Sorting the Digital Spin: How to Spot Made-up, Misleading, and Murky Information

From oral culture to the digital age, human survival has depended on the ability to control the production, storage, and distribution of information. Today, the amount of information out there is just too overwhelming, making it easier for information producers—human and artificial alike—to distract, discombobulate, deceive, and generally exhaust us into unprecedented levels of confusion about even basic facts and current events.

Society needs information. Citizens need good information to make good decisions. This presentation addresses three areas of digital information skills:

• Protecting ourselves from online fraud;
• Identifying mis- and disinformation in online news and social media;
• Interpreting even credible information to understand how communication affects our assumptions of what we “know” about the world around us.

The purpose of this presentation is to empower audiences to take back our information agency from those who would spin us into the information void.

Dr. Cheryl Casey is a scholar and public speaker in media, culture, and communication. She spent over two decades teaching college courses in media and information literacy, digital culture, and communication ethics. After many years in the classroom advocating for the importance of local journalism, Cheryl now focuses on reporting local news and managing municipal communications projects while pursuing a master’s degree in Legal Studies at Northeastern University School of Law.

Cheryl holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in media and culture from New York University, and a B.A. in media studies from Sacred Heart University. In addition to publishing scholarly articles and contributed book chapters, Cheryl has co-authored two textbooks in media studies, including the recent Navigating the Information Landscape: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Media and Information Literacy (Cognella, 2025).

Cheryl is also passionate about history, serving as president of the Waterbury (VT) Historical Society.