The idea for this essay came to me as I started to see people sharing (via Facebook, Twitter, etc.) news stories and memes that that were verifiably false–or, more likely–clearly an oversimplification of the actual story. But these sorts of news stories (and the way we respond to them) started me thinking: we get a huge portion of our “news” and information from sources that didn’t exist in our parents’ generation. They could read the newspaper, watch the news, hit the library, or talk to their neighbors. Doing those things was being information literate. Today, we have access to far more information. And we’re smarter for it. We can learn things our parents couldn’t have realized they didn’t know. But we also have access to a lot more incorrect information, and we pass it around. Before, the only way for information to be truly corrupted was in the process of passing it (the telephone game). Today, we can start with questionable information, and pass it around more quickly and to more people, exacerbating the problem.

Take, for example, the belief that vaccines are unsafe (thanks, Jenny McCarthy), or the idea that the Affordable Care Act limits cancer care to those over 75 (thanks, Sarah Palin). In some portions of society, these ideas have taken hold, and become what Stephen Colbert would call “truthy”–if enough people believe it, it’s true.

For Essay 3, you need to investigate one of these types of claims. If you have Facebook or Twitter, and you have friends who post articles or memes like these, start taking a look at those articles/memes. If you don’t, you can still do this, just find a “news” website that acknowledges its political bias (Turning Point News for example, or The Blaze. On the other side of the aisle, possibly Alternet or Mother Jones.

Find a single article that you think looks somewhat questionable, then identify the claims made in the article. Next, identify the claims you’d like to investigate in Essay 3. These claims will be laid out in your proposal.

Your job in this essay is to determine whether or not the “news” or information presented in the “news” is accurate by doing research.

Requirements:

• 3-4 pages, 1000 words, typed, double-spaced.
• Enough high quality, primary sources to answer the question “is this accurate?”
• All paraphrases/quotations cited in MLA format

The MEME I choose to write on:

Sergio Siano

@SergioJSiano So, you hate socialism, ya say?If you make $50,000/year, $36 of your taxes goes to food stamps. $4,000 goes to corporate subsidies.If the $36 upsets you more than the $4,000, then you just hate poor people – not socialism.

To:Prof. Nicholas

From:Rob Pienkowski

Subject:Essay 3 Proposal

Question:The meme I chose tries to show the true dispearity of what the government spends our tax dollars on.In a copy of the meme shown below it points out the rather large range of how tax dollars are really spent for someone making $50,000 dollars a year.

Why it Matters:The topic of a more socialist way of governing has been a hot topic on the political circuit for a while now.It seems the perception has been that with socialism comes higher taxes and what the true cost of these changes would be. This meme has been retweeted over 595,000 times!Whther or not these numbers and this statment is actually true is an important factor when it comes to the topic of socialiam.

The Parameters:I’m looking to check some key points here.Do these numbers really add up for someone making $50,000 dollars a year.Also what does the money buy for each of those to factors.I’d like to look into the break down of the $4,000.Also, does socialism only work for poor people?This meme also takes a leap in making the assumption that if you are agianst socialism then you must hate poor people.