LibGuides: Trump Presidency: Election, Transition, and Administration: Looking Back: How We Got Here


Library Research Guides

Polling

ELECTION 2016: Even man behind accurate poll was surprised
LA Times - 10 Nov 2016: ...by asking participants to rate their chance of voting, the poll could take advantage of information from everyone in its sample group, rather than cast aside those who do not meet a test for being a "likely voter," as most traditional surveys do.
Pew Research Center: Polling
This archive includes Pew articles discussing the mechanics, trends and challenges of polling. Topics include why 2016 election polls missed their mark, how exit polls work, and the challenge of polling in the era of smartphones. A subsidiary of the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research.
Poll Attacks: Experts Review What Went Wrong with Presidential Polling
Arizona Capital Times - 11 Nov 2016: Because polling is based on informed predictions of who will show up on Election Day, those predictions impact a poll's confidence and its forecasts. Many national pollsters got the turnout models wrong in some key states.
Predicting election trends with Twitter
City College of New York - 7 Nov 2016: Forecasting opinion trends from real-time social media is the long-standing goal
of modern-day big-data analytics.
Soul Searching Lies Ahead for the Pollsters that Blew It
USA Today - 10 Nov 2016: For pollsters, the 2016 presidential election will go down as more than an embarrassment -- it threatens to spiral into an existential crisis.
What went wrong with this year's presidential polls?
Associated Press - 10 Nov 2016: Kennedy said pollsters may ultimately not have had a historically large miss on the national popular vote, but thinks there was a systematic overrepresentation of Clinton's support and underrepresentation for Trump's.

Confirmation Bias, Logical Fallacies

I know you are and So am I: The Dangers of Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias is when you consciously or unconsciously internalize the information that supports your current beliefs and you reject the information that contradicts your views.
Huffington Post 10/06/2016
Logical Fallacies
A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning; they appear in the media and political arguments often. This site outlines and defines 24 of the biggies, different ways our assumptions lead us to THINK we are finding truth through logic, but may be being lead astray.
Master List of Logical Fallacies
University of Texas at El Paso - Dec 2016: This site identifies 116 contemporary and classic fallacies with examples of how they are used in today's discourse.

Algorithms (Facebook and others)

How Algorithms Decide the News You See
Columbia Journalism Review - May 20, 2014: Readers are increasingly discovering news through social media, email, and reading apps. Publishers are well aware of this, and have tweaked their infrastructure accordingly, building algorithms that change the site experience depending on where a reader enters from.
How to Hold Algorithms Accountable
From the MIT Review, November 17, 2016. On algorithmic bias and principles for dealing with it.
Breaking the Black Box - How Algorithms Make Decisions About You (January 31, 2017)
Algorithms are everywhere, sifting through information to determine the curated news we read, the prices we pay for goods and services, and even which people are most compatible for us to date. But often we don’t know how, exactly, machines are making these decisions. WNYC's Manoush Zomorodi joins forces with ProPublica to talk about their recent investigation, "Breaking the Black Box", and launch Note to Self's own latest project: "The Privacy Paradox", a five-part podcast and audience engagement series designed to take the mystery out of digital privacy. Hear about how to protect your personal data, the hidden biases in algorithms, and ways we can peek inside black boxes and hold actual people accountable. With ProPublica senior reporter Julia Angwin, entrepreneur and writer Anil Dash and Microsoft researcher Solon Barocas.

The Electoral College

Electoral College
Ballotpedia - The Electoral College is the process through which the President of the United States is elected to office. It was formed as a compromise between allowing either the United States Congress or popular vote to determine the outcome of presidential elections. This article discusses the history, function, and arguments for and against the Electoral College. Links to recent news stories about the Electoral College are also included.

Fake News and Alternative Facts

Alternative Facts and Fake News – Verifiability in the Information Society
From the International Federation of Library Associations.
Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data
"Bullshit involves language, statistical figures, data graphics, and other forms of presentation intended to persuade by impressing and overwhelming a reader or listener, with a blatant disregard for truth and logical coherence. Calling bullshit is a speech act in which one publicly repudiates something objectionable. The scope of targets is broader than bullshit alone. You can call bullshit on bullshit, but you can also call bullshit on lies, treachery, trickery, or injustice. In this course we will teach you how to spot the former and effectively perform the latter." Developed by two college professors at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning
Stanford History Education Group has prototyped, field tested, and validated a bank of assessments that tap civic online reasoning—the ability to judge the credibility of information that foods young people’s smartphones, tablets, and computers. In this 2016 report, Stanford provides an overview of what they learned and sketch paths their future work might take.
Fake News: A Library Resource Round-Up
Learning to decipher fact from fiction is a key skill for all news consumers, and libraries across the country are stepping up to help patrons gain the information literacy skills they need. With that in mind, Programming Librarian at the American Library Association has compiled the following round-up of resources* to help libraries deliver their best programming about fake news.
Fake News: Evaluating Current Events Coverage
Resources and strategies for evaluating current events coverage and finding reliable news (from Delaware County Community College)
Fake Or Real? How To Self-Check The News And Get The Facts
NPR story on how to identify fake news, featuring Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter, and Melissa Zimdars, assistant professor of communication and media at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass.
False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and Satirical “News” Sources
Compilation of Melissa Zimdars' work on misleading news sources and advice on analyzing a news source.
Google and Facebook Take Aim at Fake News Sites
Reporting on the responses of major tech companies to fake news sites, November 14, 2016.
Here are all the fake 'news' sites to watch out for on Facebook
Daily Dot reporter Andrew Couts covers Melissa Zimdars' recent work on fake news sites.
Please Stop Sharing Links to These Sites
List of sources frequently shared on Facebook that distort news stories and reinforce liberal confirmation bias.
To Share or Not to Share: Evaluating News and Other Online Content
"Well, it’s important to realize that whatever political side you’re on, sharing things that are unconfirmed or just plain wrong tends to weaken your positions, rather than strengthen them. If you’re interested in curating a social media feed that’s respected and thoughtful – and not just in the eyes of people who agree with everything you believe – here are some questions to ask yourself before you hit that Share button."