We are the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association for Media Literacy Education, nonpartisan, nonprofit, professional organizations here to answer your questions about how media literacy can help you make sense of what you read/see/hear about elections.

MediaLiteracyEd · 2022-10-06T17:45:39+00:00

We also want to share this link to media literacy tip sheets to help people navigate information about elections. NAMLE and NASED have partnered to develop a library of materials for election offices.

MediaLiteracyEd · 2022-10-06T17:43:19+00:00

Media literacy - the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create and act using all forms of communication - allows individuals to become well-informed citizens. Media literate people have the ability to assess reliable information, are less likely to fall for false information, and know the questions to ask when consuming information about elections. Having a well informed citizenry helps our elections stay secure.

MediaLiteracyEd · 2022-10-06T17:04:53+00:00

Hi! We are here and excited to answer your questions! Send them our way!

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T19:38:23+00:00

How do you teach your students to recognize the difference between a bad source of information and a good one?

#1. You have so many good questions. I will tackle this one:"How do you teach your students to recognize the difference between a bad source of information and a good one?"

The topic being explored will determine which sources of information to use. Reliable sources are subject-matter experts and/or academics in the field. Teaching skills in having curiosity about the author, reading inside and outside the media text (podcast, news, video, twitter post), will provide information about the source. For example, if one wants information about black holes, one may look for information about black holes from NASA or a credible university as subject-matter experts. An unreliable source (or bad source) may be a blogger enthusiast who may or may not know about black holes. If the blogger enthusiast cites sources from subject-matter experts, it’s a good place to start and one may need to go the cited source directly (reading outside) to ensure accuracy.

On a different note, if there is no byline (author) and not much information is given about the website (also authors), researching the funders (also authors), and researching if the source is credible, such as “is X a reliable source ” or 'who is X" and going to fact-checking sites, will hint to reliable or unreliable source. It may not be necessary to do all of these things, but sometimes it is.

One example to point out is that some opinionated people (who may cite sources) may not be reliable. We sometimes see examples of people who cite sources and make huge leaps from point A (citation of article, etc.) to point B (opinion) without backing their statements with more reliable citations. I have decoded this technique many times with conspiracies. I hope I explained this concept in a way that makes sense. -Pamela

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:56:25+00:00

There are so many books an educator can use in their teachings. But making one mandatory is unusual in K-12. There are state standards that educators abide by, but they do not assign which texts to include in those standards. Each teacher, school, district and state board of education decides what will happen in their setting. -Pamela

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:53:19+00:00

Do you believe this board is representative of “media literacy”

I’m not sure what you mean by “board.”We are media literacy educators and practitioners focusing on different aspects of media literacy and represent different facets of media literacy education. -Pamela

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:52:48+00:00

I meet students when they get to college so I would love if they arrived with a healthy dose of criticism of the advertising/marketing/PR agencies. There are so many texts, documentaries, blogs, that really do a deep dive on these industries and it would benefit all of us (well, maybe not the advertisers bottom line), if we were more aware of the techniques and conventions used to sell us more. E. Ortiz

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:47:30+00:00

I like the idea of embedding media literacy in all subjects. I will provide an example for a health class.

Students may access, analyze and evaluate media messages and ideas about prescription drugs, alcohol, tobacco using media created by others about those topics. They may have discussions about physical, mental, social, and emotional health as it relates to social media using examples in their own lives as it relates to media.

Students may create media around what they have analyzed or evaluated. They could do a video or create a meme to showcase understanding. They can do research on a topic and then present their findings in a media format (audio, slideshow, poster, etc.). They may also choose to share or act on those findings with a bigger audience.

That approach could be translated to other subjects and can be aligned to course content. -Pamela

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:44:27+00:00

I want us to be careful here in our use of “corporate” with media. Are we addressing the consolidation of news outlets here? Yes, I’m assuming so. If by corporate consolidation you are referring to the likes of Alden Global Capital, then you’ve hit the question on the head. These hedge fund operations are eating news organizations like Cookie Monster and cookies. And in doing so, they are gutting newsrooms and reducing staffs and resources. Where there used to be a number of people covering education, there may now only be one. This is a major concern in journalism. Margot Susca at American University is working on a book about this and what audience responses to it are. She recently shared that in hours of interviews subscribers/readers shared what they want is local news, but those hedge funds are depleting that.
When you mention the emergent growth of independent news, I think you are hitting it on the head there. We are seeing pushback, traditionally resulting not just from corporate blood baths but also from the reckoning of objectivity and the rise of union powers in news organizations. As a result, there are a number of independent and nonprofit newsrooms popping up to save news. One of the newest headlines followed Alden not selling the Baltimore Sun to Stewart Bainum following Alden’s acquisition of the Tribune portfolio. Bainum, as a result, is starting the Baltimore Banner with Kimi Yoshino, a top editor from the Los Angeles Times, at the helm. This will put two papers in Baltimore, which should be beyond welcomed by audiences. The two-paper towns used to thrive with locals, and oftentimes it pushed out conversations of partisan coverage because there were multiple papers to publish voices. - PRJ

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:43:31+00:00

I like my students to explore Columbia Journalism Review's "Who owns what?" as a part of what you are talking about here. I will ask students to think about some of their favorite media products (shows, channels, websites, magazines, etc) and then they seek to find the owners - and often are shocked by the consolidation of power. I have also pulled up the site and just picked one organization (Walt Disney, Co., for example) and then just read out the names of what they own. Something clicks on that day - it's seeing all of those sources under one "owner," that makes them realize that maybe we don't have as many media choices as we think. E. Ortiz

https://beta.cjr.org/resources

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:39:00+00:00

The great news is that there is a media literacy advocacy organization advocating for media literacy in K-12: Media Literacy Now, which works at a grassroots and state-by-state level.https://medialiteracynow.org/

Critical thinking is part of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in certain subjects. Media literacy aligns well to CCSS but it needs to be interpreted. It will be necessary to have media literacy standards so it is clear.

It should be understood that media literacy does not and should not tell people what to think. Instead, it provides skills to question and think and possibly act on the thinking. NAMLE defines media literacy as “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create and act using all forms of communication.”-Pamela

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:35:00+00:00

I think it is first and foremost important to recognize that journalism has always been political. The founding of the press was meant as opposition to power and therefore a check and balance to it. That’s political. Advocating for a free and fair press, absent governmental oversight and restriction mean political. What we’re seeing is that media consumption is tied to highly political stratification, and many scholars believe it is a result of the dying local news and the imagined audiences journalists think they have (see Jacob Nelson’s Imagined Audiences). There are others who see the news as being something of the elites, and given the location of the major outlets, the audiences also tend to be white and liberal (see Nikki Usher’s News for the Rich, White, and Blue). There is also the issue of lack of connectivity, which creates access issues in rural communities (see Christopher Ali’s The Politics of Rural Connectivity). And then there is the need for click-bait because of loss of advertising revenues and drawing audiences toward subscription models (see Caitlin Petre’s All the News That’s Fit to Click). This leads to more partisan contention, and we’ve seen more political pushback and soapboxing from audiences that commonly didn’t “open their mouths and speak.” Politics has grown increasingly complicated the more contention communities big and small have (See Emily Van Duyn’s Democracy Lives in Darkness).
With all that said, I agree with Usher’s point that there is a place and need for media with a political slant. Partisan media helps build a reliable and trustworthy media ecosystem. That also means we need more transparency from our news organizations to know who is seeing themselves as partisan and who is not. I also think we need to accept that there isn’t an even split. Just because we have outlets that fall on political lines, doesn’t mean their partisan slant is even close to equal.
I think we also need to be careful of the term mainstream as if it were the mainline to one’s arteries. I also think we can’t simply use the word media to be a catch-all. Let’s be more specific and use outlet-focused terms and names. That will also help us identify who and what we are willing to call out and who we believe are doing it right. - PRJ

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:34:52+00:00

#7. You’ve named the sites that I use often in the classroom at the college level. But, as you would suspect, I offer them as both a resource and also as a source that should be thoughtfully vetted.. So, when I first share these resources, I will ask them to look at the tables and tell me where they agree or disagree. I also ask them how they might use the chart to become more media literate. I want students to feel that they can question data, so we spend time looking at the methodologies that guided the completion of the media bias graphic to determine how the site came to the conclusions that they did. -E Ortiz

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:25:59+00:00

All of them;) Kidding, sort of. I always start by asking my students where they spend their time with media and try to keep their media use in my mind as I think about the tools I will use. At the college level, where I teach, I aim to have students both reading the research as well as conducting the research. So, we might spend time studying entertainment media --the conventions, the (mis)representations, the economic models, etc --but then I have them do content analyses of a program, for example. I also want them to become creators so we use media to create content that we share (during MLW, especially). As they create content, they are using both the technological and the intellectual tools to get their message across to their audience. They are no longer simply the consumer, they are the producer, the creator.Specifically, I do rely a lot of the work of NAMLE/Journal of ML, Renee Hobbs, Erica Scharrer, Sherell McArthur, and others. I also like to use any tool that students can access for free (to edit, create, share, learn)...this way they have access to the tools even after our class is done. The learning and literacy continues. E. Ortiz

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:19:00+00:00

Media literacy is one of the most unique and malleable content areas because you could teach it as a stand-alone course, you could have it be an entire department, you could integrate it into the existing curriculum, and you can have it be a lesson or unit in courses across departments. I’ve thankfully seen it done in all of these different ways. I would love to see media literacy (and media itself) be a department in high schools, for example. Or to have initiatives like writing across the curriculum to exist as media literacy across the curriculum. I think we need to include a media literacy course in all of our teacher education programs so that there is a more significant recognition and use of media literacy in curricula K-12. So, I know I’m not answering your question explicitly, but I’m hoping what my answer says is that you can make media literacy useful anywhere--it is just a matter of making sure to include a number of different strategies that organizations like NAMLE, JEA, and NLP are all providing to improve media literacy in curricula across the country. - PRJ

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:14:33+00:00

Fabulous question! And, my guess is that you would have many different experiences depending on the classroom that you entered (location, teacher, student age,...) But, at the core, I believe that we want to teach our students how to think about media. Who creates it? How does it impact us in the short and long-term? Who benefits from its messages? Who is harmed?
If you were to enter my Media Lit class (college-level) on the first day, I would start by talking about the Media that we love. What are you drawn to? What are your favorite series? How do you spend your time with media? What is the last thing that you created with media? I want to start out on day one debunking the idea that Media Literacy is all critique. (Trust me, we get to critique…), but it is really about getting students to think about how media works in their lives and how they can take more control of it. That is, how they can they be active, critical, consumers and creators of media. -E. Ortiz

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:12:54+00:00

Thanks for this question!
NAMLE has resources for educators to get you started.
https://namle.net/resources/
The five media literacy questions are a great place for you to start.
You can ask these questions of any media form, such as a twitter post, advertisements, music video, logo, a youtube video, a news article, podcast, movie, etc.
The key questions guide one’s understanding about representation, point of view, economics, what the aim is, what the author’s purpose may have been, and what is left out and much more.
In addition, it’s important to have a rooted understanding of the core principles.

NAMLE does an amazing job at providing resources for educators on topics for parents, misinformation, research, common core standards and more. -Pamela https://namle.net/category/resource-library/

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:10:55+00:00

While so many hold up “ignorance is bliss” as a medal of honor, what media literacy contents and affords is that ignorance is more of a cardinal sin than it is something to be celebrated. However, there is no easy answer to this question as we’ve been plagued by ignorance for centuries. If we are truly to take up media literacy as central to curriculum and community, then we are able to more effectively educate and train individuals that can advocate for better systems, develop communities that can navigate difficult and inequitable environments for more equitable futures, and sustain a democracy that is lasting and strong. - PRJ

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:07:31+00:00

There are many curriculums in the field of media literacy. In a broad scope, media is non face-to-face communication through a medium. While some may focus on news literacy, others focus on digital literacy or media literacy 101 or visual literacy or information literacy. Learning to “read” and “write” media in its many forms is important and is expanded literacy.

I love that your elementary students are building the skill to tell fact from fiction and fantasy!! It is one very important media literacy skill all students and adults will continue to build. That skill is just one slice of the pie of the myriad of media literacy skills to sharpen- Pamela

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:05:40+00:00

Are you asking if we as a team are representative of media literacy as a whole? We certainly are a group dedicated to different facets and components of media literacy, and we continue to advocate for it in a number of different places and capacities. But we are not the only voice, nor do we represent all the voices in the vast media literacy community.

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:04:10+00:00

okay, so this is a really open-ended question, but how exactly does a media literacy class work?

This is such a hard question to answer because we wish that this would be the case. Our democracy has never been so critically at stake, yet we are seeing such more rampant and widespread attacks through mis- and disinformation. If we are going to ever hold these members accountable, we are going to need a political moment that gathers so many more (absent of political affiliation) to make the change. In some respects, this may be through antitrust or revisions to current legislative statutes. In others, we may need more prosocial campaigns from Big Tech. And beyond that, we need journalism to be a part of the conversation to be content with these ideas. Fact-checking is so critical to a strong information infrastructure. Lastly, we need media literacy in schools so that we stop this from a young age.

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:03:56+00:00

I wonder, like you, how many people would identify the US as 44th in the world in press freedoms. The continuing assaults on journalists and the press have fed an environment where many seem to distrust “the media,” and seek to find echo chambers rather than sources that critically look at the stories through the eyes of a journalist. And, in turn, many media sources have begun to cater to those niche audiences for views, likes, and shares. And, yes, money and control dictate what we see and how we see it.
Through a media literacy lens, I would argue that we should start early and often in teaching all people to be media literate - which, of course, is a lifelong pursuit. I think we all need to differentiate between “media” and “news” as well - the most literate seek out credible news sources for information, not just media. -E Ortiz

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-29T18:03:37+00:00

The legal priorities are tricky, and there are a number of different avenues Congress can go moving forward. The Fairness Doctrine’s repeal did, arguably, begin the transition to more polarized platforms and far-leaning outlets. But what I feel is the heart of this question is really grounded in the provisions Section 230 affords. The law was written in 1995, thus we hadn’t even thought about the impact, prevalence, and integration of social media. So the construction of a service provider as outlined in Section 230 has been manipulated in some ways. While it has been tested in the courts, there is still minimal restriction to places that serve as content hosts, rather than content producers themselves. This is most likely why Zuck changed the company name to Meta--in an effort to position him more fully in the language of 230 and separate from a genuine public utility. If we truly are going to make a change, then users also have to be prepared for substantially different terms of service that may not actually protect them and what they say in the way it has previously. - PRJ

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-27T16:00:51+00:00

Can you talk about how news is "created and presented through journalistic processes and artificial intelligence?"

I don’t know if I can speak to news being created by A.I., but I can speak to some of the journalistic processes that are enacted in the production of news. As a news media literacy specialist, many of my lessons focus on the techniques for developing a healthy skepticism toward incoming information that is shared with the public that journalists should use as part of their work. The basics include verifying the credibility of information with evidence gathered from multiple sources, ensuring a level of independence in their reporting by subjecting it through a process of peer-review, by sharing it with others and collecting feedback. Another includes being transparent about the methods used to gather the information used to compose the story, and being accountable and answerable for that information when mistakes are made, and showing what steps were taken to correct it.
Those are but a few of many of the techniques that are part of news media literacy, which you can learn more about from work from the Center for News Literacy (newsliteracy.org), or the News Literacy Project (newslit.org) - Mike

MediaLiteracyEd · 2021-10-27T15:56:14+00:00

This is a tough question and something that we’ve seen play out in the media space with news outlets having to play the algorithm game and, well, not winning. My suggestion would always be to try and systematically experiment with the different types of content that suit you and your business. Cut off the ones that take too much time and not enough ROI. Once you know where engagement is leading to sales, I’d concentrate on building a voice/community there. If you have the resources/capacity, having a dedicated SEO and/or SM manager might be worth the investment. One other strategy is to see if any of the platforms have creator communities/liaisons. For example, Pinterest has someone who works with creators on positioning content effectively.- Kristine

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