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The Disinformation Games

Your safe space for games and challenges related to misinformation and disinformation!

Case study: All Things Food

As any biological species, we humans need food to survive. Food delivers nutrients such as carbs, amino acids, fibers, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals. Througout the human history food was hunted, collected, cooked in a variety of ways, preserved, selected and grown to improve certain qualities and properties. At the same time taste, personal preferences, access to food and cost of food are all factors which influence what we eat and how we eat it. This case study revolves around issues related to the production and consumption of food such as: healthy eating and healing foods, superfoods, organic food, junk food and GMO-based foods. We adopt different perspectives - from individual choice of food to global implications of food growing.

All Things Food

Recommended for: high school students, university students, adults

Available building blocks: 7

Tags: food production, economics, environment, sustainable development, health, personal choices, diets

Here are a few helpful tips and advice from the people on the De Facto team who developed and worked on the case studies:

Difficulty level
All case studies were designed for learners in upper-secondary education, higher education and adult education.

Resources
As each building block of any case study comes with a different mix of resources, the difficulty level can be adjusted by:

  • controlling the mix of resources and taking out more difficult texts (e.g. scientific papers) and replacing them with more easily accessible language in videos or popular blogs;
  • controlling the number of resources to work with in a given training session;
  • allowing learners to search and come up with a selection of resources themselves.

Group size
Feel free to adjust the group size and/or the learning methods to make a case study more relevant to the specific needs of your learners.

Language versions
De Facto’s case studies are a product of multinational cooperation. You will notice that resources vary, sometimes significantly, across the different language versions. Being the common working language of the team, it is the English version of the case studies which is most complete, actual and elaborate. See this for yourself when you are choosing a topic to work on, and compare your own language version with the lead version in English. Feel free to combine resources and methods!

Tools
Check the De Facto’s page dedicated to digital tools which can help an educator to work with the case studies more effectively. Use of ICT tools can make a training session on disinformation more practical and engaging for learners.

Tips for educators

Building block 2. The impact of advertising on the use of food

The term of superfood has became very popular in last few years. Experts warn that the term superfoods is just marketing creation with the aim of earning as much money as possible. A food is promoted to superfood status when it offers high levels of desirable nutrients, is linked to the prevention of a disease, or is believed to offer several simultaneous health benefits beyond its nutritional value. So called super nutrients can also be found in other food.

Suggested resources

1. Term superfoods means super sales
ttps://ehttps://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/superfoods/ [Open from webarchive if link broken/inactive]

2. Marketing tricks to convince people buying specific food
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfood [Open from webarchive if link broken/inactive]

3. Writer`s opinon: superfood is not just marketing hype.
https://real-agenda.com/world-3/the-fake-news-media-war-on-superfoods/ [Open from webarchive if link broken/inactive]

4. Article presents how and why marketing perpetuates myths about healthy food
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-10-14/mythbusting-superfoods-how-marketing-obscures-science/7928668 [Open from webarchive if link broken/inactive]

5. Some researches and studies that are funded by industry and are used as claims by marketing
https://www.insider.com/superfoods-what-are-they-science-marketing-2018-12 [Open from webarchive if link broken/inactive]

6. Revealing the problem of Fake news about grains and flour effect food business and food industry
https://news.italianfood.net/2018/08/31/cereals-co-superfood-made-italy/ [Open from webarchive if link broken/inactive]

7. Article about cockroach as the latest superfood
https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/the-right-chemistry-cockroach-milk-a-superfood [Open from webarchive if link broken/inactive]

Image

Video

1. Dr. Joe Schwarcz: Is "cockroach milk" a real superfood?

Learning outcomes

The learning outcomes represent the competences which learners are expected to develop as a result of the training intervention:

1. The learner will be able to outline the different meanings of term "superfoods" (and/or derivatives) and compare them.
2. The learner will be able to describe several marketing strategies and approaches used to market superfoods.
3. The learner will be able to outline the basic principles and elements of the field of nutrition.
4. The learner will be able to develop and use critical thinking about advertising.
5. The learner will be able to develop/sustain improved media literacy skills.

Suggested teaching methods

> Work in group
> Data searching
> Discussion
> Data comparisson
> Create ads

Suggested learning activities

> Educator encourages students to form their own opinions, how to argue them, activelly participate in discussion, to work in group and to respect other opinions. Main focus of lesson should be just this aspect of the topic. In the end it is very important that educator summarize findings, main conclusions and give students feedback.

> Shortly introduce media, advertising, marketing, their purposes

> Present video #1 and article #7, then discuss with learners about controversial and conspicuos media, sum up conclusions

> Give learners 10 minutes for searching most attractive ads about food/superfood, volunteers present findings

> Choose few of their resources and compare them together with learners. Ask which one is the most beliavable and why. Present and explain the motivated cognition.

> Use the article (#2) and meme (#1) to discuss about marketing tricks.

> Use Eggshell model to present elements of disinformation

> Learners create fake or truthful advertising ads about superfood by students (leaflet, article, news), present it to others, who try identify whether it is true or fake/identify disinformation in the ad

> Refer to the Eggshell model to analyse their ads and summarize

De Facto pillars

Motivated Cognition: comparing different ads, discussing which and why is the most beliavable/credible, explanation why we trust to some ads more than to others.

Warning

You have selected a topic from the Disinformation Games area. Please be advised that this area hosts, or links to, resources that contain misinformation or disinformation. The presence of such materials is to assist in developing and sustaining skills for navigating and detecting disinformation. To achieve this goal – and with clear intent – none of the materials are explicitly marked as true or not true.