Critical Analysis in a digital world
Why is critical analysis important in the digital society and how can you develop your critical skills?
Contents
Introduction
Listen to the podcast below where Dave introduces this week’s topic.
In the digital society we can be flooded with information, advertisements and data, as well as requests to share our own information and data, from a huge variety of sources, people and organisations. Misinformation and algorithms can affect the type, reliability and credibility of information we encounter on a daily basis and can include serious things such as fake news and propaganda, to the annoying, such as spam email and bots on social media.
A relatively harmless example of misinformation can be seen below:
The above picture is an example of a so-called ‘troll quote’, an online trend that purposefully conflates a famous quote, character and image from three different films from popular culture. Although humorous (for fans of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, at least), this underlines how easy it is for information to be altered, changed and adapted for different purposes in the digital society.
Therefore, as citizens in the digital society, we must be able to critically analyse the information (and requests for our own information) which we encounter on a daily basis. This analysis enables us to make informed decisions about who and what to believe.
💬 Contribute:
Read the following prompt then add your contribution in the box below. All comments are anonymous.
Give an example of when you have had to think critically about information you have encountered digitally in the past.
Critical analysis and Digisoc assessments
Critical analysis is also an essential element of the marking criteria for each of the Digital Society assessments where we are asking you to read critically, think critically and write critically.
You will also find this skill useful for most of your other university-level assessments.
- Digisoc1: You are asked to ‘analyse’ a person or organisation’s online communication, and your work will be marked against your ability to produce ‘an excellent analysis’.
- Digisoc2: You are asked to ‘address the challenges and opportunities facing an organisation or sector’, and your work will be marked on your ability to show ‘clear insight and awareness of the issues and a balanced, critical account’.
- Digisoc3: You are asked to ‘critically examine the implications of living in a digital world’, and your work will be marked on your ability to provide a ‘clear insight and awareness of the issues and a balanced, critical account’.
Reading, thinking and writing critically are valuable skills and they will help you to become more confident citizens of the Digital Society, and you can gain better marks in your coursework.
Developing your ability to critically analyse
Across this topic we’ll look at articles dealing with themes of AI-generated content, machine and human collaborative creation, and the ownership of and responsibility for content created in this way. We’ll use these themes to think about online criticality, critical analysis, and how to develop your own critical voice in your work.
💬 Contribute:
Read the following prompt then add your contribution in the box below. All comments are anonymous.
What does it mean to be critical?
Being critical can mean lots of different things in different contexts, but at its core it’s about actively engaging with ideas, rather than passively accepting the information you encounter as true. Being critical doesn’t mean being negative; it means being impartial, so that you can judge whether you agree or disagree with the source you’re considering. In your university work, you’ll be asked to read critically, show evidence of critical thinking, and critically analyse texts and theories. We will explore how you can get started in the next section.
Reading critically
Critical reading is a skill just like any other, so the more you practise, the better you’ll get. You’ve been reading for years, so share the tricks you’ve picked up on the way. Make sure you read through the hints and tips others have shared and add your own in the 💬 Contribute section below.
💬 Contribute:
Read the following prompt then add your contribution in the box below. All comments are anonymous.
What are your top tips for reading critically?
⭐Activity 1: Critically analyse a source
The key to being critical is the ability to approach information neutrally, so you can evaluate what you see and don’t see, and compare it to what you already know to help form your opinion.
Getting started with critical analysis can be difficult at first, but we have a useful strategy that can help you. Although the strategy we will show you was developed for reading, you can apply it to a source in any medium, including video and audio materials. When you read, watch, or engage with source material, use this strategy by asking yourself the following four questions:
- What is the author’s main idea?
- What evidence is used to support it?
- Where is the analysis?
- What’s your critical opinion?
Activity 1 Instructions
- Pick one of the sources below:
- 📖 Source 1: Do the benefits of artificial intelligence outweigh the risks? This short essay from Frank L. Ruta won The Economist’s Open Future Essay competition, in the Open Progress category in 2018. It considers the risks and benefits of AI in an accessible argument for progress.
- 📖 Source 2: New study finds AI-enabled anti-Black bias in recruiting. The article from Thomson Reuters considers the example of recruitment software to discuss how AI based on biased datasets may lead to entrenching discriminatory practices.
- 📖Source 3: This AI-Generated Influencer Can Pull In Almost $11,000 A Month — this article is from Forbes and looks at an example of an AI influencer.
2. Apply the four-question strategy to your chosen source by working through the four questions and the detailed prompts around each question.
For this activity we are using a tool called Hyopothes.is, which you can access in Blackboard. This includes a video and instructions on how to use Hyopothes.is.
💬 Contribute:
When you’ve completed Activity 1 above, read the following prompt then add your contribution in the box below. All comments are anonymous.
Post your Hypothes.is link and a one-sentence summary of your critical opinion of the article. What’s the author arguing, do you agree or disagree, and why?
💡 When you get the chance, why not check back to see what other people have shared? Reflecting on the comments generated by other people’s critical analysis will help you to improve your own practice.
Further development around using sources critically
You don’t have to participate in these extra activities, but you will find them useful in terms of the Digital Society assessments.
Building on the previous section on critical reading, this next session looks at how to combine sources to support your opinion and pose new questions.
In the previous section you practised a critical reading strategy to help you identify the author’s main idea, find the evidence they use to support it, analyse the links between the two, and then form your own opinion about their argument. This time you’ll build on this basic strategy to develop your skills of critical analysis and generate questions of your own. These questions might be used to steer the direction of your research, or create a title for an essay or piece of reflective writing.
Further development suggestion
Choose another source, either from the above suggestions or one of your own choosing. As you practised in the activity, find the main ideas, identify the evidence used to back them up, spot the links between the two, and form a critical opinion.
Think about the topic and what you already know about it from the first source you read, and record your prior and contextual knowledge in your notes all around the source.
You can record your thoughts on your chosen source using Hypothes.is web, just as we did with the first activity in Blackboard. To use the web version you will need to sign up for an account; you can sign up and get help with getting started in this guide.
Practise this strategy by reading different sources on this topic and you will be in a better position to judge whether or not you agree with the author’s opinions, or would argue with it. You may find that after reading more sources your opinions have changed.
Create a new idea or question
Take a few minutes to look back at your source and the notes you made around it and think about:
- Which parts of the arguments and the evidence most engaged you?
- Where did you focus your attention?
- Where are most of your extra contextual notes concentrated, and why?
- Of the parts that you didn’t understand, which bits do you want to find out more about?
Now, come up with a question you’d like to investigate further. This is the part you’re interested in finding out more about. It could be the hypothetical title of an article you could write in response to what you read.
Share the title of the articles you read, and how you got to your new hypothetical research question, in the comments below. Check back later to see who read the same article as you. What are their questions, and how are they similar to or different from yours?
💬 Contribute:
Read the following prompt then add your contribution to the box below. All comments are anonymous.
What’s your new hypothetical research question? And what are the thought processes that led you to it?
Examples:
- ‘I read [name of article], which made me wonder about …, so I could write something on ‘Why …?’
- ‘My original article was [name of article], which made me think about …, so I’d ask this question: ‘Is …?’
Summary
We have looked at what it means to be critical, how we can read sources critically, and how to analyse the content, points and themes in our sources.
The approach you practised will help you to build your critical thinking skills. It will also support you to identify how new information fits in with what you already know, and helps you to integrate those things to move forward and choose a new research direction.
The really interesting thing about this stage of the process is that your contextual knowledge might be completely different to someone else’s, so even if you read the same article, you might do something very different afterwards, or use it in a completely different way. It might help you to generate ideas for a new video or blog post or for your assessments. You’ll also use it later for your reflective writing task, and knowing the critical process behind your title will help you to write a well-thought-out and engaging piece.
