{"id":18149,"date":"2025-03-17T13:37:52","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T12:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/17\/the-big-idea-do-we-worry-too-much-about-misinformation\/"},"modified":"2025-03-17T13:37:52","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T12:37:52","slug":"the-big-idea-do-we-worry-too-much-about-misinformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/17\/the-big-idea-do-we-worry-too-much-about-misinformation\/","title":{"rendered":"The big idea: do we worry too much about misinformation?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seeing falsehoods everywhere is as damaging as believing too much. Our focus should be on helping people interpret information better<\/p>\n

On 30 October 1938, a US radio station broadcast a dramatisation of HG Wells\u2019s apocalyptic novel The War of the Worlds. Some listeners, so we\u2019re told, failed to realise what they had tuned into; reports soon emerged of panicked audiences who had mistaken it for a news bulletin. A subsequent academic study estimated that more than a million people believed they were experiencing an actual Martian invasion.<\/p>\n

A startling example of how easily misinformation can take hold, perhaps. But the story is not all it appears to be. Despite oft-repeated claims, the mass panic almost certainly didn\u2019t happen<\/a>. In national radio audience surveys, only 2% reported listening to anything resembling The War of the Worlds at the time of the broadcast. Those who did seemed to be aware that it was fiction. Many referred to \u201cthe play\u201d or its narrator Orson Welles, with no mention of a news broadcast. It turned out that the academic analysis had misinterpreted listener accounts of being frightened by the drama as panic about a real-life invasion.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nSeeing falsehoods everywhere is as damaging as believing too much. Our focus should be on helping people interpret information better
\nOn 30 October 1938, a US radio station broadcast a dramatisation of HG Wells\u2019s apocalyptic novel The War of the Worlds. Some listeners, so we\u2019re told, failed to realise what they had tuned into; reports soon emerged of panicked audiences who had mistaken it for a news bulletin. A subsequent academic study estimated that more than a million people believed they were experiencing an actual Martian invasion.
\nA startling example of how easily misinformation can take hold, perhaps. But the story is not all it appears to be. Despite oft-repeated claims, the mass panic almost certainly didn\u2019t happen. In national radio audience surveys, only 2% reported listening to anything resembling The War of the Worlds at the time of the broadcast. Those who did seemed to be aware that it was fiction. Many referred to \u201cthe play\u201d or its narrator Orson Welles, with no mention of a news broadcast. It turned out that the academic analysis had misinterpreted listener accounts of being frightened by the drama as panic about a real-life invasion. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seeing falsehoods everywhere is as damaging as believing too much. Our focus should be on helping people interpret information better On 30 October 1938, a US radio station broadcast a dramatisation of HG Wells\u2019s apocalyptic novel The War of the Worlds. Some listeners, so we\u2019re told, failed to realise what they had tuned into; reports …<\/p>\n

The big idea: do we worry too much about misinformation?<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18149"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}