Tackling Fake News via Fake People
Co-creating a toolkit to help young people recognise fake news
Partners
Project Lead
Yvonne Skipper, University of GlasgowCo-investigators
Daniel Jolley, Northumbria UniversityProject Type
Funded ProjectToday fake news spreads six times quicker than the truth and is believed 75% of the time, meaning it has the power to change behaviour and impact society. The project’s aim was to work with young people, social media influencers, teachers and academics to co-create materials to help young people to recognize fake news and to test these materials to ascertain their efficacy. The project recruited from three schools in Glasgow which drew a diverse group of young people.
Around 18 young people, three teachers and five social media influencers were recruited to assist in the co-creation. Over six-weeks they worked to co-create the intervention which included a set of Powerpoint slides for teachers featuring videos and a range of interactive activities. Course content included how to recognize fake news stories and photographs, fake social media accounts, conspiracy theories and fake videos, discussing the impact all these could have on others.
Influencers who worked with researchers on Project Real
The intervention was trialed in three schools with around 420 young people aged 11-13 participating. Focus groups showed they found the intervention engaging and exciting and having completed it they felt better able to recognize fake news. Interviews with teachers showed they believed the intervention was engaging and fit well with the curriculum.
The project team intends to work with Education Scotland, Higher Horizons and the National Teaching Forum to advertise the materials and work with parents to help them learn more about fake news. They write an article for TES magazine on How schools can teach pupils to spot fake news.
© Not-Equal.tech 2025