NLP helps you keep your holiday conversations civil

Updates


One of the traditions at NLP is helping people thoughtfully navigate the holidays by ensuring misinformation and conspiracy theories do not derail conversations or damage relationships. Below is an updated version of a post we’ve shared before, just in time for the holidays:

It’s certainly frustrating and discouraging when misinformation makes its way into a friendly conversation. But when it shows up on the menu for your holiday gathering, misinformation can spoil your appetite as well as your relationships with loved ones.

This holiday season, amid polarizing world events, conditions lend themselves to combative conversations and fractured friendships. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Just like you’d prep the side dishes before guests arrive, you can get ready for engaging in civil and meaningful discourse — even with the family’s diehard conspiracy theorist — using the tips and tools NLP provides.

While every scenario is different, following some general best practices can help keep the conversation civil and make the interaction worthwhile. To begin, use the six tips outlined in our downloadable infographic How to speak up without starting a showdown as a guide. (Click here to download the PDF.) You can also share this fun video with your wider circle on social media:

@newslitproject Don’t let misinformation dominate the dinner table this holiday season. Here are a few tips for having productive conversations #Thanksgiving #Misinformation #NewsLiteracy ♬ original sound – News Literacy Project

Further boost your confidence for entering what are likely difficult discussions with four key strategies with four timeless tips from Get Smart About News, our free weekly newsletter for non-educators, which we also feature on our website. (Subscribe here so you can stay on top of trending news literacy topics and resources.)

Happy holidays!

More Updates

For Education Week, educators share how they teach students to question health influencers

An opinion piece in EducationWeek by two educators from New York featured the News Literacy Project’s District Fellowship program. The commentary described how the program supported their efforts to teach students to critically evaluate health and wellness claims on social media. “By the end, our teens had developed habits of healthy skepticism when scrolling their…

NLP in the News

In CNN piece, NLP urges care and transparency as journalism embraces AI

Peter Adams, the News Literacy Project’s Senior Vice President of Research and Design, was featured in a CNN article examining the use of artificial intelligence to generate content in newsrooms and the challenges it raises around verification and transparency. “It is precisely because AI is prone to errors that newsrooms must maintain the ‘fundamental standards…

NLP in the News

Insider Spotlight: Genna Sarnak

Welcome to the Insider Spotlight section, where we feature real questions from our team and answers from educators who are making a difference teaching news literacy. This month, our featured educator is Genna Sarnak from Northfield, Massachusetts, where she teaches digital media literacy to middle school students.

Updates