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Marcus wakes up one day to find that the short film he and some friends made has gotten serious attention online, and he gets obsessed with tracking all his social media numbers. The time they used to spend writing and filming is now spent on schemes to get more subscribers to their social media channels and churn out new content fast. Marcus thinks he'll make it big after he and his co-creator, Sierra, are asked on a top-rated talk show, but they almost ruin it all by bickering onstage. Now they have to join forces in time to save what they've already built together -- and maybe get to build more.

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Follows two girls having very different experiences in seventh grade. Emmie describes herself as "quiet, skinny, and flat," and she feels invisible. Aside from her friend Brianna, no one seems to notice or care about her. Katie is smart, athletic, pretty, and popular -- it seems to come naturally for her, though she works hard to succeed on so many fronts. Katie's delighted when Tyler asks her out. Emmie has a secret crush on him, too, and she and Brianna jokingly write love letters to their crushes. A class bully finds Emmie's letter and shares it throughout the school, leaving Emmie squirming in the spotlight. Katie wants to help her out -- but Emmie wants to find her own voice.

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Semi Famous: A True Story of a Near Celebrity by Josh Sudiquist

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Semi Famous: A True Story of a Near Celebrity by Josh Sudiquist

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Explores the facts, myths, connections, and disconnects between fame and happiness. Author Josh Sundquist, an internet comedian, has known he's wanted to be famous ever since he was a kid, and he assumed that he'd be happy once he was famous. Because it looks really great from the outside, doesn't it? But as he's building a social media following and having some brushes with fame, he's starting to wonder: If he really made it big some day, would that make him happy?

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Here are some texts that you can use to engage students in stories that will help get them thinking about their online presence and its impact!

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Introduction to Media Literacy: Crash Course Media Literacy #1

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Teen Voices: Presenting Yourself Online | Common Sense Education

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Common Sense is the nation's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of all kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in the 21st century.

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Learning to Identify Fake News VS Real News

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Learning to Identify Fake News VS Real News

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Recognizing bias in news stories is one form of media literacy. Spotting when the news is entirely fabricated, like these stories, is something else entirely.

Often, these stories are designed to look as if they come from legitimate news organizations, and are meant to be easily shared on social media, resulting in confusion over what's real.

During the recent election season, there have been reports of a concerted effort to spread fake news, in a bid to influence public opinion. A recent Stanford University study of almost 8,000 students showed they were easily duped online.

Researchers found, overall, young people's ability to reason about the information on the Internet can be summed up in one word: bleak.

You have been working on media literacy for how long?

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How media literacy can help students discern fake news

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Recognizing bias in news stories is one form of media literacy. Spotting when the news is totally fabricated is something else entirely. How can teachers help students tell fact from media fiction? Educators and media literacy advocates in Washington state are working together with legislators to address the problem.

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TED Members help billions of people worldwide access inspiring ideas. Plus, they get exclusive benefits like invite-only events with speakers. Join today for a brighter future - and a better you.

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Joseph Isaac: Why people fall for misinformation

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In 1901, David Hänig published research that led to what we know today as the taste map: an illustration that divides the tongue into four separate areas. It has since been published in textbooks and newspapers. There is just one problem: the map is wrong.

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National Association for Media Literacy Education

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National Association for Media Literacy Education

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The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) unites a community of educators committed to advancing media literacy education.

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How to Teach Your Students About Fake News - Lesson Plan | PBS LearningMedia

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Fake news is making news, and it's a problem. This lesson gives students media literacy skills they need to navigate the media, including how to spot fake news.

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Why Do Our Brains Love Fake News? | Above the Noise | PBS LearningMedia

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Ever have an argument with someone, and no matter how many facts you provide, you just can't get that person to see it your way? One big reason for this is cognitive bias, which is a limitation in our thinking that can cause flaws in our judgement.

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Food companies engineer junk food to make it addictive. They label their products to make them seem much healthier than they are. And their advertisements target children.

All of this is according to a news report read recently by students in a Texas middle school. They were taking part in an experiment run by the University of Chicago and the University of Texas. "I don't understand how this is even legal," said a girl who took part in a similar study.

Researchers had students learn about food-industry advertising tactics × tactic JOSE LUIS PELAEZ INC./GETTY IMAGES a strategy (noun) We had a meeting to discuss a tactic for the group homework assignment. . They wanted to know if learning about them would change how kids feel about junk food. All over the world, kids are eating more foods that are high in salt, sugar, and fat. That is partly the result of clever ads that make junk food irresistible.

Christopher J. Bryan led the study. He says that when kids question the motives × motive injustice × injustice IMAGE SOURCE/GETTY IMAGES a reason for doing something (noun) Jason's weekly allowance is his motive for washing the dishes. behind junk-food ads, they feel like they're fighting DARRIN KLIMEK-GETTY IMAGES something that is unfair or morally wrong (noun) It was an injustice when the man was sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. . "The reward is knowing you're doing the right thing," Bryan told TIME for Kids.

Message Matters

Junk food has been linked to health problems such as heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. But in 2017, food companies spent nearly $9 billion on TV ads selling unhealthy fare.

Companies use varying tactics. An ad with cartoon characters may make cereal seem fun to eat. A professional athlete enjoying a sugary drink may make it look cool. Advertisers know that if kids want a product, they'll bug their parents to buy it. "You want the pester factor," says Marion Nestle, a professor of public health at New York University. Even parents don't notice the power of ads, she says: "By the time you're an adult, you're used to junk-food advertising. You just don't see it."

In the Texas study, Bryan had students view ads on an iPad. Their job was to write or draw on the screen, to make each ad's message true. For example, a McDonald's ad showed a Big Mac and the words "The thing you want when you order salad." To the end of the sentence, a student added "should be salad."

The results of Bryan's Texas study were published in April. They showed that three months after analyzing ads, students were still choosing healthier snacks: milk instead of sugary juices, fruit over cookies. "Kids are becoming conscious of themselves as agents in the world," Bryan says. "They see a chance to make the world a better place."

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Food companies engineer junk food to make it addictive. They label their products to make them seem much healthier than they are. And their advertisements target children. All of this is according to a news report read recently by students...

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More than half of teens learn about the news from social-media sources and YouTube videos. That's according to a 2019 Common Sense Media survey. But the information on those sites is not always trustworthy.

"There's more misinformation out there than ever," Jordan Mamone says. He works as a fact-checker at TIME for Kids. Mamone believes people should be careful about where they get their news. "It's really important to learn about your sources and to think about where you're consuming information," he says.

Like fact-checkers at other news organizations, Mamone works with writers and editors to make sure people can trust what they read.

Getting It Right

Before an issue of verifies × verify TFK is published, Mamone JEFF MCCOLLOUGH-EYEEM/GETTY IMAGES to prove that something is true (verb) When you travel to another country, you must show your passport in order to verify your identity. all of the facts included in it. How does he do this? First, he reads each article. He underlines information that can be proven. Examples include numbers, historical details, and the spelling of proper nouns. He then looks for a primary source to confirm the information. A primary source is a firsthand account, such as an official website or autobiography.

If Mamone can't locate a primary source, he'll look for three secondary sources to confirm a fact. Secondary source describe or analyze what a primary source says. They include newspaper articles and books. But Mamone can't rely on every secondary source he finds. He avoids those that are outdated or biased × biased Family watching american football match on television at home prejudiced for or against someone or something (adjective) I live in Pittsburgh, so I am biased when it comes to football and always root for the Pittsburgh Steelers. . He also skips sources that might not have been fact-checked, such as personal blogs.

Merrill Fabry is a fact-checker for TIME magazine. She says paying attention to even the smallest details is an important part of the job. "For example, if someone writes 'a stack of books' in an article, I need to find out if it's really a 'stack' or if it's just a couple of books," Fabry says.

All in a Day's Work

Sifting through multiple sources to verify one fact can sometimes be tough. But the job comes with perks. "I really enjoy getting to work with writers and editors," Fabry says. "It can be very collaborative × collaborative SDI PRODUCTIONS/GETTY IMAGES involving two or more people working together (adjective) Group science-fair projects are a collaborative effort. ."

Mamone sees another advantage: "The topics that you're researching are constantly changing," he says. "Today I'm researching Popeyes chicken sandwiches for an article, and tomorrow it could be hurricanes. So you're always learning!"

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More than half of teens learn about the news from social-media sources and YouTube videos. That's according to a 2019 Common Sense Media survey. But the information on those sites is not always trustworthy. "There's more misinformation out there than...

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Picture this: You're searching the Internet and come across a website with interesting articles. Some are news stories. Their goal is to share information. Others only look like news stories. They're actually advertisements, or ads. The goal of an ad is to get you to buy something. How do you, the reader, tell the difference between a news story and an ad?

Back when I was growing up, it was easier. We got most of our information from newspapers. Big news stories appeared on the front page, and ads were boxed off and clearly labeled. But on the Internet, the two are often presented together. It can be hard to tell which is which.

That's why the research group I direct conducted a study. (MediaWise is a collaboration, funded by Google, between the Stanford History Education Group, the Poynter Institute, and the Local Media Association to address issues of digital literacy × digital literacy SIDEKICK-GETTY IMAGES a person's ability to use digital technology to find, evaluate, and express information (noun) By using the Internet to do research for your homework, you are improving your digital literacy. .) My research team showed kids like you the home page of a popular digital magazine. We asked them to tell us what was a news story and what was an ad.

Most were great at identifying certain types of ads. "It has a coupon code, a big company logo, and the words limited time offer," one student wrote about an ad on the site. So where did kids get stumped?

Some ads seem identical to real news stories. They have headlines and contain information. But they may also include the words sponsored content. Sponsored means "paid for," and content refers to the information in the story. "Sponsored content" is a way of saying that something is an ad. Most kids in our study, even if they used the Internet often, didn't know this.

Just because something is sponsored doesn't necessarily mean it's false. It means someone paid money for it to appear. Companies pay so that readers will see their stories, buy their products, and like what the company stands for.

As a reader, you have a right to know who's behind the information you're consuming. So look for the phrase sponsored content. (And look carefully. Sometimes, it will be written in tiny letters.) The Internet is a vast sea of information. To use it well, we not only have to know how to swim but also how to avoid the sharks. Learning to tell the difference between an ad and a news story is an important step to becoming Internet-smart.
Sam Wineburg is a professor at Stanford University, in California.

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Picture this: You're searching the Internet and come across a website with interesting articles. Some are news stories. Their goal is to share information. Others only look like news stories. They're actually advertisements, or ads. The goal of an ad...

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Penguin Random House Secondary Education

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Introduction
Looking Beneath the Surface
We use clocks to know what time it is. Between the invention of hourglasses and digital clocks, there were analog watches-watches with hands and faces-which were the main devices we used to measure time.

Along with learning the ABCs and how to ride a bike, you probably learned to tell time using an old-fashioned clock. You might not have thought much about learning to tell time since then. It's easy to take a skill for granted once you've mastered it. It becomes second nature, which is good because that allows you to focus attention on other things. Instead of thinking, "I can tell time!," you look at a clock and think, "Only fifteen minutes until I am out of this class!"

Back then, you had to learn how to interpret the clock's two "arms"-the little arm that measures hours, the big arm that measures minutes-in relation to the numbers, from one to twelve, on the clock's circular background. You had to learn, for example, that when the big hand was on the twelve and the little hand was on the three, it was three o'clock. Learning to tell time was all about understanding the relationship between the clock's hands and numbers. Once you understood that, you knew how to tell time.

In your lifetime, you've probably seen these types of clockfaces on wall clocks and on wristwatches. You've also witnessed how digital technologies have made it easier to tell time. Instead of having to make sense of the hands on the clock, we just read the numbers from digital displays on our smartphones, or on our computers, or in our cars. You may even be able to call on digital assistants such as Alexa or Siri to tell you what time it is.

But what if the clock breaks and you want to fix it?

Or what if you are just curious to know more about why the clock works the way it does? Then you need to know more than how to tell time; you need to learn how to look beneath the surface of the clock's face, to observe and understand the mechanisms that drive the motion of the clock's hands.

Telling time is one thing; understanding how the clock works is something else.

Wait a minute here, you may be thinking, I thought this was a book about media literacy (whatever that might be...). What's all this about clocks and learning to tell time? Put another way: What can a clock teach us about media and media literacy?

You do not need to understand how a video is produced to enjoy YouTube, or how news is reported to read the New York Times, or how algorithms work in order to post content on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. Each of those activities is sort of like telling time: you can do them without much background knowledge. But if you want to understand why and how YouTube, the New York Times, or your favorite social media platform highlights some people, topics, and ideas while rendering others all but invisible, you need to know more. You need to look beneath the surface to understand the hidden but real mechanisms that shape media content and influence how we interpret it.
Critical Media Literacy
What interests us, the authors of this book, is a concept known as critical media literacy. Critical media literacy (or CML, for short) addresses these typically concealed, but always powerful, inner workings. Critical media literacy gets into the hidden mechanics that drive our mass media of news, information, and entertainment. CML education is a way to learn about the world, especially the world of media. According to statistical research, people around your age spend more than eleven hours a day with some form of media-and usually, you are media multitasking-that is, using more than one tool or technology at once.

Given that you spend so much time with so much media, we believe you deserve to have a robust understanding of how that media works. That's why we think this form of knowing is especially important today.

Critical media literacy is about asking questions more than it is about learning the right answers. Through CML, we not only explore what we know but also ask how we know it. We explore what we like, what we believe, and why. When practicing CML, we employ a collection of skills that help us move from being passive consumers of media to becoming engaged critics and creators.
Meaning, Access and Representation, and Validity
Throughout The Media and Me, we will develop the themes of meaning, access and representation, and validity. These ideas are so important to understanding the media that we want to introduce them here. Reflecting back on the clock metaphor that opened this chapter, meaning, access and representation, and validity represent the inner workings, or gears, of media literacy. Examining them will help us understand how and why media institutions operate the way they do.

Meaning is the most slippery of the terms because it is so fundamental to everything we do. In an influential article from 1973, the anthropologist Clifford Geertz used the examples of blinking and winking to get at the idea of meaning. Both actions involve what we might describe as "rapid movement of the eyelid over the eye," but you do not need to be some famous social scientist to know that winks are different from blinks. If you get a speck of dust in your eye and your eye twitches, you do not necessarily attach any meaning to that action. You're just blinking. But when you wink at your friend, that same eyelid movement could mean anything from "just kidding" to "I am flirting." Being able to tell blinks from winks depends on making sense of what we know and how we know it. And if that wink is going to work, all of this interpretation has to happen very quickly.

We attach meaning to actions, so gestures and body language allow us to communicate without words. But this does not mean that everyone always agrees about what something means. Because meaning is subject to interpretation, and our perspectives can vary, people sometimes have different interpretations about what something means. Think of the color red. In some contexts red is associated with passion, or love; in other situations red might convey heat; and when someone says they're seeing red, that can mean they're angry. The basic point is that meaning depends on interpretation, and interpretations can vary from person to person and from group to group depending on context.

Asking questions about meaning is one way to begin developing a critical stance regarding media. How do you make sense of the imagery in your favorite TV show or video game or YouTube video? What is its message? Of course, meaning is conveyed through language too. So whether we're talking about a poem or a news story, we can ask how an author's choice of words conveys meaning, and how different readers might interpret the author's word choice in significantly different ways. Because critical media literacy depends on interpretation, meaning is a concept we'll come back to again and again.

Access and representation are also basic concepts for understanding media more fully. Access opens up questions about who is included and who is excluded. As we'll discuss in later chapters, access can be as simple as whether or not you have a computer with an internet connection. Representation can have two meanings. (Hey, there's that concept of meaning coming up again already!) First, representation can refer to the way that images and texts reconstruct, rather than reflect, the original sources that they represent.

For anyone interested in media, this type of representation is very important. A photograph-whether it's a social media post about a tropical vacation or a news photograph of a public demonstration-is not equivalent to the sensory experience of the sun, the sand, and the breaking waves on that beach, or what it feels like to march alongside dozens of other people down the middle of a public street where police with batons block the way forward. Asking about representation reminds us, "The map is not the territory."

Representation has a second important meaning for people interested in media. We can ask questions such as "Who is represented?" and "How are they represented?" Examining representation in this sense encourages us to think not only about individuals but also about groups and categories of people. In this usage, representation alerts us to issues of difference and, potentially, inequality. For example, how often do news stories actually include people who are poor-not just as the invisible subjects of reports about poverty, but as actual living people who have ideas, concerns, and aspirations of their own? Questions like this link representation and access: a concern for access can lead us to look beneath the surface of media content, by asking who is included and put at the center of stories, and who is excluded or marginalized. Chapter 4 will investigate representation in more detail to examine how our identities are both shaped by and shown in the media.

Validity is the quality of being legitimate or genuine. If you say that some claim is valid, that means you have reason to believe it is true. The emphasis here should be on the phrase "reason to believe." A claim is not valid because you say it is so; instead, it is valid because you can provide evidence to justify it-and you can defend the claim even in the face of counter-evidence.

Think of validity as a kind of solid footing. When we adopt a critical stance toward media, we ask questions about meaning-and meaning, as we have seen, is open to multiple interpretations, including competing interpretations. This situation might be enough to make you throw up your hands in despair and say, "Who cares? It's all just a matter of opinion in the end." This is when validity, and a host of principles that can help give us confidence that a statement or story is true, come to the rescue. Some differences of interpretation are a matter of opinion. But many differences in interpretation can be resolved by considering the evidence for and against each of the competing interpretations. For example, you and a friend may disagree about how good a musician is. Your disagreement may be solved by saying it is a difference of opinion. However, you may be able to point to the singer's musical training, or how many top hits they've had, to illustrate that they have a certain level of ability that deserves consideration. Asking questions about validity helps to distinguish facts from opinions. Validity is also a core idea in critical thinking, a topic that we take up in more detail in chapter 2.
How Media Literate Are You?
In 2016, the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG), a group of researchers from Stanford University, released the findings of their two-year study of how well young people evaluate and interpret information found on the internet. Based on the findings of the SHEG research, young people are not media literate. The study's participants included students from middle school through college, all of whom had trouble telling the difference between news and advertisements, recognizing point of view or bias, and identifying who owns or runs certain websites. What the SHEG researchers determined was that young people spend a great deal of time with media but do not know how it works. Young people are adept at making use of media, but not necessarily great at evaluating it. Young people make active decisions about their media of choice, but some do not know much beyond what they see on the screen. The researchers found that many young people do not know how to analyze what is "behind the scenes," including what many scholars call the "means of production." Drawing from our opening narrative, we might say that the SHEG researchers found that a lot of young people know how to tell time-but they do not know how the clock works.

Do not be discouraged by this! This book will help you be part of a shift away from the dilemma that this research describes! And it's not your fault. Do adults do much better? We all have a responsibility to teach ourselves and each other CML. In the pages that follow, you will help flip the script and develop an enhanced understanding of media literacy.
Inside The Media and Me
Hopefully by now you are fired up and ready to dive in. We are not interested in making you turn off the media that you use, or denying you the pleasure and joy that the media can provide. We like media too! What we want is to provide you with some ways to be a critically media-literate citizen rather than merely a consumer of media. A critically media-literate citizen is a person who accesses, analyzes, evaluates, creates, and acts with media to empower themselves and others.

That term-"critically media-literate citizen"-is an important one, but it's also a mouthful. From here on, we'll simply say media citizen; what we mean is a person who engages their critical media literacy skills when they use media.

Media citizens reflect on how they are using media. Most importantly, media citizens think critically about the media they use. To be critical does not mean to dislike. We can be critical of something and find great joy in it simultaneously.

In fact, sometimes thinking critically about something increases our enjoyment of it! To be critical is to take a step back from the media content we consume in order to examine it more thoroughly. This book will help you begin to look beneath the surface and challenge media narratives.

Chapters 1 and 2 examine in more detail the foundations of critical media literacy, including a close examination of how the media industries are organized and the elements of critical thinking. Chapter 3 distinguishes critical media literacy from other types of media literacy. Critical media literacy focuses on the role of power in shaping the production, distribution, and interpretation of media. Chapter 4 focuses on representation in the media, with attention to the puzzle pieces that make up our identity, including our race and ethnicity, gender, sexuality, language and accent and dialect, ability, economic class, and family structure. Chapter 5 puts the emphasis on critical media literacy. If the term "literacy" typically refers to the ability to read
and write, then what does media literacy involve? Chapter 6 focuses on the pervasive influence of advertising and the taken-for-granted culture of consumption. Chapter 7 directs attention to news and journalism. This chapter encourages a deeper look at the popular topic of news "bias" by showing how economic interests, political interests, and journalists' reliance on official sources all impact the construction of news stories. The last chapter of The Media and Me is about putting what you've learned from the book's previous chapters into action. We do not just want you to read this book; we hope that reading it will inspire you to get involved. Finally, The Media and Me ends with a glossary of key terms and concepts and suggested readings, if you want to investigate further the ideas presented in this book.

Critical thinking means asking questions that encourage us to rethink assumptions we might otherwise have, and searching for evidence to support the positions we hold. We will address how to ask purposeful questions, build sound arguments, recognize fallacies or mistakes in reasoning, determine what constitutes evidence, and raise awareness about the many biases that can invisibly but significantly shape our perception of the world.

We will examine the role of media in the lifelong process of socialization-how we learn values and a way of life from those around us. We will consider how media content, from music videos and movies to social media streams and news broadcasts, are specific forms of one fundamental human activity, storytelling. We examine how media are fundamental not only to the communication of information but also to collaboration among people and the creation of community. We also consider how economic interests shape the media you consume, by looking at the connection between media ownership and media content. We will introduce a powerful framework-known as the encoding-decoding model of communication-for examining how media messages are produced, distributed, and interpreted. If you are interested in changing the world for the better, the encoding-decoding model will likely thrill you.
Who We Are and How We Wrote This Book
We are a collection of ten authors, with distinct life stories and professional backgrounds. We include among us college students, high school and college teachers, activists, and scholars of critical media literacy. We've studied sociology, media studies, history, journalism, and education. We are male, female, gender nonbinary, heterosexual, and queer. We are working- to middle-class. We are white, Black, and Brown. We are all able-bodied. Three of us have children. Some of us are cat people, some of us are dog people, and some of us are learning to be dog people while still loving our cats. We are different people with at least one thing in common: we are committed to learning, practicing, and sharing our work in critical media literacy because we think it is vitally important.

In writing this book, we worked to make sure that any claim we made came with evidence. You will see that we have endnotes so that you can follow up on the sources we used in our research. Throughout the book, you will see certain words or phrases that are bolded; these are important and useful terms. You can find their definitions in the glossary at the back of the book. Throughout the text you will find "Call-Out Boxes" that give you the opportunity, if you so choose, to take some of the ideas further by doing some media analysis of your own. We envision this book as a bit of a "choose your own adventure": you may choose to read it straight through, beginning with this first chapter, or you may choose to dip in and out of chapters whose topics particularly interest you.

Freedom of Opinion and Expression as Human Rights

In 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, defining standards to recognize and protect the dignity of all human beings. The Declaration includes a preamble and thirty articles that specify rights that are universal and inalienable. That means people everywhere in the world are entitled to the protections they provide: You cannot voluntarily give them up, nor should anyone else take them away from you.

Article 19 of the Declaration addresses the rights to opinion and expression:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

The notion that it is our universal, inalienable right to "seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers" is a remarkable, perhaps revolutionary, claim. The idea that this right extends "regardless of frontiers" might sound like something from science fiction. Indeed, back in 1948, when the original members of the United Nations established the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the technology to seek, receive, and impart information "regardless of frontiers" was pretty limited compared to the power of our contemporary means of communication.

But what inspires us about Article 19 is not how much technology has developed since 1948, although those changes are amazing. Instead we conclude this first chapter by introducing freedom of opinion and expression as fundamental human rights because this idea drives all the work that we do.

Think of the ideals expressed in Article 19 as being like the master gear in the clock that we considered at the start of this chapter. The rights to expression and opinion provide the energy and drive for all the other mechanisms that make the watch work and allow us to tell time. Freedom of expression and opinion are so fundamental that we cannot even imagine critical media literacy without them. What, after all, is the point of understanding how media work if you cannot use them to form and express opinions of your own?

Of course, just because an organization such as the United Nations asserts that freedom of opinion and expression are universal, inalienable rights does not mean this is automatically true for everyone everywhere. You probably do not need to read any further in this book to think of ways that corporations, governments, or perhaps even people you know actually interfere in ways that contradict the ideals expressed in Article 19.

The gap between the ideals expressed in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the reality of the world we live in also inspires us to pursue critical media literacy. Critical media literacy gives us a way to assess that gulf and to figure out how to bring the actual world a little bit more in alignment with the lofty vision of a world in which everyone is free "to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

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The Media and Me | Penguin Random House Secondary Education

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From foundations in critical thinking skills to practical tools and real-life perspectives, this book empowers young adult readers to be independent media users.The Media and Me is a joint production of The Censored Press and Triangle Square Books for Young Readers.

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Penguin Random House Secondary Education

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First Phone | Penguin Random House Secondary Education

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A fun and informative illustrated kids’ guide to safely and productively navigating the digital landscape.

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Penguin Random House Secondary Education

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Welcome to This Book: Meet Me, Trisha Prabhu

Hey, there! What's up? Welcome to this book!You might be here for many reasons: (1) you think the internet is kinda sucky (I couldn't agree more) -and you want to change it, (2) you want to learn more about the internet and technology (which, even though it's everywhere, is still kinda complicated . . .), or (3) . . . let's be real: some adult you know bought this book for you. Whichever of the three it is (and maybe it's more than one), I'm so excited you're here! Here's what that adult didn't know when they bought this book: I'm a young person, too, so I hate the lecturing, cringey, sappy "life lessons" just as much as you do. Let me start, then, by being clear: that's not what this book is about. It's also not here to make you use your phone a certain way, or to claim that technology is "bad." (Straight up, the only folks who think that are . . . well, old people.)

With all of that said, what is this book about? And why should you read it? Simply put, this book is designed to be an internet "survival guide." In this book, you'll find everything you need to know to be a successful digital citizen (and if you're wondering what that is, take a peek at chapter 1). Today's internet might seem pretty simple: hop online, chat with friends, watch videos, do your homework . . . but the internet--and technology more broadly--is much messier than you might realize. This book is meant to teach you seven main skills, which, if you master them, will ensure that the internet never gets the better of you. In other words, you can use tech to be awesome, instead of running into trouble you later regret.

Okay, maybe I have your attention. But if I were you, I'd still be kinda skeptical: Who is this girl? And why does she get to teach me how to use the internet? Good questions. That's what this part of the book is for. To get to know me, your internet instructor: the one, the only, the myth, the legend . . . Okay, I'm not that cool, so I'll skip the dramatic intro--my name is Trisha Prabhu, and I'm here to teach you how to do the internet right.

I'm originally from Illinois. I was born in Arlington Heights, which is a city in the suburbs of Chicago. My parents, Neel and Bhanu Prabhu, immigrated to the United States from India in the 1990s. A few years after they met, they got married, and in May 2000, the world was forever changed: *dramatic pause* I was born. A couple years later, we moved to the city I now call my hometown: beautiful Naperville, Illinois, another suburb of Chicago.

It was in Naperville that I first started to make friends, find interests, and, well, become who I am! Of course, my interests changed just as quickly as I did. At six, I wanted to be a queen--and command folks to make my favorite foods all day long (I can't lie, that's still what I want to be . . . but I know it's not going to happen. *Sigh*). At seven, I wanted to be an author (and will you look that--dreams do come true!). At eight, I wanted to be a basketball player, a sport I then played competitively. I dreamed of joining the WNBA, where I hoped to play as a power forward! And at nine, I wanted to be the president of the United States. It was around that age that I started to think more critically about the world's issues: global warming, gender equality, promoting kindness and respect. And it was then that I realized: When adults asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I didn't really know, but I did know that whatever I did, I wanted to solve important problems. I wanted to make change. I wanted to make an impact.

And then, at ten, perhaps the most important thing to ever happen to me happened: I was introduced to the incredible world of computers and coding! For those of you who don't know, computer programming, or "coding" as it's more informally called, is basically the act of talking to a computer. You can almost think of it as speaking in a foreign language--the language of computers! Whether you want to build a website dedicated to cat memes or a social media app for Michael Jordan fans, you need to be able to tell your computer what it should create--but unfortunately, it doesn't know any human languages. Coding is what helps bridge the gap.

Rather quickly, I fell in love with coding. Why? Well, for one, as a kid I'd always hated math (argh), and coding was the first logical, quantitative thing I really enjoyed. For another, it was so awesome to actually be able to build a piece of technology, technology that people around the world could see and use. It truly was the best feeling: I'd always end a coding session feeling powerful and engaged. In any case, it was soon pretty clear: this wasn't going to be a hobby or a phase; it was going to be something I did for the rest of my life.

When I turned eleven, other things in my life started to change--and unfortunately, not for the better. I found myself embroiled in "girl drama" at school--something, I imagine, many of you might be familiar with (take it from me: it gets better). Apparently, my friends didn't think I was "cool enough" anymore. Without warning, I found myself without real friends, support, or anyone who truly liked me for me. I'd often eat lunch with my teachers, which, apart from being super embarrassing, actually ended up being a blessing: with them, I found a lot of solace.

Unfortunately, things only got bumpier from there: My former friends started to tease and harass me--excluding me, talking about me behind my back, and even playing tricks on me. My phone, which I'd gotten just a little while before, ended up being a big part of it: I'll never forget the day I got a text from someone I thought was my crush. Eagerly, I responded, thrilled that they'd gotten my number--and were texting me! I was on cloud nine . . . but I wasn't there for long. Later that day, I learned that those texts were never actually from my crush; in fact, it'd been three girls from my school, including two of my former friends, pranking me. They seemed to think it was hilarious, but I was crushed--and felt like an idiot. I didn't think it could get worse, until the next day, when I arrived at school and found them showing my classmates screenshots of our texts. "She's so lame," I heard one girl say. "Yeah," the girl next to her agreed. "This is literally pathetic. Did she really think he would be interested?" They all laughed. Funnily enough, when they realized I was standing there, they hastily stuffed their phones away and fell silent, masking their smiles. One even complimented me. "Wow, Trisha! I love that skirt." The others nodded. I remember realizing: it's not that they don't know that what they're doing is wrong . . . just that somehow, on a phone, it's easier for them to be cruel, unkind, and mean.

It was a tough period for me. I don't know if you've ever felt this way, but back then, I often felt like the world was my mirror: things people said about me stuck with me and would influence how I saw myself. I started to believe those girls--maybe I was lame, pathetic, imperfect, and unwanted. I lost a lot of my confidence, my spirit, and the positivity that was once integral to my personality. And more than anything, I hated my phone: a constant reminder that I just wasn't good enough, whatever "good enough" was.

Maybe you've been through something similar to what I went through, or maybe you're lucky enough to have avoided some of the worst of middle school (once again, I swear: it gets better). In any case, you have to agree: middle school isn't the only problem here . . . As those girls demonstrate, a sucky internet is definitely part of it too.

At first, I didn't think about it that way. Thanks to that "mirror" effect, I thought there was something wrong with me, that I was the only one who'd ever been bullied or harassed like that. It was only a few years later, at thirteen, when I realized that that couldn't be further from the truth. One day after I came home from school, I was browsing the internet and stumbled upon a story about Rebecca Sedwick, a twelve--year--old girl from Florida. The article said she'd been cyberbullied for over a year and a half, after which she dropped out of school and suffered from serious mental health issues that caused her death by suicide. I was shocked; it seemed unreal to think that kids were being driven out of school and even killed because of what they'd been sent on social media! I immediately started to do more research--and that's when, for the first time, I learned about the scope of this issue: every day, millions of young people around the world receive mean or hurtful messages on the internet . . . partly because, well, it's just so easy to be mean online. Technology, it seemed, was enabling the spread of hate at pandemic proportions.

I was shocked--and fired up. You know that feeling when, well . . . you just have to do something about a problem? That's how I felt. I couldn't let this go; I refused to let a sucky internet reign even a minute longer! Somehow, someway, I pledged to myself, I was going to fix this thing. (Cue the heroic Disney music!)

That left me with just one important question to answer: How the heck was I actually going to do that? I was a teenager, with no resources, experience, background, or skills. Except-- Wait! I quickly realized that that wasn't true: I have the all--powerful skill of coding! And so--contrary to most anti--hate work to date--I started to seriously think about how I could use technology to solve this issue, an issue that technology itself created.

After months of brainstorming, building, and experimentation, I had the answer, and my solution, which I named "ReThink," was born. The concept was simple: I knew that a lot of young people (myself included!) were prone to making rash, sometimes silly decisions--and it's not all our fault (at this age, our brains aren't actually designed to be super thoughtful). I hypothesized that that effect could've possibly translated to the internet: in other words, staring at a phone--rather than someone's face--made it even easier to let bad decision--making take over! What I wanted to create was a brake: something that would give a user a chance to pause, review, and rethink saying something mean, before the damage was done. I developed a vision: If someone tried to text me "I hate you!" their phone would receive an alert. hold up! are you sure you want to say that? that's not cool. The technology could function as an app--an app that gave young people a chance to do the thing they already knew was right.

So that's exactly what I did: computer in hand, I got to work coding. I later found that the ReThink solution was extremely effective: almost everyone who received a chance to rethink a mean message changed their mind and decided not to say it! (Move over, Thomas Edison--there's a new inventor in the house.)

From there, my little idea ballooned into a global movement. A year later, I found myself running a company, giving talks about my work on stages around the world--from the White House to ABC's Shark Tank --and leading anti--hate awareness campaigns. Without meaning to, I'd stumbled upon a way to do what I'd always wanted to do--make an impact, especially on really important issues--and as a teenager, which was super awesome.

And that's how I find myself here, writing to all of you! In my many years of trying to fix this thing we call the internet, I've seen it all and learned a lot. And I want to share that knowledge--as well as my handy digital tricks and tips--with all of you.

Okay, Trisha, you might be thinking. Seems like you know what you're talking about. But seriously, do I really need to read this book?

The short answer? Yes. But I'm not sure that's satisfying, so here's the long answer: Our generation (sometimes referred to as "Gen Z") is the first to be born into a world of technology, but we won't be the last. Technology and the internet are here, and if you ask me, they're here to stay. And that's a good thing: For the most part, your phone, your computer, and the internet you access through those devices are great, right? You can learn about new topics, connect with friends, and even create some hilarious memes. But part of learning to live in a new society--in our case, a society that runs on technology--is ensuring that you're ready to be successful in that society. In the same way you go to school so that one day you can be successful in the "real world," you also need a digital education in order to be an "internet insider." Otherwise, the internet can--and most likely will--get the better of you, as it has so many people. And, well, that would be really sucky.

But don't worry, there's nothing to fear--Trisha is here! (Okay, that was kind of lame. But hey, it rhymed--give me some credit.) Jokes aside, I have your back. I'm here to teach you everything you need to know, in a format that's actually fun, interesting, and informative.

In the chapters that follow, you'll find seven stories that aim to teach you the seven skills you need to know to crush this thing we call our digital universe. Each story is paired with an Internet Challenge, so you can practice your new skills. Get ready to learn, laugh, and have a lot of fun!

I'll see you there--and I can't wait. Thanks again for joining me on this journey. Let's go!

Trisha Prabhu

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ReThink the Internet | Penguin Random House Secondary Education

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Stop hate. Promote Kindness. Be an Upstander.ReThink the Internet.

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What is Media Literacy?

Why is Media literacy important?