Purpose: To analyze how your topic is discussed in informal public spaces like social media, and to evaluate whether the information shared is accurate or misleading. Your goal is to investigate a specific post, fact-check its claims, and use that process to discover more credible sources that help you better understand your topic.
Audience: Your instructor and classmates
Genre: Research log (academic reflection and analysis)
Step 1:
Find a post on a social media platform that is relevant to your research question or topic. The post can be from:
- X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc.
- An individual user, advocacy account, content creator, or news outlet
- A single post or a short thread or video series
Make sure the post contains at least one claim or argument with evidence—this could be a fact, opinion, statistic, or proposed solution. Avoid memes or vague posts.
Include a screenshot or link to the post. Then, below that rhetorically analyze the post (at least 75 words). Here are some guiding questions:
Purpose and Audience:
- What is the post trying to do–inform, persuade, provoke, entertain?
- Who is likely the intended audience?
- How might the audience shape how the message is framed?
Tone and Presentation:
- What is the tone (serious, sarcastic, angry, hopeful, etc)?
- How is the post visually, organizationally, stylistically designed to grab attention?
- Does it use hashtags, emojis, graphics, music, etc?
Claims and Evidence:
- What claims (either explicit or implied) are being made?
- What evidence is used–personal stories, screenshots, statistics, emotional appeals, ethical appeals, etc?
Step 2:
Pick a few claims (facts, statistics, arguments) made in the social media text and fact-check that information. Find a reliable source that either confirms or disproves that information. To check that your new source is reliable, try "lateral reading" as explained in this video. Here's a checklist you can use.
Share the link to the source you found as a result of your investigation.
Below that, write at least 75 words answering the following questions:
- How did you read laterally and confirm that the second (non-social-media source) was reliable?
- What major claims from your social media post did you look up, and what did you find?
- What context were you able to add to the conversation by reading another source? Did the source provide missing information, provide a different framing, or did it prove/disprove the social media post in some key way?
Step 3:
Write a reflection about what this experience taught you about research. Write at least 200 words. Use these guiding questions:
- What did this process reveal about how issues are presented differently in social media vs. scholarly or journalistic contexts?
- How can social media posts lead you toward stronger questions or better research, if used carefully?
- In what ways did the different sources lead to different perspectives, stances, etc?
- Did the social media post lead you to find a new aspect of the topic that you wouldn’t have looked up otherwise?
- What risks are there in relying too much on algorithm-driven platforms for information?
- How might this experience shape how you evaluate and select sources going forward?