Media and Politics
A podcast with expert insights on digital politics hosted by Michael Bossetta of Lund University.

Tech Tank Podcast 

A bi-weekly podcast from the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation exploring the most consequential technology issues of our time.

Tech Won’t Save Us Podcast

In this podcast, Paris Marx interviews experts to critically examine the tech industry, its leaders, and its products, challenging the notion that tech alone can drive our world forward.

Syllabi

Ackerman, Mark & Clark, Sherman. 2018. Fall. “Fake News”: Truth, Misinformation, and Public Trust. University of Michigan
https://ssw.umich.edu/sites/default/files/documents/course-outlines/20192/F18SW741004.pdf [PDF]

Asher, Andrew. 2017. Spring. COLL-X 101. Experimental Topics: Fake News and Misinformation. Indiana University Libraries & Department of Anthropology.
https://iu.instructure.com/courses/1627911/assignments/syllabus

Andrews, Wyatt. 2017. Fall. MDST 3680. The News Media. University of Virginia
https://collab.its.virginia.edu/syllabi/public/4078ddc9-5f6d-4944-9244-c5e098b9f5f6

Arif, Ahmer. 2022. Fall. INF 385T. Special Topics in Information Science: Misinformation and Disinformation. The University of Texas at Austin School of Information.
https://www.ischool.utexas.edu/sites/default/files/webform/syllabi/Syllabus%20-%20Misinformation%20-%20Fall2022.pdf [PDF]

Bergstrom, Carl and Jevin West. 2019. INFO270/BIOL 270 “Calling Bullshit: Data Reasoning in a Digital World.” University of Washington. https://www.callingbullshit.org/syllabus.html

Confronting Extremism
An online course from UC Irvine about confronting extremism.

Daniels, Lee. 2019. Fall. MHC 348. Too Much Information? Social Media and the Threat to American Politics. CUNY Macaulay Honors College
https://macaulay.cuny.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Too-Much-Information-Social-Media-and-the-Threat-to-American-Politics-Sp19-Syllabus.pdf [PDF]

Dockray, Sean, James Parker, and Joel Stern. 2021. Machine Listening, a curriculum
https://machinelistening.exposed/curriculum/

Donovan, Joan. 2019. Fall. DPI-622. Media Manipulation and Disinformation Campaigns. Harvard Kennedy School
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10HtwN9_2P2w-eS-dkvBGmvzDIUYZ2mlRxInGfU2d-p0/edit

Farhart, Christina. 2020. Fall. POSC 210. Misinformation, Political Rumors, and Conspiracy Theories. Carleton College.
https://d31kydh6n6r5j5.cloudfront.net/uploads/sites/64/2020/04/POSC210.pdf [PDF] 

Guess, Andrew. 2020. Fall. Politics 327. Mass Media, Social Media, and American Politics. Princeton University.
https://andyguess.com/files/POL327Syllabus_Fall2020.pdf [PDF]

Glick, Joshua. 2021. Spring. Media Literacy in the Age of Deepfakes. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
https://deepfakes.virtuality.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Media-Literacy-Syllabus.pdf [PDF]

Johnson, Tom. J349T. News Media & Politics. University of Texas at Austin
https://journalism.utexas.edu/sites/default/files/08335-Johnson%20.pdf [PDF]

Jones, Matthew & Wiggins, Christopher. Data: Past, Present & Future. Columbia University
https://github.com/data-ppf/data-ppf.github.io/wiki/Syllabus

Journalism, fake news & disinformation: handbook for journalism education and training
UNESCO’s handbook for journalism education, arranged as a series of course modules.

Kramer, John. 2022. Summer. HSC 4247. Disinformation and Misinformation in Healthcare. University of Florida College of Public Health & Health Professions Syllabus.
https://undergrad.phhp.ufl.edu/wordpress/files/2022/06/HSC-4247-Health-Misinformation-and-Disinformation.pdf [PDF]

Kreiss, Daniel. 2020. Spring. MEJO 890. Fault Lines: The Big Debates in Political Communication Research. UNC Journalism and Media (Grad) https://danielkreiss.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/890.1-kreiss-spring2020.pdf [PDF]

Lewis, Seth. 2017. Fall. Fact or Fiction? University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H6tm5omBLk7ndg4gKglB-yN3_UACnM-KWFay5tAe58U/edit

Marwick, Alice & Lewis, Becca. Media Manipulation & Disinformation Online. Data & Society.
https://datasociety.net/pubs/oh/DataAndSociety_Syllabus-MediaManipulationAndDisinformationOnline.pdf [PDF]

McGrath, Jim. 2018. Summer. Leadership and Media Literacy in The Age of Fake News and Big Data. Brown University Leadership Institute (High School)
https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:26047/

Mediactive: How to Participate in Our Digital World
A self-paced course for adults from Arizona State University.

Mercieca, Jennifer. 2020. Spring. COMM 438. Propaganda. Texas A&M
https://7991bb1e-0d62-48eb-ab48-322d00a47622.filesusr.com/ugd/1c004b_292cb16979f2483f9ad0b1c380feed94.pdf [PDF]

Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis. 2015. Media, Public Opinion, and Politics. University of Oxford (Grad)
https://rasmuskleisnielsen.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/nielsen-2015-media-public-opinion-and-politics-syllabus-oxford.pdf [PDF]

Nyhan, Brendan. 2022. GOVT 30. Political Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories. Dartmouth University.
https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.dartmouth.edu/dist/5/2293/files/2022/03/misinformation-syllabus-2022.pdf [PDF]

Rangappa, Asha. 2021. Summer. Democracy & Disinformation. Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs
https://summer.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Syllabi/2021/GLBL%20S343E%20DEMOCRACY%20AND%20DISINFORMATION.pdf [PDF]

Stanley, Jason. 2020. Spring. PHIL 177. Propaganda, Ideology & Democracy. Yale University
https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/campuspress.yale.edu/dist/7/272/files/2020/01/PID-Syllabus-2020.pdf [PDF]

Starr, Paul. 2020. Spring. WWS 334/SOC 319. Media and Public Policy. Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
http://www.princeton.edu/~starr/319syl2020.html 

Trust, Torrey. 2018. Fall. EDUC 897C. Seminar in Digital Media Learning. University of Massachusetts Amherst
https://collab.its.virginia.edu/syllabi/public/4078ddc9-5f6d-4944-9244-c5e098b9f5f6

Vaidhyanathan, Siva. MDST 4101. Privacy and Surveillance. University of Virginia
https://collab.its.virginia.edu/syllabi/public/0d0d376c-872f-47a9-a209-a8cb31963aef

West, Jevin & Bergstrom, Carl. 2019. Fall. INFO 270/BIOL 270. Calling Bullshit: Data Reasoning in a Digital World. University of Washington
https://callingbullshit.org/syllabus.html

Woodall, Gina. 2019. Spring. POS 338. Fake News: How to Identify & Refute it. Arizona State University
https://webapp4.asu.edu/bookstore/viewsyllabus/2197/85422

Zuckerman, Ethan. 2019. Spring. MAS 700. News and Participatory Media. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
https://partnews.mit.edu/syllabus/

Peer Resources

MediaWell cross-promotes events and shares content with a number of partner organizations. In addition, we follow the work of a number of peer organizations and research centers who are producing or facilitating important work in disinformation studies. These organizations are: