📘 Part 3: Information

This episode's vocabulary

To pass something on (phrasal verb) - to give someone something that another person has given you.

To convey (verb) - to express feelings, thoughts, or information to other people.

Janitor(noun) - a person employed to take care of a large building, such as a school, and who deals with the cleaning, repairs, etc.

Counter- (prefix) - opposing or as a reaction to something.

To anticipate (verb) - to imagine or expect that something will happen.

Interlocutor (noun) - someone who is involved in a conversation.

To verify (verb) - to prove that something exists or is true, or to make certain that something is correct.

Fact-checking (noun) - the process of checking that all the facts in a piece of writing, a news article, a speech, etc. are correct.

Resource (noun) - something that can be used to help you.

Skewed (adj.) - not accurate or exact.

Perspective (noun) - a particular way of considering something.

Cognizant (adj.) - understanding or realizing something.

Fake news (noun) - false stories that appear to be news, spread on the internet or using other media, usually created to influence political views or as a joke.

To constitute (verb) - to form or make something.

Wary (adj.) - not completely trusting or certain about something or someone.

Bias (noun) - the action of supporting or opposing a particular person or thing in an unfair way, because of allowing personal opinions to influence your judgment.

To overlap (verb) - if two or more activities, subjects, or periods of time overlap, they have some parts that are the same.

Source (noun) - someone or something that supplies information.

Leap (noun) - a big change, increase, or improvement.

Mass hysteria (noun) - a phenomenon in which a group of people simultaneously exhibit similar hysterical symptoms.

Witch hunt (noun) - an attempt to find and punish people whose opinions are unpopular and who are said to be a danger to society.

Misleading (adj.) - causing someone to believe something that is not true.

Medium (noun) - a method or way of expressing something.

To seek someone/something out (phrasal verb) - to look for someone or something, especially for a long time until you find him, her, or it.

To conform (verb) - to behave according to the usual standards of behaviour that are expected by a group or society.

To perceive (verb) - to come to an opinion about something, or have a belief about something.

Conceivably (adverb) - possibly.

Intricacies (plural noun) - complicated details.

Rigid (adj.) - stiff or fixed; not able to be bent or moved.

To inculcate (verb) - to fix beliefs or ideas in someone's mind, especially by repeating them often.

Conducive (adj.) - providing the right conditions for something good to happen or exist.

Questions and Answers

M: Rory, what kinds of professions are related to giving information to others?

R: Well, anything that involves passing things on, whether it's word of mouth or something like scriptwriting. You always need to be able to convey information. It might be easier to talk about the jobs that don't involve this, even something really simple like being a janitor. You still have to be able to tell your boss what you've done that day and what needs to be done and the kind of things that you need. So that's involving or that involves passing on information.

M: What's the difference between providing information by phone and by email?

R: One's more live, so to speak, while the other is less so. So when it comes to talking on the phone, you have the instant response in the here and now. Whereas if you're talking by... Or, sorry, communicating by email, you don't talk, you have the wait time between the reply, and then your counter-reply. And there's thinking time as well, you can plan out what it is you're going to say, more effectively than in a live conversation where it's difficult to anticipate what the speaker's going to say back to you, or what your interlocutor is going to say back to you.

M: How can people check whether a piece of information is correct or not?

R: Well, most things are easily verified with a simple Google search. But you could also use something like a fact-checking website or an encyclopedia. None of this necessarily has to be online. It could be something paper-based. I have a Guinness encyclopedia, for example.

M: And do you think people do that? Do they check the information using these sources?

R: I don't think they do it as much as they should. Because the number of times I have to tell people have you tried Google first or have you tried this reference resource first before, before they actually do it. So it happens quite often.

M: Do people trust the information online?

R: Probably less so than before. People are waking up to things like skewed perspectives of media narratives. And they're increasingly cognizant of things like fake news, although what constitutes fake news is up for debate. So the gist of all of this is - not as much as they used to. We're more wary of what we see and hear online now.

M: And why do you think this happens? Why do people like mistrust information?

R: Well, like I said, they're more aware of it. It's been a key talking point in the media for, well, at least half a decade now, perhaps longer. And so because there's just been, there's been this awareness-raising experience, people are less trusting of what they see online now.

M: How do you verify the accuracy of information that you come across online?

R: Well, there are fact-checking websites. Although it's important to point out that some have a political bias, which is rather crucial to be aware of in this day and age. The other thing is, you can see if the information overlaps with what you're hearing from other sources. So for example, if we think about what happened on September the 11th, every news site imaginable was reporting on that. So because the information from all of these sources overlapped on the key features, it was easy to understand that what you are hearing is, in fact, the truth.

M: Do you think that people are more likely to believe true or false information these days?

R: Unless there's been some sort of leap in human evolution that I'm unaware of, people probably haven't changed much compared to the past. I mean, there have always been cases of mass hysteria and witch hunts based on misleading information. I think the only thing that's changed is the medium. And perhaps the scale because there are more people now. But that's not changed the fundamentals.

M: Right, but more people believe true or false information? What do you reckon?

R: The honest answer is I don't know. I mean, because people tend to seek out information that conforms to their own biases. They are more likely to believe information they perceive as true, but that's not the same thing. But to answer the original question, I don't know. It's hard to say.

M: What information can people get from television?

R: It might be easier to say what they can't get frankly. It seems like there are channels. Or there were. I don't watch television anymore. But it seems like there are channels for just about everything you could conceivably want to know about, from the intricacies of how housewives in New York live to military history from the medieval era. So it's all out there.

M: What are some of the consequences of misinformation for society?

R: We already talked about mass hysteria and witch hunts. But there are other things like just a general drumming up of fear that makes people easy to manipulate. So the consequence of having people that are easy to manipulate and control is that society becomes more rigid, people are less trusting of each other. And that can lead to more severe problems, both physically and psychologically.

M: Are there any news sources that people trust more than others?

R: Well, like I already said, people tend to seek out information that conforms more or less to how they already see the world. Say, for example, that you're a conservative person, you're probably more likely to trust a conservative news source. In the same way, if you're a liberal person, then the same thing will be true for you. So it's less about the source of the news itself, and rather how it matches up with how that person sees the world.

M: Do you think that schools should teach critical thinking skills to help students better evaluate information?

R: I'm not sure it can be taught explicitly, but awareness of it could be raised. I say that because schools inculcate mass education. And the purpose behind that is usually to have a society that's pretty stable, where people believe more or less the same things. And that's not really an environment that's conducive to critical thinking. So it's not something that you're likely to learn about in school, you just are aware of it in the background, and it can be pointed out, but to sit down and have a lesson about critical thinking in a class, that seems like the opposite of how to teach critical thinking.