Summary of the week

This week you’ve discussed how different forms of biases and heuristics influence how we read and interpret news articles. Remember that a bias is a consistent error and a heuristic is a simplified rule which we use to interpret information or make a decision.

We all have these biases and heuristics, you tested this for yourself when you chose the headline which most closely aligned with your beliefs, and it’s important to be aware of them when interpreting news.

We also looked at the different techniques journalists use to influence us and hopefully you feel more ready to spot the ways media outlets hook us into the story and attract our attention.

Finally, you had the chance to analyse a scientific paper behind the headline. We hope that the articles on how to read a scientific paper (Steps 2.9 – 2.11) helped with this task and don’t forget that the Educator response will be provided next week.

Week 3

Next week, you’ll take a closer look at how you can decide if a news article is credible by using an assessment tool. You’ll also debate who we should trust when it comes to food related news and we’ll provide you with a list of reliable sources of nutrition information.

You can continue onto Week 3 if you’re ready.