This document discusses the use of satire and humor in education to teach students about fake news and political issues. It provides examples of satirical news clips that can be used to both engage students and encourage critical thinking. Examples include clips about net neutrality, the opioid crisis, and other political topics from both the US and internationally. The document advocates that using satire in teaching does not mean the content has to be taught seriously, but that satire can improve students' critical thinking, recall, and recognition. It concludes that while satire may be less real than straight news, it can be more true in sending its message and promoting reflective dialogue.

1. Sebastian Krutkowski
Academic Achievement Librarian
15:4
5

2. Lists, checklists and infographics (e.g. IFLA, CILIP), widely disseminated in
our field:
Spotting fake news
 Melissa Zimdars – False, misleading, clickbait-y, and/or satirical ‘news’
sources (https://goo.gl/vLsGQS)
 CRAAP test
 Imagine you’re stuck with evaluating a piece of information…
Will you try to remember if that source was listed as false or
clickbait-y?

3. Satire
“Artistic means of pointing out and holding up for scrutiny and criticism
some ridiculousness and absurd by, ironically enough, being somewhat
ridiculous.” (Jones, 2009: 213)
 Analyses (or exposes the lack of) the analysis in ‘regular’ news
 Gives the news a memory (Basu, 2018)
 Uses redaction (appropriating news footage from several sources) to
create something new from existing material
 All of this can give the audience a corrective on misinformation and
encourage them to make connections (between sources of news and
ways of reporting the news)

4. Adapted from Bloom (1956)
Hierarchy of Educational Objectives

5. Humour
 Attention-gaining method
 Relaxes the learning environment
 Helps to form relationships and strengthen human connections, e.g.
class-instructor (Savage et al., 2017)
 Improves recall and recognition (Carlson, 2011)
 Course-related humour correlates positively with student learning
(Wanzer, Frymier & Irwin, 2009)

6. Recognising humour

7. List of useful political satire clips
https://goo.gl/5HNbpT
Political satire on TV

8.  US-specific episodes: net neutrality, opioid crisis, Obamacare,
gerrymandering, televangelism, NRA, voter ID laws
 International topics: Brexit, Italian general election, crisis in
Venezuela
 Universal themes: paid parental leave, Paris Agreement (climate
change), mental health, LGBTQ rights, student debt, sugar,
pharmaceutical marketing, online harassment
5 seasons, 132 episodes

9. https://youtu.be/qyKivZT2wig?t=20s
https://youtu.be/r-ERajkMXw0?t=4m4s

10. How did the students
respond so far?Follow-up activities

11. X-Ray Goggles

12. Trump given honorary degree from UoR
Fake News Generator

13.  Trim videos (take only what you need for your lesson)
 Record you voice to add introduction/narration
 Embed questions to check the understanding of your students
 Assign it, track who watched it, how questions were answered, etc.
Turning videos into lessons

14. Zondag met Lubach
Neo Magazin Royale
Make Poland Great Again
?
Looking beyond the US

15.  To be taken seriously, you don’t have to report or teach it
seriously.
 Pedagogical advantages: satirical messages improve critical
thinking skills as well as recall & recognition.
 Satire is…
Less real, perhaps; but more true!
(Luigi Pirandello, Six Characters in Search of an Author)
Summary

16. To be continued…
Libraries Promoting Reflective Dialogue in a Time of Political
Polarization