[OPLIN 4cast] OPLIN 4Cast #250: Truth and YouTube

[Editor]

Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. 
<http://www.oplin.org/4cast/>
OPLIN 4Cast

OPLIN 4Cast #250: Truth and YouTube
October 5th, 2011

<http://www.oplin.org/4cast/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/truth.png>Once 
again this week, there was big news affecting the ebook business (launch 
of the Kindle Fire 
<http://www.extremetech.com/computing/97335-the-birth-of-the-kindle-tablet-and-the-death-of-the-public-library>), 
but since you've certainly already been bombarded with that news, we're 
going to avoid the ebook subject altogether. Instead, we found some 
items of interest concerning the accuracy, or assumed accuracy, of 
information on the Internet. Of course, the Internet is not one 
homogeneous thing, and the accuracy of information found there depends 
very heavily on where you are looking. The studies below, for instance, 
indicate that information from Wikipedia tends to be pretty reliable, 
while YouTube can be a rich source of misinformation.

    * Cancer information on Wikipedia is accurate, but not very readable
      <http://www.jeffersonhospital.org/News/study-update-cancer-information-on-wikipedia-is-accurate-but-not-very-readable.aspx>
      (Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson University Hospitals) "The
      research revealed that Wikipedia updates faster than PDQ [National
      Cancer Institute's Physician Data Query]; however, the hyperlinks
      embedded within Wikipedia take the user to more dense information.
      PDQ takes you to more simplified explanations on the content a
      user clicks on for more information."
    * Movement disorders on YouTube - caveat spectator
      <http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1107673> (New England
      Journal of Medicine correspondence) "For patients with a movement
      disorder, the information available on YouTube may be misleading
      and may provide an inaccurate impression of the disorder and its
      treatment. One video described as showing facial dystonia showed
      different patterns of facial spasm that appeared to be triggered
      by an electrical stimulator, and it suggested that dystonia could
      be alleviated if the patient wore cotton clothes and avoided
      radiation."
    * Is the internet rewriting history?
      <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15097139> (BBC News/Catrin
      Nye) "Closest to the heading 'Trust' the pupils placed YouTube;
      somewhere near the heading 'Distrust', they placed the government.
      As part of the exercise, the pupils were asked what kind of videos
      they had viewed online. A lot of discussion ensued about various
      conspiracy theories. All the pupils had seen videos about 9/11,
      but were not sure who had made them. 'Those ones are true,' said
      Aminul Islam, 16."
    * Conspiracy theories rife in classrooms
      <http://www.demos.co.uk/press_releases/conspiracytheoriesrifeinclassrooms>
      (Demos press release, 9/30/2011) "The report argues that the
      amount of material available at the click of a mouse can be both
      liberating and asphyxiating. Although there are more e-books,
      trustworthy journalism, niche expertise and accurate facts at our
      fingertips than ever before, there is an equal measure of
      mistakes, half-truths, propaganda, misinformation and general
      nonsense."

*/Digital fluency fact:/*

The Demos think tank surveyed teachers in England and Wales and found 
that 75% of them think Internet-based content is important in the 
formation of their pupils' beliefs, but 50% rated their pupils' ability 
to recognize bias or propaganda in online information as poor (34%) or 
very poor (16%).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The */OPLIN 4cast/* is a weekly compilation of recent headlines, topics, 
and trends that could impact public libraries. You can subscribe to it 
in a variety of ways, such as:

    * *RSS feed.* You can receive the OPLIN 4cast via RSS feed by
      subscribing to the following URL:
      http://www.oplin.org/4cast/index.php/?feed=rss2.
    * *Live Bookmark.* If you're using the Firefox web browser, you can
      go to the 4cast website (http://www.oplin.org/4cast/) and click on
      the orange "radio wave" icon on the right side of the address bar.
      In Internet Explorer 7, click on the same icon to view or
      subscribe to the 4cast RSS feed.
    * *E-mail.* You can have the OPLIN 4cast delivered via e-mail (a'la
      OPLINlist and OPLINtech) by subscribing to the 4cast mailing list
      at http://mail.oplin.org/mailman/listinfo/OPLIN4cast.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.oplin.org/pipermail/oplin4cast/attachments/20111005/727bfcb8/attachment-0001.html
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: kubrickheader.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 38379 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.oplin.org/pipermail/oplin4cast/attachments/20111005/727bfcb8/kubrickheader-0001.jpg
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: truth.png
Type: image/png
Size: 23183 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.oplin.org/pipermail/oplin4cast/attachments/20111005/727bfcb8/truth-0001.png