I have recently talked to a Chinese friend of mine who started talking about how smart Trump is etc. She previously only gained her knowledge through the Chinese media and not the “western propaganda”, so it was her first exposure to the non-CCP-controlled stuff. I told her “you sound like you read FOX news”. She replied with “hahah yes, how did you know?”
This made me realize that she is very prone to getting manipulated and not doing any fact-checking. However, this situation made me reflect on my own news-sourcing skills.
How do you deal with the issue and what can I do step-by-step to verify the news that I read myself and at the same time a way that I can recommend to my Chinese friend so that she doesn’t fall for the most obvious tricks so easily?
Think hard:
How would you know that?
Can you really know that?
How and where have you first met this person?
One neccessary precondition is: You need to love critical thinking.
My questions above were meant as an example for that. You don’t need to answer them. But if you felt uncomfortable when you read them, then think about your own critical thinking.
My recommendation is: talk to your friend about critical thinking.
She admitted that herself that she doesn’t trust non-Chinese media a year ago. Also, it’s pretty clear given how clueless she was about that there’s not a single “Western propaganda” yet even within the same country the media outlets don’t have one single propaganda message. I told her about that and she was genuinely surprised to hear that, for instance, the western media are split on the Israel issue and there’s not a single fixed propaganda message. Or that not all the media support Trump and some are anti-Trump while others are pro-Trump. She thought all the western media are always supportive towards the currently ruling “western” leaders
Yes
During a trip abroad. It was her first time abroad
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