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Taking on Fake News: What to Say When Patrons Repeat Things That Just Aren't True

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Taking on Fake News: What to Say When Patrons Repeat Things That Just Aren't True

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Calvert, K. & Jonsson, E. (2021). Taking on Fake News: What to Say When Patrons Repeat Things That Just Aren't True. Programming Librarian. https://programminglibrarian.org/articles/taking-fake-news-what-say-when-patrons-repeat-things-just-arent-true

In this article, Calvert and Jonsson give tips on how to handle a patron relaying misinformation casually in the library. While programming can be utalized to combat dis/misinformation, the patrons whose media literacy needs intervention may not sign up for or attend the program that focuses on the media literacy element. Even in casual conversation, there are phrase library professionals can use that will help patrons reframe how they process information they see or hear in everyday life. This source also provides further resources on indetifying and combating misinformation.

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People who need media literacy skills may not be eager to sign up for a program or class on the subject; in fact, they may not know their skills are lacking at all.

Creating a program dedicated to media literacy is great (and you'll find lots of program ideas here!), but you can also find ways to introduce media literacy concepts into everyday interactions with your patrons.
>>>Download "Media Literacy in the Library: A Guide for Library Practioners"<<< >>>Register for a free webinar in the "Media Literacy for Adults" series<<<
Media literacy and the reference interaction

Reference interactions offer a very informal-and public-teaching setting, so you will want to keep your interaction brief and focus on one media literacy skill you want to get across.

Topics like current events, politics and social media provide good openings. When a patron starts talking about politics or another subject that can intensify quickly, media literacy is an excellent way to deflect. Instead of answering questions about politics or religion, ask questions like, "Where do you go for news?" and "Where did you find/hear that information?" Be prepared to direct participants away from in-depth discussions about ideology.

Here are a few examples of how you might respond to patron questions and comments.
"How could anyone possibly vote for (insert politician name, ballot initiative, bill, etc.)?"

"I've been hearing a lot of discussion about that topic. It seems like there are a lot of perspectives out there. Would you like me to help you find some information about it?"

"I can tell you feel very passionately about this! Have you found specific resources or outlets that have helped shape your opinions?"

"That's a good question. What do you think might be motivating voters on the other side? Have you explored this resource (e.g., All Sides, Pro/Con, Opposing Viewpoints, CQ Researcher) that lays out various perspectives on the issue?"

"I keep hearing talk about defunding the police, but our police are already working with social workers! Look at this article I saw posted on Instagram."
"Let's take a look at the Instagram post and try to find the source of that information. Knowing the source may help us determine whether the article is biased or even downright false."
"I'm looking for information about spiders. My friend Ira posted on Facebook that there's a spider that lives in your toilet and will bite you as soon as you sit down."
"There are lots of different kinds of spiders out there; I'm not sure about any that live in your toilet. I can show you a couple websites where we can look up the validity of content that regularly circulates the internet, and maybe we can look up more about spiders that might pop up in someone's household."
"My child is spending a lot of time on their iPad. I'm concerned that the websites and videos they are looking at are harmful and don't match with the values I want them to grow up with."
"That's a valid concern. With anyone in the world able to easily create and upload content to the internet, it's important for you and your child to understand where the content they are watching is coming from. Let's look at how you can learn and teach your child how to evaluate what they are looking at online."
"I just don't trust mainstream media anymore. That's the real fake news!"
"If you don't feel comfortable with the world's largest media outlets, where do you get your news? Why do you feel this source is reliable over others? Let me show you a few tools you can use to determine whether the media outlet you're looking at has the intent of informing you, rather than persuading or entertaining."

Resources

Be ready to address whether the patron thinks their information source is reliable and how they determined reliability. To do so, you will want to have resources at the ready that explain key concepts of media literacy and why they are important.

Here are a few that we recommend:

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Taking on Fake News: What to Say When Patrons Repeat Things That Just Aren't True

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People who need media literacy skills may not be eager to sign up for a program or class on the subject; in fact, they may not know their skills are lacking at all.Creating a program dedicated to media literacy is great (and you'll find lots of program ideas here!), but you can also find ways to introduce media literacy concepts into everyday interactions with your patrons.

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How to Teach Teens to Navigate Misinformation and Fake News

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How to Teach Teens to Navigate Misinformation and Fake News

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Center for Parent and Teen Communication. (2023). How to Teach Teens to Navigate Misinformation and Fake News. https://parentandteen.com/how-to-teach-teens-to-navigate-misinformation/

This resource is a great place to start supporting the media literacy journey of your teenage child or a teenager around you. The Center for Parent and Teen Communication uses this article to lay down the basics: the difference between disinformation and misinformation, how disinformation is spread, and how to protect yourself and your teen against disinformation and misinformation. They lay out a series of questions you should ask yourself when encountering new information online from does the website URL look legitimate to what kind of reaction does the information elicit in you. They also give steps and resources for fact checking.

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Today's media landscape is drowning in misinformation and disinformation, which makes it hard to decide what information is trustworthy. Confusing matters further, there are people who claim that factually correct stories are fake news because they disagree with them. It doesn't help that social media algorithms amplify content that is most likely to get a reaction. (What enrages, engages!) Or that people create "bots" and fake accounts with the explicit goal of spreading disinformation.

But as parents and caregivers, you can help teens understand what to do with the media they encounter. And you can guide them to make good decisions about what they learn. You do this by developing their "media literacy" - skills needed to help find, understand, and use credible information to stay informed.

With so much bad information available, it's crucial to build these skills now. As adults, we must model what we're teaching. Before learning the necessary skills, it's essential to have a basic understanding of misinformation, disinformation, and media or digital "literacy."

The Difference Between Misinformation and Disinformation

What is misinformation? Misinformation is generally considered false information that's posted, shared, or passed along online with no malicious intent behind it. The sender could have good intentions in wanting you to be informed, but they are mistakenly sharing incorrect information.

What is disinformation? Disinformation takes misinformation a step further. It's when content is misleading, false and posted with some potential gain for the person, group, or organization that posted it. If this seems confusing, try to think: " misinformation is a mistake", but " disinformation is deliberate."

A Tidal Wave of Misinformation and Disinformation

There is so much content being shared online about world events in which the videos or photos are taken out of context, from the wrong location, a different time period, intentionally fabricated using AI, and more. This content spreads so quickly that it may be viewed millions of times before someone points out it is false, reveals the real source, or debunks it.

Sometimes the false information takes over faster than "fact checkers" can verify it. It continues to spread because people share it having no idea what they're sharing is wrong. That serves others who want the information out there.

Why People Spread Disinformation

There are plenty of people, groups, and organizations who want to help shape or influence opinions. Others may benefit financially from spreading certain information far and wide. Sometimes, the content is designed to turn people against one another. Disinformation can incite conflict and hatred and you want to protect your child. It may promote polarization - dividing people into opposing groups, or tribalism - a strong loyalty to one's tribe, party, or group. Sadly, it can make people less likely to want to resolve conflicts.

How to Navigate and Identify Misinformation and Disinformation

Increase your media literacy. In other words, learn how to effectively access, analyze, and engage with media messages. Also, understand how to think, and take action around the media, using the power of information and communication to make a difference to yourself and others. Become a digital sleuth!

Just because something has "gone viral" on social media doesn't mean it's true. It's always good to look for sources on social media. Be skeptical about what you're seeing. Assume that you have to check it yourself. Once you've seen something, begin by asking yourself a few questions.

Questions to ask when you encounter media:

Does this content encourage an extreme reaction from you? (For example, if it makes you angry or scared - that should be a red flag.)

Who is the author or creator?

Who is the target audience?

What is the source of the information and what do you know about this source? (Are they a credible journalist or organization or artificial intelligence? Do they have biases or an agenda?)

What is the motivation for sharing this information?

What qualifications do the experts included in the content have?

Does the content provide evidence for what's being said? (Does that evidence make sense?)

Is the website URL legitimate?

If content takes you to a website, how does it look? (For example, are there grammatical errors, words in all caps, claims with no sources, or sensationalized images?)

Is there anything missing from the message? (And if so, might it be important to include?)

What makes you think this is credible?

Is this content a joke? (Did it come from a humor website like The Onion, for example?)

5 Ways to Verify Content

It may only take seconds or a few minutes to determine that what you're reading, seeing, or hearing is false. Show your teen how you fact-check the media you consume. Looking for guidance? Here are some good places to check while keeping a skeptical mindset. Use these yourself and show your teens how to use them. Verify sharing something that could be false.

1. Sites like Snopes, FactCheck.org, Politifact.com, RealClear Politics, and Metabunk.org offer places to start your search for the truth. Google and Wikipedia may provide information that helps you clarify the story. It's common to discover information that debunks, updates, or corrects.

2. See who else is reporting the story and what they are saying. Are other well-known, credible mainstream outlets reporting the story? If so, are they reporting it the same way with the same information or video? If they aren't, consider digging deeper into your research. Know that many professional news outlets, including the Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, The Guardian, for example, have rigorous editorial guidelines that they go through before putting something on air or online. These outlets also often publish opinion pieces, columns, and editorials that may insert the author's perspective into an article about a newsworthy event. However, it should be labeled as such to inform the reader it's a piece layered with opinion, and not a "just the facts" news article. News outlets also make mistakes. When this happens they will issue corrections, which can usually be seen at the bottom of an online article.

3. If you're online, look at a site's "About Us" and contact sections. Investigate who is behind the site, who supports it, and who is associated with it. If you can see pictures of staff and their accurate contact information is listed, that suggests the site may be more legitimate.

4. Look closely at images and their context. With artificial intelligence and editing software, it's easy to create images that look real but are fake. Not sure? Look for shadows on an image, or jagged or blurred edges around figures in the pictures. Other images may be real, but they are used in the wrong context or in an incorrect time period. Tools such as Google's reverse image search can help. Google is also rolling out a feature called " About this image " that uses image history, metadata, and more to help determine if it was created from other content, includes artificial elements, and more.

5. Use your knowledge and common sense, and try to explain your thought process to your child to help them practice critical thinking skills. Common Sense Media and Poynter Institute's offer programming and advice to help teens become more critical and informed media consumers.

Use Parental Controls

It's important to help your young person understand what's happening in the news and what they may have seen by allowing them to share their emotions and ask questions. If and when you discuss what they've seen, try to do so in an age-appropriate way. But know that there is some scary media out there that could be traumatic for your child to see. That's when you may want to use the parental controls that many digital platforms offer.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, has an Education Hub for families with tips and resources on user safety. They also offer a tool that lets parents set time limits and monitor their child's time in the app.

TikTok offers a Family Pairing feature that gives parents the ability to link their account to their child's to control content settings. This feature allows parents and guardians to filter out videos with keywords or hashtags they don't want young people to see in their feeds.

Google, which owns YouTube, has a Family Link tool that lets parents set up supervised experiences for kids, establish screen time limits, and filter certain content. Depending on your child's age, YouTube Kids could be a safer space to explore.

And sometimes the most important action to consider: turn off the device!

Don't Just Rely on Others

There are people at many media outlets and platforms who are tasked with going through videos, photos, articles, and more to determine what is real and uncover the original sources. But this can take time. Unfortunately, too often, that time offers plenty of people the chance to view the content before it's proven wrong. While some social media platforms do have systems in place to remove misinformation and disinformation, it does not guarantee that posts will be taken down.

Be a Parent or Caregiver First

We believe that most people want to get correct, factual information and still believe in the concept of a shared truth.

Ultimately, even the best media literacy training and safeguards don't alleviate the responsibility you have to stand by your child. Whether you serve as a sounding board as your child talks through their feelings, or act as a teacher as they learn how to navigate the media terrain, your child will benefit from steadfast support. There are tools available to both of you, but do not assume they are foolproof. Parental controls and monitoring systems aren't perfect - they may change, glitch, or let inappropriate content slip through the cracks. For when, and if, that happens, let your child know they can always come to you to talk or ask questions about what they've seen.

Understanding and teaching these skills is not only about understanding misinformation and disinformation; it's about your child's well-being. Our teens are constantly seeking answers to the age-old questions "Who am I?" and "Am I normal?" They compare themselves to others around them. This creates plenty of self-doubt in their lives. That doubt is reinforced with social media when they compare themselves to carefully curated versions of peers using filters, makeup, editing, and more that lead to images that don't represent reality.

So, it's essential to talk to your child about what they see online. Listen to them when they ask questions. Teach your child media literacy, use safeguards that digital platforms offer, and maintain open communication. These strategies will help prepare you both to face an ever-changing media landscape.

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Center for Parent and Teen Communication

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How to Teach Teens to Navigate Misinformation and Fake News

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Parents can help teens develop their media literacy skills to navigate misinformation and disinformation they encounter online.

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Common Sense Media. (2023). Explaining the News to Our Kids. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/articles/explaining-the-news-to-our-kids

This resource is a great introductory resource into explaining how to critically think about the information we get online to kids and teens. An important part of the process is learning first yourself how to handle online news and having purposeful reactions to said news since kids and teens will learn first from the actions of the adults around them. The article further breaks down how to handle media literacy at different ages, including thinking about the maturity level of the child or teen and deciding how much responsibility they can handle online. With teens, the main ideas are to check in with the teens and allow them to express themselves to gauge their media literacy level and to encourage critical thinking.

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Disturbing news events can leave parents speechless. These age-based tips on how to talk with kids about the news -- and listen, too -- can help. Advice from Common Sense Media editors.

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De Abreu, B. S. (2019). Teaching Media Literacy (2nd ed.). American Library Association.

In this updated version of Teaching Media Literacy, De Abreu discusses the rise in importance of media literacy education that came with the rise in popularity of the internet and, in particular, social media. This book is broken into three parts. Part 1 focuses on the basics of media literacy: critical thinking, social media's role in infromation delivery, biases and misrepresentation in media, media literacy from a global perspective, and media literacy's role in civil change. Part 2 focuses on teaching media literacy. The author provides lesson plans that offer a broad look at media literacy, discussing large platforms and emerging outlets that students are likely to run into and how to analyze these platforms. Part 3 provides further resources to help the students expand their knowledge of media literacy past the basics. Overall, this book offers a modern view of media literacy education that takes into account modern situations and builds off of them.

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Crime Scene Investigation: Deadly Disinformation

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Crime Scene Investigation: Deadly Disinformation

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Deal, A. & Cortes, S. (2024). Crime Scene Investigation: Deadly Disinformation (Series). Programming Librarian. https://programminglibrarian.org/programs/crime-scene-investigation-deadly-disinformation-series

This article outlines a program used to highlight the importance of identifying misinformation and disinformation. The program features a fake crime scene set up with a case file of information related to the case. The crime scene and case file both contain unintertionally and intentionally false and misleading information. Patrons were given information related to the crime scene that would typically be public infromation during a real crimi scene, then split into groups and allowed to investigate the crime scene, and lastly, led away from the scene where they were given "confidential" infromation on the crime. As groups converse, staff members record their final theories on a white board. Right before the end of the program, staff reveal the truth behind the crime, identifying the misinformation and disinformation and talking about how it affected the investigations.

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Crime Scene Investigation: Deadly Disinformation sought to teach participants how to look out for disinformation by interacting with and solving a mock crime scene.

The program description was as follows: Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work a crime scene and solve a mystery? Now's your chance to channel your inner sleuth and get on the case! Process evidence from a mock crime scene and work in teams to solve whodunit!

This description was intentionally kept vague so that it wouldn't influence their perceptions of what they think misinformation and disinformation is.

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Crime Scene Investigation: Deadly Disinformation (Series)

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Crime Scene Investigation: Deadly Disinformation sought to teach participants how to look out for disinformation by interacting with and solving a mock crime scene. The program description was as follows: Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work a crime scene and solve a mystery?

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Media literacy is more than spotting fake news. How one librarian gives teens the tools to decide what to trust.

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Media literacy is more than spotting fake news. How one librarian gives teens the tools to decide what to trust.

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Ebrahimji, A. (2024). Media literacy is more than spotting fake news. How one librarian gives teens the tools to decide what to trust. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/21/us/teaching-media-literacy-in-schools/index.html

Lisa Manganello, a high school librarian in New Jersey, shares how she promoted media literacy in classrooms around her school. Most teenagers get their news from social media, namely TikTok. While social media itself isn't inherently negative, the fact that these teenagers are not taught to identify misinformation is. Beyond frequently switching out informational posters and focusing on developing collections of books on media literacy, she also leads her classes in classes where they focus on identifying misleading and biased information across the internet and discussing what could improve the information delivery they study. She even guides them to critically think about images attached to articles and how the image can change the tone of the article. After identifying downfalls of news articles, she teachers her students how and where to find reliable and less biased information. Manganello also works with her school's teachers to support their media literacy in their everyday studies and lessons.

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Media literacy is more than spotting fake news. How one librarian gives teens the tools to decide what to trust | CNN

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Along with the smell of old books and the shelves of trendy novels at the South Brunswick High School library are guides for accurately deciphering the digital world.

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How to Spot Fake News: High School Lesson Plan

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How to Spot Fake News: High School Lesson Plan

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Laughlin, D. (2020). How to Spot Fake News: High School Lesson Plan. Programming Librarian. https://programminglibrarian.org/programs/how-spot-fake-news-high-school-lesson-plan

This article compiles the resources and methods that Diana Laughlin, a librarian in Colorado, used to teach a media literacy lesson at a high school outreach program. She uses a mix of general media resources like TED talks and BuzzFeed and local resources like news articles from local news stations to teach the importance of looking critically at online information. Laughlin ackowledges that this topic has been politicized, but that covering media literacy regardless of the opinions of the participants is a crucial lesson to learn.

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How to Spot Fake News helps high school students develop critical judgment skills to assess news sources.

Using national and local news articles and videos, critical discussion and games, students learn how to identify fake news.

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How to Spot Fake News: High School Lesson Plan

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How to Spot Fake News helps high school students develop critical judgment skills to assess news sources.Using national and local news articles and videos, critical discussion and games, students learn how to identify fake news.

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Learning to Find Trustworthy Scientific Information

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Learning to Find Trustworthy Scientific Information

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Media Literacy Now. (2023). Learning to Find Trustworthy Scientific Information. https://medialiteracynow.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Learning-to-Find-Trustworthy-Scientific-Information.pdf

This article discusses how science-specific information literacy can support more general infromation literacy by teaching students suring their public education how to parse out information into fact versus fiction. Specifically, this article states that science educators have the power to support this literacy through regular instruction. Adults are expected to read, evaluate, and think critically about scientific information that they are unfamiliar with (i.e. COVID-19, vaccines, climate change, polution, etc.). Therefore, it is in the educators' best interest to teach children not to understand every field of science but to instead teach them to think critically about topics that may be unfamiliar to them. Media Literacy Now provides the areader with the supporting goals and methods to use to teach media literacy from a science point of view.

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Student Perceptions of Fake News: A Matter of Information Literacy Awareness

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Student Perceptions of Fake News: A Matter of Information Literacy Awareness

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Petrucco, C. & Agostini, D. (2020). Student Perceptions of Fake News: A Matter of Information Literacy Awareness. International Journal of Digital Literacy and Digital Competence. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJDLDC.2020040103

This article analyzes the results of a survey of older teens (16-18 years old) about their own perceived skill for using the internet to stay educated, how often they use different internet based outlets, and who they think is responsible for hindering the spread of misinformation. The results found that, in general, the students tended to inflate their own ability to identify reliable versus unreliable sources. Most popular methods for teaching media literacy are effective, but the authors of this article suggest additional steps educators and information specialists can take to further support and supplement media literacy among teens and young adults. These supplemental steps are to help students acknowledge and build their attention capacity, make students aware that they may overestimate their ability to identify misinformation, and to support media literacy not just in terms of news or social media but also in other academic fields.

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Teenages and Misinformation: Some Starting Points for Teaching Media Literacy

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Teenages and Misinformation: Some Starting Points for Teaching Media Literacy

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Schulten, K. (2022). Teenages and Misinformation: Some Starting Points for Teaching Media Literacy. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/20/learning/lesson-plans/teenagers-and-misinformation-some-starting-points-for-teaching-media-literacy.html

In this article, Schulten offers a checklist of sorts for teaching and supporting media literacy in high schools and libraries. Starting big, the first point to focus on is the importance of media literacy. Once students get the bigger picture, teachers and librarians should encourage students to share their own thoughts on the topic and learn from their peers in the process while supplementing their learning journey with additional resources that are also supplied at the end of this article. Schulten also supplies questions for educators to use that encourage critical thinking with respect to media literacy.

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Libraries and Fake News: What’s the Problem? What’s the Plan?

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Libraries and Fake News: What’s the Problem? What’s the Plan?

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Sullivan, M. C. (2019). Libraries and Fake News: What’s the Problem? What’s the Plan? Communications in Information LIteracy, 13(1), 91-113. https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2019.13.1.7

In this article, Sullivan unpacks and analyzes the existence of and the problems surrounding fake news and the internet in the modern day United States. While most information professionals agree that fake news is a problem, some see it as a pattern that comes in waves while others may see it as an issue that many citizens do not acknowledge the true size of or even as a consequence of a lack of education. Either way, fake news is more than an issue of good news vs. bad news; it is a complex issue that, in the worst case scenario, is a threat to democracy. In terms of what information professionals can do about the issue, the first step is to be realistic and realize that there is only so much that can be done from the library staff’s position. Some people naturally have better instincts when parsing through news sources, while others will need help building those skills from the ground up. Long term, the best course of action is to increase research about fake news and its consequences. Short term, research guides, single session classes, and checklists for recognizing misinformation (all provided by the library) are common and accessible places to start.

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The Kids Might Be Alright: Bringing Media Literacy to the Classroom

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The Kids Might Be Alright: Bringing Media Literacy to the Classroom

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Tompkins, O. (2021). The Kids Might Be Alright: Bringing Media Literacy to the Classroom, a guest post by Olivia Tompkins. Teen Librarian Toolbox. https://teenlibrariantoolbox.com/2021/04/20/the-kids-might-be-alright-bringing-media-literacy-to-the-classroom-a-guest-post-by-olivia-tompkins/

This article discusses one successful method for teaching information literacy to teens. The author of this article discusses teaching information and media literacy to a group of 10th and 11th grade students during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The method she used and found extremely effective was to lead the students in an assignment involving lateral reading. When describing the assignment, she refrained from calling the technique "lateral reading" and using words like "bias", only using these terms during the discussions following the assignment. The students where led to pick a news topic and find multiple articles covering said topic. They were then asked to identify any political or religious affiliations or any inconsistancies in facts reported. The class also had discussions about their findings, talking about their different observations and what made one resource more believable than others. To wrap up the assignment, the author notes one student talking about the benefit of the algorithm: when you learn what to trust, the algorithm learns too.

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I am a relatively recent MLIS grad and early on in my program, I took a "pilot" class on Information Literacy in Libraries and fell in love with it-as much as one can fall in love with a field born out of an infuriating element of society. The class both taught information literacy to us as students, and taught us how to teach our library patrons and/or students.

Fast forward to my graduation capstone project: "piloting" an information literacy class for the seventh graders in the school in work, related to their big year-end project. I built a lesson around identifying misinformation online and used a viral, blatantly incorrect TikTok about-ironically-COVID-19 (the original video has been removed, but is still visible through this "duet" video). This is early March 2020.
Now, pause: the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, the world shuts down, and as my school goes remote, the 7th grade project is cancelled-as are my info lit lessons.
Fast forward again: I am granted time and resources to build, you guessed it, a "pilot" information literacy curriculum for my school.

Everything about teaching information literacy seems to be in pilot mode, despite us being well beyond the time where a pilot lesson would do the trick.

Students today know what they're doing online. They may be prone to creating dance TikToks in the library, but they also know how to create thoughtful, intelligent content to share that doesn't involve dances I would not dare to attempt.

That said, they are not star students when it comes to fact-checking and verifying what they read online. Insert defeated sigh here.

There is hope, though!

As a librarian-educator who wants to teach crucial information literacy skills to my students, it is hard to know where to start. Not only are there an overwhelming number of skills for them to learn, there are an overwhelming number of books, lesson examples, and organizations on the topic for me to sift through. The picture below is only a fraction of resources I sifted through to find best practices.

(Andy the cat would like to brush up on his media literacy skills, too!)

I have to figure out where to start and I need to consider the complexity of the matter. What I began to teach seventh graders in early 2020 (identifying incorrect information and the basics of lateral reading) was a lot to ask of them. But when I was asked to visit an advanced journalism class of 10th-12th graders, I needed to include those basics and then some.

The scaffolding of this kind of curriculum is something I am still figuring out and is something I assume will involve a lot of trial and error.
It's at this point that I finally understood why all of this is in "pilot" mode-the only way to know what works is to jump in the deep end and see what works, or doesn't work (not to mix my metaphors, but here we are). So what does work?
With a class of older students, I knew we could tackle a more nuanced information literacy skill: identifying and understanding bias in the media.

My visit was scheduled for right after our return from spring break, so the teacher and I assigned a brief lateral reading exercise before their time off-without calling it lateral reading. Each student picked a current event they found interesting and found three distinct articles about it.

With the assignment, they were given thought-starter questions to reflect on their three sources: (1) Are any facts reported differently between outlets? (2) Are you able to find any obvious political affiliations or opinions within the article? (3) Did your opinion on or reaction to the topic change between the different coverage you read? (4) Does any article feel more "correct" than the others?

I tried to keep the word "bias" out of the questions so they could get a sense of these differences without ascribing them to a specific definition. Then the night before class, their homework was to find one more article on their topic published during their spring break and consider the same questions.

In a class of 15 students, the students consulted 23 distinct outlets with repeated use of NYT, Fox, BBC, CBS, and CNN.

We were virtual on this particular day, I started class with breakout room discussions for the students to share what they read and any observations they had. I sat in on one of the groups and they had a lively conversation without any prompting. We came back as a group to do a quick share of any key observations and then I began my presentation.

I retroactively introduced the assignment as lateral reading and discussed that it's a great way to verify information itself, but also is an early step to identifying bias. The students all had a general understanding of what bias means, though my volunteer to give a definition looked at it more as an opinion or preference.

This is where I leveraged one of the incredibly well-done "Who, Me? Biased?"videos from The New York Times to introduce implicit bias: " Peanut Butter, Jelly and Racism." I paired implicit bias with an overview of confirmation bias and filter bubbles, like how algorithms show you more of the fun content you like, and then how that applies to the news (ie. radicalized groups, qanon, etc.).
And as I told my students, the reality that we all have bias is the biggest hurdle to overcome when you're trying to pay attention to the insidious kind.

Screenshot from Peanut Butter, Jelly, and Racism

The next set of breakout conversations was my big "Yeah, okay, these kids are going to be alright," moment. Here I was being a huge downer and discussing the ways that confirmation bias can go really wrong, and how the algorithms can make it even worse, and one of my students brought up something they noticed during their spring break. While we were at home, there was the terrible attack against Asian American women in Georgia and with this news came a lot of resources to help those affected and that do great work for Asian American community as well-as long as you knew where to look for it.

To paraphrase my student, they said, "One thing I noticed was that once a few people I followed posted those good resources, more and more of that information came up in my newsfeed, either from other people I followed, or from suggested posts. So that's a positive way that the algorithm works, right?"

And, yes, they absolutely were right.
I really lucked out with this class; they were engaged, had great conversations about how media can influence social justice, and seemed to take away from the lesson what I had hoped for: an elevated awareness of bias in their media.
There is a long way to go with how we teach information literacy skills to teens and younger students, but this generation has shown that they are ready and willing to be civic-minded, and they aren't afraid to jump right in. They'll be alright, we just need to guide them.
Meet the author

Olivia Tompkins (she/her) is a middle & high school librarian at a K-12 independent school in Connecticut, who switched to the LIS field after realizing the corporate life was not for her. She loves to read YA fiction, memoirs, historical fiction, or any book with strong, badass female protagonists. When not building LibGuides or teaching media literacy, Olivia is often trying to read and write while her cats demand lap space, or reorganizing the tower of books that she cannot fit on her bookshelves. You can find her trying to keep up with her TBR list on Instagram at @livinthestacks.

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The Kids Might Be Alright: Bringing Media Literacy to the Classroom, a guest post by Olivia Tompkins

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A librarian-educator shares about piloting an information literacy curriculum for her school.

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How can librarians support news and/or meida literacy in teens?

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How can librarians support news and/or meida literacy in teens?

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In today's political climate, media literacy is exceptionally important. Not only are disinformation and misinformation more prevalent today because of social media, but young people are being given largely unfiltered access to this information. Being exposed to dis- and misinformation at a young age, while the brain is still developing no less, has a high probability to affect young people's ability to think critically. This is why I decided to pose this question to myself: how can librarians support news and/or media literacy in teens?

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Through this project, I learned how important the balance between individual exploration and guided instruction is for promoting media literacy. One idea that continually pops up in these resources is the idea of building critical thinking skills. Critical thinking and media literacy go hand in hand; critical thinking can be taught through media literacy and vice versa. While instruction is important, teens must be able to have some independence when navigating the internet. The ultimate goal is to support teens by allowing and encouraging them to question the things they read and watch.