8.

4 Analyzing Political Information on Social Media

Your task: In this assignment you will go on a social media site such as Twitter or Facebook and analyze at
least two sources of political information. These might be political memes, captioned photos, linked news
articles, or political advertisements on the site.

If you do not have a social media account, you can create one, or you can use the account of another person.
It is not necessary to have a social media account to complete the assignment.

Use Google or one of the fact-checking websites in the lesson to verify the information in the source. Fill in
the columns as indicated. You will also need to supply a URL for the information you are analyzing.

Source #1
URL or screenshot of your media example: (2 points)

Type of information (meme, captioned (1 point)

photo, news article Meme/captioned photo

Where the information was found (type of (1 point)

social media) The microblogging site know as Twitter.

Claims made in the source (what point was (1 point)

the source trying to make)
Amount of truth to the claims (what
information was accurate and inaccurate)?
The source portrays democratic candidate Julian Castro and a
caption: “No for-profit prisons or detention centers. Period.”
This basically states one of the candidate’s positions.
(1 point)
This claim was mostly accurate. Thought, Julian Castro said,
“The Homestead Detention Center is the only for-profit juvenile
detention facility in the country…In my administration, we will
shut its doors for good and end detention of asylum seekers.”

Method you used to verify claims (what (1 point)

sources did you use to prove or disprove the
claims?)
From Google, I went to Julian Castro’s Twitter page, and after
some digging, I was able to find his actual position on for-profit
detention centers. I also looked at some of the headline articles
listed under the issue.

Discuss why it is necessary for us to (3 points)

question this source (reflect on our personal
and civic responsibilities in a constitutional
democracy).
It is necessary to question this source because the original
Twitter claim could be making a false claim and defaming the
person in the tweet (in this case Julian Castro). In a democratic
society, we should value patriotism and make sure the stuff that
we see is not violating any of our core morals. Morals that are
often violated to make a meme funny.

Source #2
URL or screenshot of your media example: (2 points)

Type of information (meme, captioned (1 point)

photo, news article News Article
Where the information was found (type of (1 point)
social media) Website

Claims made in the source (what point was (1 point)

the source trying to make)

Amount of truth to the claims (what (1 point)

information was accurate and inaccurate)?

Method you used to verify claims (what (1 point)

sources did you use to prove or disprove the
claims?)

Discuss why it is necessary for us to (3 points)

question this source (reflect on our
personal and civic responsibilities in a
constitutional democracy).