The Source Criticism and Mediated Disinformation (SCAM) project developed this handbook as a practical resource for students of journalism, media and communication, and information science studies, as well as early-career journalists and communication workers.

It serves as an online guide for those interested in familiarizing themselves with and practicing digital source criticism, offering a comprehensive approach to evaluating information sources online.

How to Use This Online Guide for Digital Source Criticism

We offer a framework that fosters critical media and information literacy—skills that can be applied across various real-life scenarios.

To make the most of this handbook, we recommend a three-step process:

Step 1

Before getting into the details of the handbook, you can familiarise yourself with the basic terms such as information, fact-checking, verification, debunking, source, etc., found on the glossary page. Following this, we encourage you to get familiar with the six principles of digital source criticism:

– Tendency

– Interpretation

– Duality

– Relations

– Omission

– Self-assessment

You can read more about what each principle means and how it contributes to evaluating online sources critically.

Step 2
Read through the questions following the principles of digital source criticism. You don’t need to memorize the questions, as long as you understand why you should ask them.ou can use the questions that are most relevant to your case.

Step 3

Review the case studies provided, focusing on the specific examples of how to ask questions to evaluate information from various digital channels. As you read through these cases, resist the urge to immediately check the answers provided. Instead, try to answer the questions on your own first, then use our answers to compare and reflect on your thinking. 

Remember, engaging in digital source criticism involves dealing with interpretations. Just as every information source interprets materials based on their own tendencies, the authors of this handbook also bring their interpretations when addressing questions related to investigating online sources.