Key Idea: Digital media copies without loss and edits without trace, so proof moved from the artefact to its history. The harm from convincing fakes is not belief — it is that any inconvenient recording can now be dismissed.
Paper 1
- Part a: identify media types or characteristics
- Part b: explain a consequence of editing without trace
- Part c: evaluate platforms' responsibility for false information
Paper 2
- Q1 and Q2: read and evaluate a media source
- Q3: compare sources that treat a recording differently
- Q4: synthesise sources on misinformation
Everywhere else
- Politics: targeting and ad archives are media questions
- Conflict: information operations aim at uncertainty
- Knowledge: production outran checking in research too
Four characteristics and what each one caused
| Characteristic | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Copies without loss | Distribution stopped costing anything |
| Edits without trace | Proof moved to provenance |
| Combines with other media | A convincing fake needs no special skill |
| Searchable | Old material never becomes hard to find |
Once everybody knows convincing fakes exist, a real recording can be dismissed by anybody who would rather it were not real — so the harm grows with public knowledge of the technology rather than with its use, and detection cannot remove it.
Why correction is a weak remedy
Three reasons, all structural
- A claim spreads because it is surprising, and a correction has neither that property nor any other that the ranking rewards.
- The audience for the correction is a subset of the audience for the claim, always.
- The claim arrives first, and an impression formed before correction is not removed by it.
Important: A fabricated immersive experience is remembered more like an event than like something watched, so a correction has to overcome a memory rather than a claim.
Exam-style questions
Compare the effect of false information and convincing fakes on public knowledge.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Justify the claim that provenance information is a better remedy for fakes than detection.
🔒 Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Quick check
Where did proof move to? Provenance — the chain of custody — because nothing in an edited file reveals that it was changed.
What is the real harm of fakes? Not belief but doubt: any inconvenient recording can be dismissed without evidence that it is false.
Why does correction fail? It lacks the properties that made the claim spread, so its audience is always a subset.
What is different about immersive media? It is remembered more like an event, and it records gaze, movement and bodily response.
Exam tips
- Separate 'more accounts available' from 'better able to know what happened'. They moved in opposite directions.
- Name a mechanism for misinformation harm. 'People believe false things' is not one.
- For any source, ask whether it can be checked rather than whether it is true.