How and why media literacy is important for business professionals

1.

How and why media literacy is
important for business professionals
Joe Crescente
Media Literacy Fellow
Fall 2022

2.

Media literacy is important for
everyone
but some people try to dismiss it as
just an educational subject or think
that it isn’t widely applicable

3.

But understanding how your own
biases function
can help you make better
decisions

4.

Media literacy
is about being a better consumer
of information, and this can
include financial information

5.

My father

6.

He ran an insurance business for 34
years in New Jersey
When I first tried to talk to him
about media literacy, he listened
politely, but said, “that doesn’t
apply to me.”

7.

He doesn’t always have the best media
consumption habits,
which have led to not effective
arguments when discussing real
issues

8.

I realized that it was because of the
media he was consuming
He wasn’t aware of the effect it was
having on him. He was uncritically
consuming bad information,
consciously not watching things he
disagreed with and mostly consuming
news that conformed to his point of
view.

9.

He acts this way because of something
called confirmation bias

10.

What is confirmation bias?
• the tendency to search for, interpret,
favor, and recall information in a way
that confirms one's preexisting beliefs
or hypotheses
• occurs from the direct influence of
desire on beliefs

11.

We have a tendency to form our views
first and then look for information
that makes us look right. Our
natural tendency is to listen to
people who agree with us.

12.

Also keep in mind:
“Ninety-nine percent of the things you
believe, probably you have no direct
evidence of yourself. You have to trust
other people to find those things out, get
the evidence and tell it to you.”
---Cailin O'Connor, Associate Professor,
University of California, Irvine, of Logic and
Philosophy of Science

13.

But there’s one area where my father’s
super careful….

14.

HIS MONEY!!!!

15.

When it’s his money
he will triple fact check anything involved. All
of a sudden, he has the most amazing
hygiene when it comes to information: he’ll
consult the most qualified people possible
and read as much as he can in order to make
the best decision possible because it’s
important to him.

16.

We have great informational hygiene
when it’s important for us – when
something’s a priority, all of a
sudden we want the best
information available and will ask
ourselves some difficult questions

17.

When it comes to money my father
would never just listen
to what one person told him and
share it. Even if it was an expert
that he fully trusted he would
double check it to see what
someone else had to say.

18.

In business using ideas you haven’t
researched
and using them to build company
policies or make decisions can have
negative consequences

19.

The danger is that poor media
consumption habits
can contribute to poor decision
making in all areas of our life

20.

How could confirmation bias affect
decision-making in other areas?

21.

When putting together a business plan
you want it to work
You want to show a confident strategy. But
is your projection too rosy? Is it
downplaying other factors that could poke
a hole in your strategy, such as minimizing
the competition or assuming best-case
scenarios for market conditions will
continue, when the future suggests
challenges on the horizon?

22.

Don’t get caught in a filter bubble – be
conscious of them!

23.

Filter bubble
“a state of intellectual isolation that
allegedly can result from personalized
searches when a website algorithm
selectively guesses what information a
user would like to see based on
information about the user, such as
location, past click-behavior and
search history.”

24.

Kevin Merida, former Managing Editor,
The Washington Post
“I think readers are living in a world now where
they can go find whatever will confirm their
bias. If the Washington Post doesn’t report
(insert any issue) the way they want it reported,
they can go to a place that feeds their view of
the world. And those sites exist, that’s why
they’re in business.”

25.

Do you block out information
that contradicts what you’re doing or
do you use this as opportunity to gain
a new insight?

26.

How can being caught up in a filter
bubble affect you?

27.

Filters and algorithms
Sites make recommendations based
on what you like, share, and search
for

28.

The thing is when you’re doing a
search
AI isn’t quite smart enough yet to
figure out when you just want a quick
result or when you are involved in a
complex decision-making process

29.

In other words
what you're seeing when you do a
search can be fitted especially for you
without your knowledge, omitting all
sorts of results. Perhaps these results
weren't important to you, but who's in
control here: you or the algorithm,
which is guessing what it thinks that you
want?

30.

How can being caught up in a filter
bubble affect you?
• It can leave out undesirable results
and opinions, which could be very
important in making a decision

31.

One possible solution to avoid
predictable results
When doing a search, ask a
question that you don’t know the
answer to

32.

In “All the Ways Google Tracks You—And How to
Stop It
technology writer David Nield
highlights how well big tech gets to
know you, suggesting they know
where you go, what you buy, and
what you consume

33.

Nield
“Google knows more about you than
you might think.” But what if they get
it wrong?

34.

What you can do:
• Use incognito browsing
• Delete your search history
regularly
• Stay logged out if possible
• Delete or block browser cookies

35.

How confirmation bias might interfere
with investments
When researching an investment, you
might look for information that
supports your beliefs about the
investment and fail to see the
information that presents different
ideas

36.

How confirmation bias might impact
investment decisions
The result could be an incomplete
picture of the situation

37.

For example -You assume that a certain stock will
do well according to what you know:
people around you seem to like it,
the conditions seem good for it, why
not go for it and invest?

38.

But is there something out there
lurking?
Have you run your investment by
someone completely outside your
circle? In other words, would your
information stand up in someone
else’s bubble?

39.

An article on investopedia suggests
• Seeking Contrary Advice
• Avoiding Confirming Questions

40.

Seek Contrary Advice
You can overcome confirmation bias when
you acknowledge it exists. Once an
investor has gathered information that
supports their opinions and beliefs about a
particular investment, they should seek
alternative ideas that challenge their point
of view. Keep an open mind.

41.

Avoid Confirming Questions
Investors should not ask questions that confirm
their conclusions about an investment. For
example, an investor who wants to buy an
undervalued stock would be confirming their
findings if they only sought info about the
company’s valuation. A better approach would
be to seek more information about the stock,
which can be pieced together to form an
unbiased conclusion.

42.

Investors
• Look for strategies that “work” or evidence
that supports their existing investment
philosophy
• A significant part of your efforts might be
spent looking for evidence that conflicts with
your way of thinking. This is also called a good
evidence-based investment approach.

43.

Similarly if someone is seeking advice
from you
Ask yourself: am I giving them the
full picture or am I telling them what
they want to hear?

44.

Just because contradictory evidence
exists
this does not mean that a project or
investment is bad; to the contrary it
helps people make informed
decisions
So why do people trust the first news
article they see?

45.

In the consumption of information
it always helps to look at things from
another angle and also make sure you
understand the sector, the company,
all the factors that are involved, not
just the ones that confirm that
something is a good idea

46.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

47.

Media vs business
Just as you wouldn’t read one website
to learn deeply about a story, you
probably need to consume diverse
sources of information before making
a business decision

48.

Thanks for your attention!
Any questions?