Disinformation spread

This is unit 2 of a series of activities that focus on the understanding of the phenomenon of disinformation and what we can do to fight it.

Like all 4 units, unit 2 contains a computational model plus a series of activities to implement with students. Before diving into the model, read the explanations below to understand more about the unit:

Model components:

Besides all components in unit 1, the model components in unit 2 are:

  • "Form of spreading" chooser: allows you to choose betwween in-person and instant messaging in the initial setup. If you choose the latter, you can also pick an average number of connections per person (see next point)
  • "Connections per person" slider: pretty literal--on average, how many people are connected to each person in the "world".
  • "Biases" slider: this slider defines how much cognitive biases exist in the "world". 0 means that there are not biases, whereas 100 means that there are extreme biases. In the other models, you will find other sliders like this. To know more about what this means, play with the model a few times, choosing different values for this slider while the other sliders and buttons remain unchanged. The "Activities" section contains an introduction to the topic.
Activities in unit 2:
  • Opening activity: guided discussion on the social groups that students belong to and the "truths" that members of those groups share
  • Introduction to cognitive biases and how they operate in contexts of political disinfomation
  • Tinkering with the model, set up of a representative initial state, and reflection.
  • Closing activity: guided group discussion.
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