Participants will learn how metadata relates to the news verification process by viewing an image’s metadata on three different metadata viewers. They will analyze the EXIF data of an image and discuss some of the challenges social media platforms and mobile devices pose for viewing accurate metadata. They will observe how easily metadata can be modified and will be able to explain the importance of identifying an image’s origin before examining its metadata.
60 Minutes
Ready?
Begin Lesson
In a previous lesson, you learned how scrapes and memes are easily made, altered, and shared on social media. Now imagine you are a journalist who is reporting on a breaking news event. You are writing an article about the event, and you begin to search for photographs that relate to your event.
It is important for journalists to cite original sources, as often as possible, when covering news stories in order to show the general public that they have conducted proper research for their stories. Using original sources and following best practices such as crediting the person who created the image helps ensure that news consumers understand the original context of an image. Images may also be subject to various copyright laws when they are reproduced, displayed in a publication, or used by various non-profit or for-profit organizations.
Verifying the original content and the source also allows journalists to determine whether a news item is real or fake. Digital photographs, audio recordings, video footage, books, and other digital media contain metadata, or “data about data.” Every digital file has metadata; metadata information is attached to the media itself, and it can be used to search, organize, and filter information in the digital world.
Metadata can include an item’s date and time of capture, GPS location, and even the camera model and/or settings used to capture the item.
EXIF data, one of the most useful types of metadata for images, can tell you when a photo was captured, when it was uploaded, and where it was captured (if the location setting on the person’s mobile device was turned on) (First Draft).
There are a number of free EXIF viewers online, including Metapicz, ExtractMetadata.com, and Jeffrey’s EXIF Viewer.
Let’s take a look at the metadata from a sample image of a South African shark.
Click on this link. Then click on the image of the shark and kayaker. The image should then open on a new page. Highlight the link of the image and input it into Jeffrey’s Image Metadata Viewer. Click on “I’m not a robot” and then select the “View Image Data” button.
Review the metadata you see here.
We cannot be completely sure that this image is the original captured by the photographer. As previously mentioned, metadata can be easily changed. To confirm whether this image is, in fact, the original, a journalist can try to contact Thomas Peschak to confirm whether this image is the original copy; the journalist could do so by asking to confirm individual pieces of metadata about the image such as the date and location of capture.
Although it can be a useful part of the verification process, metadata has several limitations:
The bottom line is that viewing an image’s metadata may help you gain additional information, but it is not a 100% foolproof method of information verification. If you are not looking at the original version, the metadata for the image will be incorrect. Therefore, when verifying news images, it is important to first identify the origin of an image before viewing its metadata.
Now let’s see how an EXIF viewer works on actual images. For this activity, you can either use a picture that you have taken on your phone or a picture from Flickr’s The Commons Gallery (flickr.com/commons). Images from Flickr’s The Commons Gallery are from publicly-held photography collections with no known copyright restrictions. If participants are selecting a photo, they have taken themselves, remind them to be mindful of privacy concerns. For example, participants can choose to avoid photos with people in them.
Upload the picture onto one of the three, EXIF viewers we previously discussed: Metapicz, ExtractMetadata.com, or Jeffrey’s EXIF Viewer.
Now take the same image and change it in some way (e.g., crop, rotate, edit the exposure, contrast, etc.). You could even take a screenshot of the image. Then upload this new image onto the same EXIF viewer.
Now upload this image onto one of your social media accounts. Then take a screenshot of this post. Upload this screenshot onto the same EXIF viewer.
Reflect on the metadata that you have seen in the assignment:
As we have learned, metadata can provide some helpful information about an image and its source, date of capture, and even location of capture. However, metadata can also be easily changed on a cellphone/computer or every time an image is uploaded to a new platform. Therefore, viewing an image’s metadata is only one step in the news verification process — one that should always come after identifying an original piece of content.
Congrats!
You've finished the lesson
Students will learn how to keep their online information more secure by using and maintaining strong passwords.
View Page
Students will learn to recognize unsecured Wi-Fi when it is available to them, understand the trade-offs inherent in using unsecured Wi-Fi, and make informed decisions about when to connect to and use unsecured Wi-Fi.
View Page
Students will learn about malicious online users who might attempt to use security weaknesses to gather information about them.
View Page
Students will learn what information verification is and why it is important for news consumers.
View Page
Students will learn about a five-step checklist they can use to verify the origin, source, date, location, and motivation of news.
View Page
Students will learn how to keep their online information more secure by using and maintaining strong passwords.
View Page
Students will learn to recognize unsecured Wi-Fi when it is available to them, understand the trade-offs inherent in using unsecured Wi-Fi, and make informed decisions about when to connect to and use unsecured Wi-Fi.
View Page
Students will learn about malicious online users who might attempt to use security weaknesses to gather information about them.
View Page
Students will learn what information verification is and why it is important for news consumers.
View Page
Students will learn about a five-step checklist they can use to verify the origin, source, date, location, and motivation of news.
View Page
Previous Lesson 