What's covered
Key facts
Fake news and bias
Bias means unfairly favouring one side, person or group.
How the media shapes views
Adverts are designed to persuade people to buy something or change what they think.
Old and new media
Convergence means one device, like a smartphone, can do many media jobs such as news, music and films.
Social media and influence
In the UK, paid posts must be clearly labelled as adverts, usually with the tag #ad.
Stereotypes in the media
Showing varied, positive characters can challenge a stereotype and offer better role models.
Fake news and bias
A good way to check a story is to see if trusted news outlets also report it.
How the media shapes views
Celebrity endorsement is using a famous person to make a product seem trustworthy or desirable.
Old and new media
The media means the ways people share news, ideas and entertainment with a large audience at once.
Social media and influence
An algorithm is a computer program that decides which posts you see, based on what you looked at before.
Stereotypes in the media
Ethnic minority groups are often underrepresented, meaning they appear less often than in real life.
Sample questions
A taste of the 44 questions in this topic, answers marked. Sign up to practise the full set with spaced repetition.
What is the best description of fake news?
- ✓False information made to look like real news
- •News that is boring but completely true
- •Old news stories shared again much later
- •Opinion articles written by news reporters
How can the media shape what people think about an issue?
- •By banning people from talking about it with friends
- ✓By choosing which stories to show and how to show them
- •By making everyone watch the same channel at the same time
- •By only ever reporting completely neutral, full facts
Which of these is an example of old (traditional) media?
- •A news website
- ✓A printed newspaper
- •A social media app
- •An online video game
What is an influencer?
- •A computer program that picks which posts appear on your feed
- •A government worker who checks adverts are honest and legal
- ✓A person with many followers who can affect what their audience thinks
- •Anyone who posts a single photo to a private friends-only account
Why do the media use stereotypes?
- •They force the audience to research each new character first
- ✓They give the audience a quick shortcut to recognise a character
- •They make every single show longer and harder to follow
- •They stop people from understanding the story being told
What does it mean when a news story shows bias?
- •It only uses photographs and no words
- •It reports every side fairly and equally
- ✓It unfairly favours one side, person or group
- •It was published a very long time ago
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