Fake News
Fact-checking
promoting belief correction without fueling so-called "backfire effects, monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases" with a goal of "applying the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding"
refutation
proving a theory wrong or false
Baseline bluff
purposely misleading the public to believe opponents are trying to "cut" funding/programs while understanding their plan can only be called a "cut" in relation to projected future spending or the baseline
sufficient conditions
one that, if met, does guarantee the truth of something
Opinion
personal judgements based on facts, no reasoning
inductive reasoning
premises strongly support the conclusion, but we can't be absolutely certain, we ask what is most likely to be true
Affective polarization
process of steady growth of the mutual dislike between parties
conspiracy theory
explanation that involves an illegal or harmful act supposedly carried out by government or other powerful actors—without credible evidence, contradict the prevailing understanding of history or simple facts
Debunking
exposing falseness of something, refuting misinformation
belief echoes
exposure to negative political information continues to shape attitudes even after it has been discredited. People will acknowledge the new information, but the wrong one still will be there
Fake news
fabricated information that mimics news media content in form but not in organizational process or intent
counterargumentation
facts presented through humor reduce counterargumentation, it's an objection to an objection, rebuttal, it's giving an argument against an aspect of someone's reasoning
Disinformation
false information purposely spread to deceive people
False news
favorable term by some, because of using "fake news" as a political weapon; more objectively verifiable. Fake news has lost its veracity
measurement bias
favoring a particular result - either overstating or understating the true value of a measurement; they produce unreliable results
Rumour
form of misinformation, acceptance of information that lacks evidence, it's powerful thanks to social transmission
implicit qualifications
general statement is not literal, and we need to assume implicit questions indicating the frequency with which it applies
margin of error
greatest expected difference between obtained results and results from all of the population, confidence level indicates frequency. Chance that the result from the survey is the same as the overall population
Prejudice
holding a belief without consideration of the evidence for or against it/deciding in advance of reading an argument what you believe to be the case
Cyborg
human users who automatically share news from different sources, not necessarily reading them
Motivated reasoning
inability to control our preconceptions, we're either motivated by accuracy (seek and consider relevant evidence to reach the best conclusion) or by partisan goals (motivation to apply reasoning in defense of a prior conclusion). We cannot process info objectively
cogent
inductive argument that has a good structure, but we don't really accept its conclusion as true
inductively forceful
inductive argument with true premise and structure, whose conclusion we accept as true
News diffusion
it deals with how news is circulated among publics. It's when news spread through a population and forms a basic of public opinion.
falsification
looking for an counter-example to prove an inductive line of reasoning false
Political Knowledge
low levels among Americans, but stable. Helps with evaluating political parties. The more informed citizens, the more they will participate in politics and be able to choose candidates consistent with their own attitudes
belief persistence
maintaining a belief despite new information that firmly contradicts it
Framing
might have a positive or negative ring to it so people automatically think of a certain issue in a given way (pro-life/pro-choice). Tricking people through employing words that the public automatically accepts/rejects
Misnomers
misleading terms (tall Starbucks coffee being the smallest one) intended to purposely fool the public into supporting/boycotting a specific product or candidate
Necessary conditions
must be met if something is to be true, but cannot by itself guarantee the truth of that thing
false beliefs
contrary to ignorance, they are held strongly. Misconception resulting from incorrect reasoning (like a link between vaccinations and autism)
backfire effect
corrective information can reinforce false information debunked by factual information, stems from motivated reasoning
sound argument
deductive argument that is both valid and has true premises, so the conclusion is also true
message discounting
a scale used to assess the extent to which people discounted the corrective stimuli as "just a joke", doesn't play a role in the study
Fluency
a state of mind that characterizes the ease of information processing
Strawman
absurd simplification of someone else's position that is obviously wrong, it's only expressed so it can be easily defeated
debiasing
accepting corrective information; correcting misinformation. It involves warning people about the potentially misleading nature of the information, repeating corrections, give corrections with alternative explanation of the issue
Critical thinking
actively setting out to understand what is really going on by carefully evaluating information, it's skeptical and objective. helps us search for the best account we can find of the way things are.
Denying the antecedent
an invalid argument which mistakenly assumes that, when one thing always follows from another, the fact that the first isn't true also guarantees the second isn't true
Affirming the consequent
an invalid argument which mistakenly assumes that, when one thing always follows from another, the truth of the second also guarantees the first
Rhetoric
attempt to persuade by making an emotional appeal rather than by using reasoning
Argument
attempt to persuade someone through reasoning that they should agree with a particular conclusion
novelty
attracts human attention, encourages information sharing, it is usually surprising and more valuable
Bots
automated accounts that impersonate humans
Uncritical thinking
automatically believing what you read or are told without pausing to think if it's accurate or true
Summary
brief outline of key information, setting out the main points
Automatic belief echoes
byproduct of online processing, initial misinformation has a larger effect on a person than its correction
misinformation
can originate from rumors but also from works of fiction, governments and politicians, can be unintentional
memory updating
changing how one thinks about an issue
Heuristic
cognitive shortcut or "rule of thumb" allowing for quick decision-making and judgement
Unwarranted
conclusion, that is not supported by an argument
Deliberative belief echoes
conscious reasoning learning about a false claim leads someone to reason that other negative information about the candidate or policy is more likely to be true
reliability
consistency of a measure - high reliability when it produces similar results under consistent conditions. It means the information is accurate, reproducible and consistent
Description
reporting information without evaluation or comment
representative samples
resembles a larger group about which we make claims
Rumor cascade
rumor diffusion on social media (like retweeting a tweet) - if something was tweeted 10 times, but none of the tweets were retweeted, it would be 10 cascades of size one
Conscious bias
someone deliberately presents a one-sided view of sth, or holds a one-sided opinion
Assumption
something relevant to an argument that has been taken for granted by the person presenting it, rather than spelled out
Deductive reasoning
spelling out whatever conclusion follows logically from your premises, without reference to any external information
probability
study of how likely sth is to happen or be true
Selective exposure
tendency to favor information which reinforces their pre-existing views while avoiding contradictory information, in other words - confirmation bias
Alternative facts
there can be multiple alternative facts, based on the criteria we use to filter data
Implied Falsehood
trickery that tries to imply what advertisers can't legally say
Veracity
truthfulness, accuracy - it determines the truth of the argument, not the validity
Objectivity
trying to identify the facts of a situation as seen from the outside rather than relying only on your own feelings/point of view
Weasel words
up to, seem, most; for example instead of giving the exact number. Hollow sentences that cannot be backed up, they suck the meaning out of a phrase
Confirmation bias
using information only to confirm existing preconceptions
denying the consequent
valid argument, one thing is said to always follow from another, so if the second isn't true, the first one also isn't
affirming the antecedent
valid form of an argument, one thing is said to always follow from another, so the truth of the first guarantees the truth of the second
Desirability bias
we are biased towards a belief we want to be true
rational expectation
whatever is most reasonable to expect in a situation, can be different to personal expectations
Unconscious bias
when opinions are distorted by factors people are not aware of
Eye candy
when words say one thing and pictures another, people will concentrate on the pictures (drug tv ads when they list all the symptoms but show happy people)