Questions for students to help students think critically about news

Questions for students to help students think critically about news

Read the article below and answer and discuss questions after 

By Michelle Roberts

Digital health editor

Sniffing other people's body odour might be useful in therapy for social anxiety, say Swedish researchers who have started tests with volunteers. 
 

The scientists have been using armpit sweat in their experiments. 

Their hunch is the smell activates brain pathways linked to emotions, offering a calming effect - but it is far too soon to say if they are right. 

They are presenting some of their early findings at a medical conference in Paris this week. 

Babies are born with a strong sense of smell, with a preference for their mother and her breastmilk. 

Smell helps us humans sense danger - from food or a smoky fire, for example - and interact with our environment, as well as each other.

It also makes meals more tasty and can evoke strong memories too. 

Aromas are detected by receptors in the upper part of the nose. Signals from these are then relayed directly to the limbic system, a brain region that is associated with memory and emotions

The Swedish researchers suggest that human body odour might communicate our emotional state - happy or anxious, for instance - and even elicit similar responses in others who smell it.

They asked volunteers to donate armpit sweat from when they were watching either a scary movie or a happy one. 

Next, 48 women with social anxiety agreed to sniff some of these samples, alongside receiving a more conventional therapy called mindfulness, where people are encouraged to focus on the here and now rather than replaying negative thoughts. 

Some of the women were given genuine body odour to sniff, while others - the control group - were given clean air instead. 

Those who were exposed to the sweat appeared to do better with the therapy. 

Lead researcher Ms Elisa Vigna, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said: "Sweat produced while someone was happy had the same effect as someone who had been scared by a movie clip. So there may be something about human chemo-signals in sweat generally which affects the response to treatment. 

"It may be that simply being exposed to the presence of someone else has this effect, but we need to confirm this. In fact, that is what we are testing now in a follow-up study with a similar design, but where we are also including sweat from individuals watching emotionally neutral documentaries."

Questions

1. In the article, headline, or social share, ‘who’ is saying ‘what’? That is, what specific author and publication are making what kind of claim about what topic or ideas?

2. Is what’s being said fact or opinion?

3. Does this headline seem true? (This is especially critical for ‘fact-based’ headlines.) If so, by whose standards? Who would disagree with it and why? How can it be fact-checked? Is the author using ‘grey areas’ of ‘truth’ in a way that seems designed to cause a stir, cast doubt, influence thinking, or otherwise change the opinion of readers?

4. Is this headline entirely ‘true’/accurate or based instead on partially true information/data? Misleading information is often based on partial truths and then reframed to fit a particular purpose: to cause an emotion such as anger or fear that leads to an outcome of some kind: a ‘like,’ donation, purchase, signup, vote, etc. 

5. Are there any embedded logical fallacies in the headline itself–especially straw man arguments, emotional appeals, or charged language intended to polarize, rally, or otherwise ‘engage’ readers?

6. Is the topic the headline is based on important? Worth understanding more deeply?

7. Who would this seem to benefit if accepted as ‘true’? Note, this doesn’t mean it’s ‘fake,’ but understanding who benefits from changing perceptions is an important ‘fake news’ detecting tool.

8. Is this information, angle, or ‘take’ new or something that’s been said before (and either fact-checked or debunked)?

9. Is the data (fact-based) or position (opinion-based) inherent in the headline shared by other credible publishers or does it stand in contrast to the ‘status quo’? If the latter, how does this affect the headline?

10. What background information would I need to be able to evaluate its credibility? Where can I get more information on the topics in the headline to better evaluate its credibility? What do I stand to gain or lose if I accept this as true?

11. Does the ‘news story’ accurately here represent the ‘big picture’ or is it something ‘cherry-picked’(in or out of context) designed to cause an emotional response in the reader?

For the second set of questions to think critically about news headlines, we’re turning to the News Literacy Project, a media standards project that created a set of questions to help students think critically about news headlines.

12. Gauge your emotional reaction. Is it strong? Are you angry? Are you intensely hoping that the information turns out to be true or false?

13. Reflect on how you encountered this. Was it promoted on a website? Did it show up in a social media feed? Was it sent to you by someone you know?

14. Consider the headline or message:

a. Does it use excessive punctuation or ALL CAPS for emphasis?

b. Does it make a claim about containing a secret or telling you something that ‘the media’ doesn’t want you to know?

c. Don’t stop at the headline. Keep exploring!

15. Is this information designed for easy sharing, like a meme?

16. Consider the source of information:

a. Is it a well-known source?

b. Is there a byline (an author’s name) attached to this piece?

c. Go to the website’s ‘About’ section. Does the site describe itself as a ‘fantasy news’ or ‘satirical news’ site?

17. Does the example you’re evaluating have a date on it?

18. Does the example cite a variety of sources, including official and expert sources? Does the information this example provides appear in reports from (other) news outlets?

19. Can you confirm, using a reverse image search, that any images in your example are authentic (i.e., haven’t been altered or taken from another context)?

20. If you searched for this example on a fact-checking site such as snopes.com, factcheck.org, or politifact.com, is there a fact-check that labels it as less than true?