Using Pop Culture to Teach About Misinformation

Students need to learn new skills to help them navigate the social media landscape they inhabit. One skill I spend time teaching my grade seven students is how to identify examples of misinformation and disinformation online. As outlined below, there are many types of misinformation and disinformation. While teaching about these types can be straightforward, finding accessible and mostly harmless examples to use for practice can be more challenging.

In the past, breaking news events have provided me with useful examples that I can use for teaching purposes. For instance, when Queen Elizabeth II died, people wanting clicks and attention published all sorts of false claims, ranging from questionable to downright unbelievable. This past year, I chose to update my examples by choosing a pop star who has all eyes on her: Taylor Swift. Swift has been the target of many false claims that fall into the above misinformation categories. This is an important discussion to have with students about how people will post novel and false information about famous people or breaking news because it will lead to clicks and attention. Here are some examples I have come across relating to Taylor Swift.

Fabricated Content: Fabricated content is content that is completely false and made up. A lot of examples of fabricated content relate to Taylor Swift, such as the false and silly claim that she wanted to remove the Statue of Liberty or this post that claims she has endorsed Biden in the 2024 election.

Manipulated Content: Manipulated content is content that might start with something real that is manipulated to distort it, such as a photoshopped image. There is no lack of photoshopped images of Taylor Swift, including this one that purports to show her selling an electric burner in an ad on a Chinese marketplace or a manipulated image of her holding a Trump banner.

Misleading Content: Misleading content might start with a grain of truth that is presented in a misleading way. A good example is the claim that X blocked searches of Taylor Swift's name due to her politics. While it is true that her name was briefly blocked on the social media site, it was because of the rapid spread of fake AI-generated images of the singer. While the company worked on removing the images, they blocked her name to get better control of the situation.

False Context of Connection: False context of connection involves taking true information, but applying it to the wrong context. For instance, an online video claimed to show footage of Taylor Swift appearing in Deadpool 3. While the footage was real, it was from the movie Amsterdam instead.

Satire/Parody: Finally, satire or parody involve content that is meant to be a joke, but can be misinterpreted accidentally, such as this article that claims the NFL was considering banning Taylor Swift from games.

All of these examples came from the fact checking website Snopes, which researches social media posts, online rumours and more to determine their authenticity. To find posts relating to Taylor Swift, I entered her name into the website's search bar. There are many articles relating to her and chances are more will continue to be added to the website. Typically I print off the articles and give them to students, asking them to identify which type of misinformation each article demonstrates. I hope in doing so, students gain some practice and learn to ask critical questions the next time they see some outrageous claims posted online.

Of course, in the wild it can be difficult to figure out whether a post is reliable just by looking at the post. To help with this, we also spend time learning about lateral reading and other fact checking skills. Check out more information about these skills here.