Fake News!

This video gives a nice discussion of the ways in which fake news spreads through the Internet and social media.





As a follow up to the issues presented in the video, here is a more recent article from Politico which covers the same territory and reaches much the same conclusion.

I want a gravy hot tub!

The grammatical ambiguity in this sign speaks for itself.

Another Door Study

Here is another really good video about Inattentional Blindness and Change Blindness.

This video is particularly good because of the commentary from Daniel Simons, one of the main researchers of this phenomenon.

A Guide to Evaluating Media Sources

Here is a very interesting chart that is quite useful for evaluating sources:

Click on it to make it larger.

Someone doesn't understand the First Amendment

Here is a nice example of a Slippery Slope:

One of the oldest political tricks in the book

Here is a very nice example of a Red Herring from The Simpsons:


As we can see, Mayor Quimby is trying to distract the public from taxation issues by blaming immigrants for all their problems. Although this episode, "Much Apu About Nothing" originally aired in 1996, current political events reveal the extent to which this is, despite being fallacious, still an enormously effective political strategy.

John Oliver on Media Consolodation

As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I am a big fan of Chomsky and Herman's Propaganda Model of the Media. The first of the five filters that make up this model concern the size, concentrated ownership, and profit-orientation of the media. The argument here is that these factors shape or filter the content of the media we receive in the US.  A very good example of exactly this point comes from an episode of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver that first aired on July 2, 2017:



As an addition to John Oliver's analysis, a video recently surfaced showing how Sinclair is using its media empire to promote a particular point of view. Video and analysis of this can be found here.