We are living in a ‘post-truth’ age: blatant lies have become routine across society; public tolerance is shockingly high when it comes to inaccurate and undefended allegations; and non-sequiturs are commonly uttered in response to hard questions.
Post-truth politics is made possible by a loss of trust in established institutions. Across the Western world, trust is at an all time low, which helps to explain why many people prefer so-called ‘authentic’ politicians who tell it how it is – that is, what people feel. In a survey of Americans’ views on trust, the media and democracy, released in January 2018 by the Knight Foundation and Gallup, respondents were twice as likely to say the media support our democracy “very poorly” or “poorly” (43 per cent) than “very well” or “well” (28 per cent).
FACE UP TO IT
The second big factor in a post-truth age is the internet and the services it’s spawned. Nearly two thirds of adults in the USA get news on social media and the numbers continue to grow. On Facebook, Reddit, Twitter or WhatsApp, everyone is a publisher. Content no longer comes in fixed formats like articles in a newspaper. It can take any shape – video, chart or animation. A single idea can be shared by millions without background or context.
Facebook is by far the biggest player in the social network world, but its sheer dominance compared to others in the media industry is what’s truly staggering: 2.2 billion people use Facebook every month, which is more than 70 times higher than unique visitors to the most popular newspaper website in the UK.
Its financial clout is also on a different scale to any of the other players in the industry. Facebook is worth sixfold-plus more than Time Warner – at about $500bn. Even the recent outrage over Facebook’s failure to protect its users’ data in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal only put a very short-lived dent in Facebook’s finances.
While Facebook and Twitter may insist that they are technology and not media companies, they’re an integral part of the media ecosystem and play a significant role in how fake information is spread.
Facebook is starting to take ownership of this responsibility. In April 2018, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg appeared before the US Senate’s Commerce and Judiciary committees, admitting “we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm”.
The first big test for Facebook’s ability to take back control and stop being used as a pawn in electoral processes is this summer’s (2019) European Parliament elections. Facebook has already stated that these elections are a “top priority”.
CAUSE CÉLÈBRE
Science centres and museums face a similar challenge in this post-truth world. We want to believe that we’re different and that science is not like business and politics – but that’s not true. For decades science has been plagued by inaccurate information; rational debate on subjects as diverse as climate change, gene therapy and vaccinations has been hampered by a toxic mix of fact and fantasy. What does it say about the standing of science when global warming is dismissed by President Trump who, like him or loathe him, holds a position of great influence.
Increasingly, scientific evidence is also pitted against emotional stories, which have greater influence on the public when they’re told by celebrities. Actress and model Jenny McCarthy appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show to share her story about her son being diagnosed with autism and how – contrary to scientific evidence – her “mommy instinct” told her that childhood vaccinations played a part in triggering the developmental disorder. In the interview, McCarthy went on to add that “the University of Google is where I got my degree from”.
NO KIDDING
At the June 2018 Ecsite Annual Conference in Geneva, Switzerland – the largest gathering of science centre professionals in Europe – science communication in the post-truth era was on the agenda. Naturally, the problem of fake news wasn’t solved in one session, but it was reassuring, at least, to see an acknowledgement that this is an issue that science centres must address.
But what role can science centres play in this battle? I believe that science centres can work with schools to help children understand how they can use online tools to validate information they read online. A final report by the Commission on Fake News and the Teaching of Critical Literacy Skills in Schools, published in June 2018, found that only two per cent of children have the critical literacy skills to decide if a news article is real or fake. The startling report also found that 49.9 per cent of children are worried about not being able to spot fake news and that 53.5 per cent of teachers believe that the national curriculum does not equip children with the literacy skills they need to identify fake news.
To help address this issue, we’re currently planning Life Science Centre’s first workshop on fake news as part of our hands-on Science Sessions for teenagers, which are held every six weeks. While the efforts of one science centre is just a drop in the ocean when it comes to equipping children with the skills to spot fake news before they share it, Life is part of an international network of science centres and we call upon our peers globally to run their own workshops.
It’s also important to show children that the scientific method that they’re taught – the process of rigorously testing a hypothesis – has a place in everyday life, not just inside the science classroom.
I’m mindful, however, that we need to be careful to distinguish between ‘mistakes’ and ‘fake’. Children shouldn’t be afraid to make mistakes – rather, failure should be celebrated as a necessary hurdle before any great innovation. Fake news, on the other hand, is the purposeful spreading of false information, usually to benefit an agenda on one side of a polarised debate.
SOUND MIND
The biggest lesson we can learn from science is to avoid embedding ourselves in one camp on any debate, but to review all evidence presented to us fairly before we come to any conclusions. By adopting a scientific mindset when we scroll through social media, TV channels or newspaper columns, we can start to turn the tide on the proliferation of fake news.
