Källkritik för Internet Källkritik för Internet

much more difficult to distinguish between
the authentic and the false. In this medium,
additions and changes to both text and pictures
can be made without leaving any traces.
Thus, on the Internet, the risk of falsification is
a significant problem.
Falsification on the Net runs the entire scale
from gross to subtle. The most extreme form
is when a website claims to be something it is
not. There are examples of websites falsely
claiming to represent a political party in order
to discredit the party. Completely fictitious
news agencies and other institutions have also
cropped up. At the other end of the scale, we
have the mildest – and most common – form
of falsification. This occurs when people want
to seem better than they actually are. Something
called a ”research institute” and described
as serious on a website can in actuality be
a small, obscure sect.
Bias
We can always suspect a person with an
interest in something – an involved party – of
being unreliable or biased. He or she is perhaps
not lying outright, but there are other
more subtle ways of distorting the truth. You
can exaggerate or downplay, leave out unpleasant
facts, use emotional or misleading
language.
Biased sources are found on the Internet
just as elsewhere, and should be met with the
same suspicion. This concerns, for example,
sources such as national governments, political
parties, interest groups, companies, commercial
organisations, etc.
The bias criterion applies not only to facts,
but also to explanations. For example, it can be
in the interest of one political party to explain
foreign conflicts in terms of right- vs. leftwing
politics, whereas it may serve another
party better to refer to ethnic differences as a
possible cause of conflict.
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World-view and conceptions of
knowledge as sources of bias
In a broader sense, we can also say that a type
of bias is at work when reality is described
from the perspective of different world-views.
All sources are the products of the cultures in
which they have existed or currently exist.
Cultures are constituted by a number of factors:
religious beliefs, traditions, values, history,
language and customs, all of which could
be summarised as forming various worldviews.
We deal with both large and small
spheres of culture, each with a specific worldview.
There is a Western world-view, but also
those from other parts of the world. There is
one world-view in the rich (”first”) world,
and another in the Third World. It is arguably
the case that there have been separate capitalistic
and communistic world-views. There is
a Christian world-view as well as those of
Muslim and Hindu cultures. But there are
even differences between world-views in
Europe and the United States, between the
Anglo-Saxon and the Continental, between
Northern and Southern Europe.
In order to assess information from a given
source, it is therefore important to attempt in
some way to determine the world-view from
which it comes. The fact that it is biased in the
direction of a certain world-view does not
make the source worthless, but in order to
approach the information critically, it is
important to be aware of this bias. When presenting
an event, an essential element might
be to compare the various world-views and
their respective portrayals of the facts.
Credibility
One problem with Internet is the overwhelmingly
great number and variety of websites. It
is often necessary to weed out most hits and
be content with the few sites one trusts. But
how should the user choose among the vari-