Media Literacy

Dania Sheatt

02-03-2024

Media literacy is the ability to understand media beyond what is right in front of you, identifying influences, biases, ulterior motives, and, ultimately, the meaning of media. It requires the reader to assess credibility and intent of the speaker.

According to the National Association for Media Literacy, media literacy provides us with the skills necessary to both comprehend the messages we receive and effectively utilize these tools to design and distribute our own messages. Being literate in a media age requires critical thinking skills that empower us as we make decisions, whether in the classroom, the living room, the workplace, the boardroom, or the voting booth.

The Media Literacy Resource Guide created five essential principles of media literacy. They are:

All media are constructions — Media is not the same as reality; it is an intentful reconstruction with a purpose.
The media constructs reality — The way we view the world has been created and influenced by our experiences, which is largely made up of media; these influences began for as long as we were able to think properly.
Audiences negotiate meaning in media — We all find our own personal meanings in media, a reflection of ourselves more than anything, that changes from person to person.
Media have commercial implications — Media production is a business intended to make money, and should be treated as such; media-makers target specific audiences in order to further their agendas.
Media contain ideological and value messages — Media is never just as it appears, and there are always deeper implications.

SO WHAT?

Media literacy is necessary to gain knowledge as accurately as possible and to use critical thinking in order to draw educated conclusions. In a political context, media literacy reminds us that we can’t take politics at face-value, and that we need to fully grasp governmental concepts and broader implications before passing judgements. We need to be able to recognize propaganda and political schemes in order to ensure our vote aligns with our values and to hold politicians accountable — it is a nonpartisan ideal that everyone should strive for.

HOW TO BE AWARE

The best way to improve media literacy is to ask questions of the content.

Basic analysis questions to start off are:

What is the goal of the speaker?
How would that change the way they are conveying info?
What does the speaker want from you, the audience?
What are the author’s political views? Occupation? Past reputation? Education?
How do they benefit from sharing this info?
Who paid for this to be public?

Even beyond the media itself, we must also analyze our own reactions. Oftentimes, media makers create media with certain goals in mind, intending for the audience to not just consume the media, but also to do something or feel something afterwards.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

What were your initial emotions?
Do you think this is what the speaker intended?
How does your reaction help or hinder their message?
What aspects of your identity (ie. race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc.) contribute to your reaction?
Is the speaker purposefully trying to rile you up?
Why did you initially react the way you did?

Pay attention to the platform the content is shared on, as that affects the primary purpose and target audience. Information posted on TikTok versus a newspaper with a political bias will vary greatly. It also helps determine credibility— for example, social media is not the best place to just look for information, as there are often other agendas (such as advertising a product or elevating the speaker) or plain misinformation. It’s important for us, as consumers, to consciously choose where to get information from.

Beyond just consulting with yourself, you can and should also consult with other sources. Thanks to the internet, we are now able to determine credibility better than ever. Cross-reference the information with other sources and see if they align. Look for the content’s references and look at their legitimacy— are they using blog posts or scientific journals? If there are no references, that is telling on its own. Pay attention to what the media is doing to convince you. What kind of evidence do they have? It is important to have data-based and fact-based evidence, like statistics and research. If most of the media’s evidence is reliant on emotional responses, the foundation is a lot shakier— it may be intentionally deceptive.

Another simple way to deduce the integrity of media is to look for logical fallacies. A logical fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning in the construction of an argument that may appear to be well-reasoned if unnoticed. Some common ones in politics include:

Sunk-cost fallacy: To continue to do something that is negatively affecting you only because you have already spent too much time/effort/resources so far. Even if stopping will benefit you, you do not stop because you will have “wasted” everything you already contributed.
Slippery slope: When someone makes a claim about a series of events that would lead to one major event, usually a bad event; to argue against an idea simply because it may create a chain reaction to a much larger, more catastrophic event, without direct evidence that this chain reaction will happen.
Straw-man argument: The illusion of having defeated an opponent's argument through the covert replacement of it with a different argument and the refutation of that false argument instead of the opponent's actual argument.
Ad hominem: Irrelevantly attacking a person’s character instead of their argument or position, using the personal insult as a diversion.

An easy-to-remember method to help you further is the SIFT method, developed by Mike Caufield at Washington State University, Vancouver. The method encourages consumers to Stop, Investigate, Find and Trace information when reviewing for misinformation.

SIFT METHOD

RESOURCES

Allsides
A helpful resource to find bias in political media. Allsides provides you with multiple perspectives from neutral, right, and left-leaning sources on any topic you search for. It allows you to keep your information varied and consume information from sources that you may not agree with.

Digital Citizenship Curriculum
Free K-12 digital citizenship lesson plans to prepare students to take ownership of their digital lives.