August is Civic Health Month! The Civic Health of Wisconsin Initiative is organizing Wisconsin’s 2025 Civic Health Challenge, which is designed to help us become active contributors to the civic health of our communities. Each week will feature challenges around a central focus area: Social Connectedness, Political Participation, Media & Information, and Community Connectedness.
Sign up here to participate!
Week 3 Challenges: Media & Information
Synchronous activity:
Tuesday, August 19, 12-1pm
Workshop on strategies to avoid misinformation and media manipulation (Lisa Inks, Urban Rural Action)
Tuesday, August 19, 12-1pm
Workshop on strategies to avoid misinformation and media manipulation (Lisa Inks, Urban Rural Action)
- Our “Recommended Resources” section below includes a recording of URA’s previous presentation, Media, Manipulation, and Your Attention. This will be excellent (but not required) background information for Tuesday’s workshop!
Challenges to do on your own:
- Select an issue and find 4 different “takes” on it, drawing from a range of media sources. Make a small table and compare the different viewpoints to see if they have anything in common or not. Try to identify who is the intended audience or outcome desired for each opinion.
- Find examples of editorials that are presented as news stories. Try to identify at least 3 things in the piece that are opinions rather than facts. Try to identify at least 3 things that are verifiable facts in the editorial.
- Look for “news stories” that containing alarming or warning statements or potential misinformation. Then look for additional news stories on the same topic that avoid alarming statements and which help you to decipher and discern the underlying, credible information. Take time to consider and compare the more alarming news stories or social media content which may include unverified information with those that you find more balanced or credible. What are the alarming news stories trying to get people to do or think?
Recommended resources:
- Media, Manipulation, and Your Attention: This presentation by Urban Rural Action covers strategies for to identify and combat manipulative content online. Join us for the workshop on Tuesday, August 19, to dive deeper into this topic. Urban Rural Action is part of our inventory of civic health organizations in Wisconsin.
- AllSides: This news website provides top news stories from the Left, Center and Right of the political spectrum. They also offer media bias ratings for news outlets and writers, as well as other resources for making sense of information and communicating across divides.
