UC Counter Misinformation Month
11 April 2025 – 11 May 2025
From the Affiliated Schools Research Program to a University-wide intervention
In the context of the 2025 federal election, the 'UC Counter Misinformation Month' intervention aims to test the efficacy of a nimble, sustainable, and frugal method to develop the resilience to misinformation of 91直播 students, many of whom will be voting for the first time.
The intervention is part of Political Misinformation and Media Literacy: Australian Election 2025, a News and Media Research Centre, Faculty of Arts and Design, research project. The intervention adapts an information verification method co-developed with teacher-librarians and implemented in two ACT Colleges in 2024 as part of the 'Building information resilience: A collaborative project with ACT teacher-librarians' project. This earlier project was funded by the ACT Education Directorate - 91直播 Affiliated Schools Research Program, which is led by UC's Faculty of Education.
For the UC Counter Misinformation Month intervention, a video-based media and information literacy program has been specially created by the News and Media Research Centre. Video-based interventions have been shown to successfully foster ‘lateral reading’ when assessing the credibility of online claims (Axelsson & Nygren 2024).
Students who log into the Canvas UC Counter Misinformation Month website will be asked to answer two pre-test questions to assess their baseline media and information literacy/verification skills in relation to electoral mis/information. Students will then be prompted to view four short media and information literacy videos. Finally, they will be asked to answer two post-test questions to assess for enhanced information verification skills.
The first 500 students to take part will be offered a $10 UCX voucher to be redeemed at Global Kitchen in the UC Refectory.
Team: Mathieu O’Neil, Xiaolan Cai, Momoko Fujita (N&MRC/FAD), Rob Hardcastle (FAD), Andrew Ross (FoE)
Thanks to the following for their kind support: Teaching and Learning, UC Library, UCMedia, UCX.
Purpose and rationale: the need for improved assessments of information credibility
Finding credible information is key to democratic decision-making. This is why in Finland, a long recognised leader in this field, media and information literacy are part of civics education (Gerrard et al. 2024).
We therefore urgently need to improve students’ information literacy. ‘Information literacy’ designates a person’s ability to determine when more information is needed, and their capacity to fact-check claims and sources.
Despite these being crucial skills, a 2023 survey found that only 24% of Australian students aged 8-16 had received lessons in the previous year to help them judge the credibility of news stories (Notley et al. 2023).
When information literacy is taught in Australian schools, strategies rely on complex methods that are ineffective in an online environment where attention is finite, and precious.
In a 2024 study, 2,115 Australian adults were tested on their capacity to verify information on websites and social-media posts. Of those adults, 97% were classified as having 'poor' or 'limited' ability to verify information online, and only 3% had an accuracy score of at least 50% across the four key information verification tasks used; yet many respondents overestimated their ability to verify information online (Park et al. 2024).
A greater emphasis on effective information credibility evaluation is required.
Using 'lateral reading' and Wikipedia to fact-check claims in the attention economy
When people are constantly exposed to claims of varying quality, verification must be fast: we should not waste our attention on dubious content.
Verification methods ought to be accepted by the greatest number of people possible so must be non-partisan. Finally, verification must be transparent, as transparency restores trust in democratic institutions.
The ‘lateral reading’ method checks all these boxes. Lateral reading entails departing from one source or claim and cross-checking information using other reliable sources. Numerous studies have shown its positive impact on students (Brodsky et al. 2021, McGrew et al. 2019, McGrew & Breakstone 2023, Wineburg et al. 2022, Weisberg et al. 2022).
Professional fact-checkers employ lateral reading and Wikipedia to quickly fact-check claims. Wikipedia articles must have a neutral point of view and be based on reliable sources. Thousands of volunteer editors and administrators ensure these policies are adhered to.
Studies have found that medical science articles on Wikipedia are as correct as scientific publications (Buchbinder & Bourne 2018, Kr盲enbring et al. 2014, Rajagopalan et al. 2011, Thomas et al. 2013). Sadly, too many educators still distrust the free encyclopaedia.
Wikipedia should not be cited as a source, or trusted blindly: simply put, students' 'Wikipedia literacy' needs to improve, so that they can immediately identify signs that an article may be problematic, e.g., no references or a warning banner.
Resources (2024-2022)
King, R. (2024) , 13 November.
O’Neil, M., Heppner, H. & Ross, A. (2024) . News and Media Research Centre submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters inquiry on civics education, engagement, and participation in Australia. DCPC/News & Media Research Centre, 91直播.
Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue (2024) . AP4D Options Paper, 91直播.
Cunneen, R. & O’Neil, M. (2023) Co-Developing a New Approach to Media Literacy in the Attention Economy. Affiliated Schools Research Program Final Report. Faculty of Education, 91直播.
O’Neil, M., Ackland, R. & Cunneen, R. (2023) . News and Media Research Centre Submission to Australian Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media. DCPC/News & Media Research Centre, 91直播.
O’Neil, M., Cunneen, R., Carrigy, B., Cheater, R., Margetts, W., O’Brien, M. & Turner, K. (2022). . DCPC/News & Media Research Centre, 91直播.
O’Neil, M. & Jensen, M. (2022) . The Conversation, 12 August.
O’Neil, M. & Cunneen, R. (2022) . Connections, 121, pp. 8-9, April.
Works cited
Axelsson, C.-A. W., & Nygren, T. (2024). The advantage of videos over text to boost adolescents’ lateral reading in a digital workshop. Behaviour & Information Technology, 1–15.
Brodsky, J. E., Brooks, P. J., Scimeca, D., Galati, P., Todorova, R., & Caulfield, M. (2021). Associations between online instruction in lateral reading strategies and fact-checking COVID-19 news among college students. AERA Open, 7, 23328584211038937.
Gerrard, J., McNaughton, S., Webber, M., Verdonk, C. & Meade, S. (2023) He Uru Kahikatea: Building young people’s resilience through media and information literacy and digital citizenship skills - Full report. The Office of the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Advisor.
Kr盲enbring, J., Penza, T. M., Gutmann, J., Muehlich, S., Zolk, O., Wojnowski, L., Maas, R., Engelhardt, S., & Sarikas, A. (2014) Accuracy and completeness of drug Information in Wikipedia: A comparison with standard textbooks of pharmacology. PLoS ONE, 9(9): e106930.
McGrew, S., Smith, M., Breakstone, J., Ortega, T., & Wineburg, S. (2019). Improving university students’ web savvy: An intervention study. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 89(3), 485-500.
McGrew, S., & Breakstone, J. (2023). Civic online reasoning across the curriculum: Developing and testing the efficacy of digital literacy lessons. AERA Open, 9, 23328584231176451.
Notley, T., Chambers, C. Flora Zhong, H., Park, S., Young Lee, J. & Dezuanni, M. (2023) News and Young Australians in 2023: How children and teens access, perceive and are affected by news media. Western Sydney University.
Rajagopalan, M. S., Khanna, V. K., Leiter, Y., Stott, M., Showalter, T. N., Dicker, A. P., & Lawrence, Y. R. (2011) Patient-oriented cancer information on the internet: A comparison of Wikipedia and a professionally maintained database. Journal of Oncological Practice, 7(5), 319-23.
Park, S., Notley, T., Thomson, T. J., Hourigan, A., and Dezuanni, M. (2024). Online Misinformation in Australia: Adults’ experiences, abilities, and responses. 91直播 and Western Sydney University.
Thomas, G. R., Eng. L., de Wolff, J. F., & Grover, S. C. (2013) An evaluation of Wikipedia as a resource for patient education in nephrology. Seminars in Dialysis, 26(2), 159-63.
Weisberg, L., Kohnen, A. & Dawson, K. (2022). Impacts of a Digital Literacy Intervention on Preservice Teachers’ Civic Online Reasoning Abilities, Strategies, and Perceptions. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 30(1), 73-98. Waynesville, NC USA: Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education. .
Wineburg, S., Breakstone, J., McGrew, S., Smith, M. D., & Ortega, T. (2022). Lateral reading on the open Internet: A district-wide field study in high school government classes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 114(5), 893.