“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
| —Aristotle |
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Media literacy is increasingly critical to get a handle on. Media literacy isn’t just about reflection of media or even production of one’s own work, it encompasses a wide array of media competencies. With the advent of multiple sources of information, it can be extremely challenging to investigate every news story and every piece of information we come in contact with. I have actually been thinking about this topic for quite some time. The ability to critically think and evaluate the information presented before us is essential to combat issues of “fake news” or even “distorted news” such as the media’s wonderful tendency (sarcasm) to loop the same segments over and over, presenting stories disproportionately which frames them in a completely different context, and distracts the public with the same pizazz as a magician’s assistant.
It all starts with the source. Often, I have thought back to my time at SF State—In my Intro to Speech class, my teacher told us “nearly every
Common Issues with Logic.
news outlet has an agenda. If you want the truth, go to sources from all sides of an issue, review the content, then decide for yourself.” He explained that if you read news from CNN, then you should read a Fox News counterpart. I know this example may make some people cringe, but it’s a valid point. You can’t say that one biased source is more trustworthy than another. At the end of the day, they are both biased and, if you include both perspectives, they can balance each other out. Even if one is more correct this time, it doesn’t mean they will be more correct next time. In the article Did Media Literacy Backfire? by Danah Boyd, the author discusses issues surrounding the current state of media literacy in that people have been taught to question the source of information, and the result has been a bit of a double-edged sword. Where labels abound and assumptions are made based on individual bias, people have entirely different concepts of what is ‘reliable’ or ‘trustworthy’. Some people look at things such as science and advanced-level education, historically revered as ‘credible’ or having ‘advanced knowledge’, as signals of bias and therefore shouldn’t be trusted. This is where I think the author would disagree with my teacher—if students are taught to question, how do we know if they are questioning the right way? That’s when we take a class called Critical Thinking! As I read the article, all I kept thinking is this is like Inception (yes, the movie) where when an idea or a seed of doubt is planted, it cannot be killed. It kind of sounds like to me no one considered the individual’s prejudice until now—after the monster broke loose from its restraints.
Fact checking is an art and it definitely takes some patience. Problem is, in a digital world where everything is fast and on-demand, taking the time to do a little digging can be problematic even when you are so inclined. We aren’t just talking about cited material but diving into the data itself. I personally have always questioned everything and everyone—not paranoid, just an analytical personality type—so I have a greater preference to synthesize the source information and draw a conclusion. The truth is, not everyone operates this way. I laughed (then cried) when I read the NPR article Students Have ‘Dismaying’ Inability To Tell Fake News From Real, Study Finds written by Camila Domonoske and is based on a Stanford University study. According to the article, college students didn’t recognize potential bias in an activist group tweet and high school students tended to accept photos at face value. If we are to assume there was no observational bias on behalf of the researches conducting said research (which should be discussed as a possibility in the study’s findings), then it sounds like younger generations who have grown up with the internet are possibly even worse off than anyone could’ve realized. This, again, reminded me of my speech class when my teacher told us “backup your sh__”. This always resonated with me as more and more people started paying attention to politics. I can’t tell you have many times someone at work would make a claim about a politician (which sounded nearly verbatim to what was said in syndicated opinion pieces or said by other like-minded people), and stated as fact with conviction! When I asked these coworkers “where’d you hear that? Is it a verified fact?” The response was pretty consistent— “oh, it’s just something you hear” or “I can’t remember where I heard it, but I know it’s true”. Seriously? I am just supposed to trust you because you said so? Funny thing is when you challenge someone’s opinion, even in a nice, constructive way, its not always well received. Anymore, you have to be a bit tenancious if you want to verify anything, especially facts.
Perception is a tricky thing. As demonstrated in the TED Talk video “How the News is Distorting our Worldview” with Alisa Miller, we not only need to pay attention to what information is being fed to the audience, but what is actually left out. All of these elements help frame our beliefs, thoughts, and opinions. At the end of the day, relying on credible sources is essential, but even some sources with less clout may still present solid, factual information—the key difference is being able to verify the information being touted; which is why I think verifying facts/claims is probably one of the most critical pieces to improving media literacy. Dismissing information outright because of the source, is one of the thought fallacies introduced in school. It’s difficult to separate the source from the content because I generally see them as going hand-in-hand, but it is essential to understand that facts are valid even if you don’t like the source. In my work context, improving media literacy would come down to verifying factual evidence by using credible resources that are made readily available for the audience to review themselves. If only it were that easy in other aspects of life, right?
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