Technological Tools

Description

What are the best tools we have that help us evaluate information communicated through technology? Thinking about the concepts from this semester (such as warranting theory, communication privacy management, diffusion, media/technological literacy or anything else) what cues can we look to which will give us confidence that information is accurate? Is it easier to fabricate information with the use of technology or is it easier to evaluate information because of technology? Support your argument.

REPLY TO:
believe that both media literacy and the warranting theory are the best tools for evaluating information communicated through technology. Media literacy is described as the ability to understand messages being sent and understanding how to create and evaluate these messages. When evaluating media messages there are four key components to look for including relevance, accuracy, bias, and reliability. Making sure these four components are met is an easy task to take on and it provides confidence in the information; in order to check for accuracy, we can compare multiple sources for the same bits of information. Using sources from an educational or government website can enforce reliability because these sources are more likely to be peer reviewed and contain citations. Scanning the title and the description of the source is a great way to check relevance and bias.

The Warranting theory is very interesting because it evaluates the information people disclose to each other. This theory investigates how the information we personally provide, the information others provide about us, and the information the website or media platform provides about us can reinforce or weaken the self- disclosures made to others. Looking at a bunch of clues on a media platform can give other people the power to evaluate what claims are true or false based on the warranty of the claim; this means how easy it would be to fabricate the claim. I believe that the use of the internet can give us the same ability to fabricate information and evaluate information, it depends on the media literacy of those using it.