Whether someone tells you or you stumble on it yourself.
Peer reviewed studies, direct statistics, etc
A poll is a primary source. That’s good.
An article telling you about a poll is a secondary source. Be skeptical.
And above all, be very skeptical of anything that makes you feel intense emotion. Someone might be trying to make you feel that way so you’ll be less critical.
Also propaganda doesn’t come exclusively from newspapers and magazines.
The best form of propaganda in the last couple of decades has been word of mouth.
Don’t trust anyone to tell you what to think. Look at the facts and only the facts.
Those facts nobody tells you about?
Whether someone tells you or you stumble on it yourself.
Peer reviewed studies, direct statistics, etc
A poll is a primary source. That’s good.
An article telling you about a poll is a secondary source. Be skeptical.
And above all, be very skeptical of anything that makes you feel intense emotion. Someone might be trying to make you feel that way so you’ll be less critical.
What is this, the 1900’s?
The best propaganda tool is obviously the internet: anonymous, spreads far and wide, can be automated
I think the biggest risk is the Internet as a propaganda tool disguised as word of mouth ‘grassroots’ opinions.
“Word of mouth” imo includes direct person to person interaction on social media. Your Facebook friends, a sidebar on reddit or lemmy, a DM
That’s how I’ve always used the term.
Do yOuR owN ReSeARcH!!
Yeah but literally. Not “watch YouTube videos”. Look up a primary source - a statistic or a peer reviewed study.
The insidious part about the “do your own research” people is that they’ve managed to convince a generation of people to NOT do any research.