Understanding the Media

¶1There was an unspoken agreement in previous generations that the news media shared "the whole truth and nothing but the truth". Information was often shared by word of mouth and was sourced from a handful of generally reliable newspapers, news broadcasts, and radio programmes.

¶2It's not so simple today. Youth are coming of age in a time of technical sophistication. The news cycle runs 24 hours a day across multiple modes of media, available in nearly every teen's pocket. Anyone with a computer and modest technical skills can create fake videos or alter images, and everyone with a social media account can author content and share posts to millions of viewers.

¶3On social media, false information has been found to spread further and faster than accurate information. Sometimes, inaccurate or false information can be shared without bad intent — posters may not recognize the information is false, they may be sharing it to alert others to a hoax, or they may be sharing what they recognize is a joke (but others may not). Other times, people are spreading misinformation purposefully to cause harm — to gain social media followers, to cause confusion about an issue, or for their own power gain.

¶4Young people seem to understand the importance of combating misinformation, and are aware of how it relates to their own habits online and on social media. A lot of youth are checking their sources too — a special research on kids and news found that 70% of respondents "often" or "sometimes" try to validate a suspicious piece of news. Nevertheless, it's important for parents and teachers to guide youth in acquiring media literacy.

¶5Young children may not always understand what they are seeing or hearing, even if it looks like they are. To help them, you can explore one type of media at a time, identify what is happening, and encourage a child to ask questions about what they are seeing or hearing. It's also a good idea to explore how media are made — make a video together, take apart an old device, or watch a video about the making of a TV show.

¶6For primary school children, a great media literacy activity is to play a game of detectives trying to figure out who created a piece of information (such as a video, a news article, or a photo), when they created it, where, and why. Think creatively together about what that creator may have wanted you to think and feel when you consume it.

¶7Another great activity is to choose a single news story and look it up on multiple outlets and media types (for instance, look up stories about a topic of interest on local and national news sites, international news sites, video sites, and social media). Discuss how the story is presented in each, and what it carries throughout all sources.

¶8When dealing with teenagers, ask them to show you some of the influencers they follow on social media. Discuss what they like about each and what they think that person is trying to get them to think or do. Try starting a conversation with a teenager using yourself as a real-life example of how you were exposed to misinformation. Then ask them if this has ever happened to them.

¶9It's easy to forget that not long ago, none of us walked around with Internet access in our pockets. But today, it's common for a 10-year-old to possess a computer or a smartphone that has the ability to instantly access the good, the bad, and everything in between that's available online. So media literacy skills are now almost as important as the ability to read and write.