In the idea of responsible consumption, a driven force is the maturity of consumers and their responsibility to preserve the planet's ecosystem. Our course proposes you a concept of responsible news consumption that puts the integrity of the information ecosystem of civil society at the forefront. In this ecosystem, each participant - a citizen - realizes not only the importance of receiving reliable information for making decisions and taking actions but also the responsibility to members of his or her large and small communities for the credibility of information shared with them.
Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.
In today's digital age of deceptive information abundance, news consumers can be lost in a flood of misinformation, viral cliches, ad and propaganda. This five-week course gives you the critical thinking techniques for the conscious work with this increasing flood.
Also, we'll cover the internal principles of production and distribution of quality news - the main journalism product that helps the democratic system to resist such diseases as a crisis of confidence, populism or radicalism. These skills are quite useful for any responsible citizen but they are crucial for civil societies in the post-Soviet space, where independent journalism is still quite young and often unable to fully counteract pressure from corporations and authorities.
What You Will Learn:
- distinguish verified journalistic reports from similar information products like ads, propaganda, or entertainment
- determine the degree of reliability of the news by analyzing its structure, presentation, evidence, sources and language
Syllabus
WEEK 1: Responsible news consumption as the basis for the development of civil society
WEEK 2: News in post-soviet realm
WEEK 3: Journalistic verification: how it works
WEEK 4: Between fairness and balance
WEEK 5: Fake news and post-truth as alternative vision of news
