Rumor Monster
An interactive digital platform for young adults to learn about fake news
The arrival of social media contributes to the rapid spread of disinformation and misinformation (commonly known as fake news) online. In 2018, there were 80 million Facebook engagements with false content per month, and since 2016, there have been 4-6 million Twitter shares of false content per month (Allcott, Gentzkow, & Yu, 2019). As young adults are active participants on social media, they have to deal with a great amount of false and malicious information being shared on these platforms.
Tracy accidentally shared some fake news on Facebook. She felt really bad about it.
She wanted to enhance her knowledge and skills to deal with fake news issues.
She found "Rumor Monster" website and really enjoyed the learning experience.
Thanks to Rumor Monster, Tracy can now recognize fake news tactics and become a smarter social media user.
The learning experience is centered around ‘Rumor Monster’ TV Series, which is about the campaigns run by Black Stone, a PR agency specialized in creating and spreading fake news on social media to benefit its clients. The TV Series is fictional, but its content is developed based on the real events happening around the world.
When learners watch an episode, key terms and definitions will show up as they are mentioned in the episode. This helps them understand the content better and strengthens the connection between the concepts and the narrative.
The quiz provides learners with self explanation opportunities to gain deeper understanding about the topic. Learning tips are also provided to help learners improve their metacognitive skills.
After answering each question, learners receive explanatory feedback. They can also watch the part of the episode that is related to the question.
Learners play “Fake News Detector Game” to apply their knowledge to real-life examples. This helps them enhance the skills to quickly recognize fake news. Learners are given self-explanation opportunities as well as explanatory feedback to deepen their understanding of the subject. Hints are provided to scaffold their learning if they encounter any struggle when playing this game.
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