The Struggle of MisinformationBy: Ciara Long, Morgan White, Joshua Barlow, and (no responses) Anthony Jones.

.The definition of misinformation is an assumption of the wrong meaning of the

information that was given by the source. The source has misled and/or falsely explained the

given information about the topic. Misinformation is problematic because there are not only two

sides to the story, but the in between, and there are different positions that can be misleading and

not the whole truth, if any truth at all. The sub issues of domestic violence where men are victims

too, terrorism with an abundance of innocent people getting killed but for survivors there are

refugee camps, vaccines for the debate on whether the MMR vaccine causes autism, and

government control,all illustrates the problem of

misinformation. A public protest at Salt Lake

Community College about misinformation will help bring

awareness to the fact that issues sometimes aren’t accurately

represented or understood until a tragedy takes place. We need to

act and take interest in issues before tragedy wakes us up.

Former Raven’s star running back Ray Rice, was caught on camera, knocking out his

fiancé in an elevator. Domestic violence has been going on for quite some time, but this event

put it back on the map and was brought to more attention.

Domestic Violence isn’t just physical abuse; it

is also mental and emotional abuse. People are

misinformed on what domestic violence is and why

it’s a much larger issue.The national average for

domestic violence for women is one in four, but in

Utah, it’s higher with one in every three women. Now

when you think about domestic violence the first thing that pops into your head is a man hitting a

woman, that’s usually the case, but men are also victims and many people ignore or just laugh

because they never hear about the male victims.Women aren’t the only victims, one in three

males nationally are domestically abused. People are misinformed of what entirely domestic

violence is and who it affects. If you are a victim in Utah, there is the Utah Domestic Violence

Council where you can receive help. Speaking of programs that help others.

Did you know that Utah supports and brings refugees here legally with the U.S.

Department of State, to live?

There is a handful of agencies that help the refugees make a better life for themselves,

that is: Catholic Community Service of Utah, and International Rescue Committee of Salt Lake

Regional Office (IRC). These committees help find the refugees a job and a place to call home.

As soon as they get into the U.S. the papers are started for a social security card, and food

stamps. After one year of living in the U.S. they can apply for a green card and after 5 years

apply for citizenship.  There are many reasons

why there are so many refugees coming into the

U.S. and Utah, but a major reason is Terrorism.

Terrorism has made people from other countries

leave their homes, friends, and even family to find a better life for them. As a community, there

are many ways to help, and volunteer for the benefits of the refugees, like refugee soccer camps,

refugee awareness month, new shoes for children, and hygiene kit collections.

Social media is having an effect on the truth of Ebola. “Based on Facebook and Twitter

chatter, it can seem Ebola is everywhere…there have been a constant stream of posts saying that

“Ebola can be spread through theair,water, orfood, which are all inaccurate claims” (Luckerson).

The fear of the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine started in 1998 when the

accusation that the MMR vaccine causes autism from a “study” that was published in The

Lancet. This study which was retracted in 2010 found that it was fraudulent and the doctor who

published it, Andrew Wakefield, lost his license (BMJ, 2011).

There are many opinions for (Voices for Vaccines) and against (The Thinking

Moms Revolution) vaccines, but sometimes fear overcomes facts and science. To read the story

of a child who was diagnosed with autism, and the parents being most certain that it was after the

MMR vaccine, raises fear in the viewer’s for their children. This “anti-vaccine movement” has

caused the personal belief exemptions, for parents who don’t want to vaccinate their children

according to the school rule, to rise. This rising ended up with a measles outbreak just in

December of 2014. It wasn’t until then that people

started to realize that if you don’t vaccinate, and the

more who don’t vaccinate, will lead to an outbreak.

Many will argue that vaccines are toxic. Thimerosal

has been removed from almost all childhood

vaccines. The “toxins” in the vaccines as David Gorski describes it is “this [CDC ingredient list]

does contain a number of chemicals that do sound really scary. However, if you remember the

pharmacological principle that “the dose makes the poison,” they are much less so. These

chemicals are all present at extremely low concentrations in vaccines, certainly not at any

dangerous levels” (Gorski).

The internet is a place where every, and any opinion, and every back-to-back comments

can be made. Social media has become more popular among the younger generation. It has

become our source of news.  Most people these days find out about events going on in the world

by simply scrolling down their twitter timeline or on their Facebook feed.  According to a study

from the Pew Research Center, “three in ten adults get at least some news while on Facebook.”

Now, yes, this usually is a good thing because people are still seeing the news but on the other

hand it is not because anyone can put anything on the internet and we all might believe it. The

thing is that friends usually trust friends when it comes to news stories so if you see your friend

post a news story on social media you will most likely believe them. News nowadays can be

spread so quickly that people can hear a news story faster than ever before, and you can hear that

story and tell everyone you are with about what happened, and if the story isn’t completely true

you now have misinformed everybody about that story.

We will be conducting our public protest right outside the Salt Lake Community College

Markosian Library in Taylorsville, Utah. It will take place on Friday April 17th from 12:30 to

1:00 in the afternoon. The reason why we are doing the specific time and date is because Friday

is a day, from personal experience, where students tend to get a good amount of homework to

finish over the weekend and some students will do their homework at the campus library.  The

timing is ideal because we feel like this is a time where students are either done with school or

just getting to school.

Our intended audience is college students because they do a lot of research and this

applies to them the most.  Every college student looks online to do research on their papers and

other assignments, and a lot of them are getting the information from sources that may not be a

reliable source.

The materials we will need are two poster boards and two easels. A computer and printer

to print out the BYU and UofU swapped logos, the colored ribbons for each month, the words to

go on each of the two posters, and extra paper with tape to cover up some of the words for the

game. This will be done through Joshua who will get these free materials from school. The easels

will be provided by SLCC, if ordered out through our professor Kati Lewis. We will be passing

out handmade blue and red ribbons with pins – this costs around $8.00 from Joann’s. We will

then provide small candies to hand out – this will cost around $9.00. We will provide a bucket

and ice which will be free because Ciara owns one.  

   For our protest we are planning to present the Brigham Young

University and University of Utah college logos swapped! With the saying

“BYU and UofU have merged!” so when students come up to us we can

introduce the theme of misinformation. Then we will have a second poster

that has the different colored ribbons with known awareness to that

ribbon, we want to call April “Misinformation Awareness” month. Last, a

bucket full of ice to represent the ice bucket challenge and how social

media and the internet have an impact on where we get our information or how information is

perceived. The red and blue ribbons will be passed out to people so they can remember us and then

they will wear them. If the student can tell us what the month and awareness is on three of more

ribbons on the poster, then they get candy!

This protest will be effective because the ribbon that we pass out will create awareness by

other students seeing the ribbon and asking the person, who is wearing it, what it represents. The

student with the ribbon will then hopefully then be able to tell them about misinformation and

what they learned about the media or one of our sub issues. When we pass out candy, other

students will tell their friends where they can get easy candy for a fun game bringing in more

students! Our protest will cause action in the hopes that viewers will take action and speak up on

issues they are interested in before things get out of hand, if too late, then they will be able to

inform themselves and cause awareness.

We, as a group, have our sings and game to get our point across about being

misinformed; our goal is for SLCC students to stop being misinformed about very serious issues

in our world today.Protesting to students is very important, because knowing the correct

information is key to a great report. As a group we also, want students to see examples and open

their eyes of the whole story of our topics behind the stories and how we aren’t being told the

complete truth through one source.

Some of the weaknesses we might go through are that, none of us have never participated

in a protest before some of us are too about to talking to strangers. Another weakness might be

that students are trying to quickly get to their next class, or trying to get their homework and

don’t have the time to listen to what we have to say.  Another problem we might face, is that all

of us are not experts on our topics.  We do know plenty of information on our topics, but we are

not experts and we may not be able to answer everyone’s questions that they ask us, but we will

try our best. We are going to overcome all of these problems because we are going to have a

good attitude about protesting. If we have enthusiasm and a kind approach people will most

likely be interested in what we have to say.

Our ribbon and candy will be effective in bringing awareness about our protest because

ribbons represent that you support an issue, in this case, misinformation. It also will get others

thinking about not only misinformation, but our facts and stories that illustrate misinformation in

which could spark interest in them and hopefully they will want to learn more about vaccines,

domestic violence, terrorism, or government control. The next time our participants or viewers

do their research, they will be able to remember to not be misinformed and make sure their

source is credible.

Works Cited

Butler, Ayelen.“ Utah Refugee Center” Utah Refugee Center- About Refugees, Upcoming

Events, Resources and Services for Refugees, N.P. 2014, Web. 10 Apr. 2015

http://utahrefugee.org/about-refugees.html              

Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, 2015. Web. 11 Apr. 2015.

Gorski, David. “Toxic myths about vaccines”. Science-Based Medicine. Science-Based

Medicine, 18 Feb. 2008. Web. 10 Apr. 2015.

<https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/toxic-myths-about-vaccines/#>

Higgins, Alexander. “Media Now Openly Admitting The Government Controls The News.”

Luckerson, Victor. “Fear, Misinformation, and Social Media Complicate Ebola Fight.” Time.

Time, 8 Oct. 2014. Web. 10 Apr. 2015. <http://time.com/3479254/ebola-social-media/>

Matsa, Katrerina Eva, and Amy MItchell. "8 Key Takeaways about Social Media and News."

Pew Research Centers Journalism Project RSS. 25 Mar. 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.

<http://www.journalism.org/2014/03/26/8-key-takeaways-about-social-media-and-

news/>.

Media Now Openly Admitting The Government Controls The News. N.p., 18 May 2013. Web. 10

Apr. 2015

“Wakefield’s article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent”, BMJ, 342 doi:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.c7452, 2011.

Winslow, Ben. "Domestic Violence in Utah Higher than National Average." Fox13nowcom. 11

July 2014. Web. 10 Apr. 2015. <http://fox13now.com/2014/07/11/domestic-violence-in-

utah-higher-than-national-average/>.