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Topic 1: What is 'media', and why does media literacy matter?

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Topic 1: What is 'media', and why does media literacy matter?

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As a Teacher-Librarian I am concerned about  how student's find, absorb, and interpret various forms of media - basically, how they find the correct information and know what the correct information actually is. The students of today have access to a variety of sources of media content so they are bombarded with information whenever they choose to access it. This is why it is critically important to start teaching and learning media literacy in upper primary and secondary year levels.

The N&MRC Media Literacy Framework provides some strategies on how this important aspect of Information Literacy is taught. My view of the framework is that the Core Learning Outcomes are all very worthwhile - critical thinking being one of the most important. The AMLA & NAMLE statements on each criteria indicate that there is some overlap between criteria. Which means that two or three Core Learning Outcomes can be taught at once.

To teach Media Literacy effectively I would be starting with analysing what is termed 'Mainstream Media' - traditional media such as newspapers, radio, television before moving on to other forms of media such as social and electronic. In this way students can learn some history of media usage and see the evolution into what has effectively become a 24-hour information source.

In summary, the framework is an extremely useful document that can form the basis for many courses on this subject, and also the symbiotic literacies of digital and information. The students of today would receive much out of a course and hopefully it will make them much more discerning about what they view in the media.

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Topic 2: Interactive video: There are no regular results on Google

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Topic 2: Interactive video: There are no regular results on Google

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Yes, I have read that Google does adjust search results in response to the person that is using it (see Bano, 2022)

Upon asking Google a question on altering search results, it did respond to my search query by providing a forum (Quora) where some of the respondents had correctly replied that Google was censoring and responding to user preferences.

Reference(s):
Bano, M. (2022, 28 March). There is, in fact, a ‘wrong’ way to use Google. Here are 5 tips to set you on the right path. The Conversation. Retrieved 29 March 2022 from https://theconversation.com/there-is-in-fact-a-wrong-way-to-use-google-here-are-5-tips-to-set-you-on-the-right-path-179099

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Topic 2: Understanding New and Media Bias

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Topic 2: Understanding New and Media Bias

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This was an interesting topic to explore, and it made me think about my own biases and opinions when it came to searching for news sources.  I am aware that some of my searching is 'directed' toward resources that match my worldview and searching patterns (Bano, 2022). But for myself, I wouldn't consider myself bound inside an "echo chamber" (Nguyen, 2019) as I do occasionally access resources from other sources to provide me with a balanced perspective on news and events.

However, the reflection on this topic has asked how I would go about teaching the community about their own biases, with the possible aim of breaking through some inherent thoughts and feelings. Obviously, this is difficult as some people will refuse to be swayed - but I would not ask them to abandon their beliefs, just ask them to keep an open mind.

The first aspect is identifying bias and addressing bias. To do this, the online quiz's/polls like 'AllSides', 'Political Compass', and even the ABC's 'Vote Compass 2022' are all very useful as they are informative and might surprise the people who are using them (ABC News & Vox Pop Labs, 2022; AllSides, 2022; The Political Compass, 2022). This will help people know where their opinions are sitting.

People need to know that the media they access and even how they access it is informing their thoughts. I think the key is reinforcing the message that reading something outside of their normal sources will not harm them in any way, but it will help increase their understanding of how issues are perceived by other people. Unfortunately, some media sources are inherently leaning towards certain biases as well which will not help with increased understanding.

This all forms the basis for an activity of addressing bias, then finding sources that people would not otherwise look at. The activity is simple in itself but would be worthwhile. It may not change views, but it will change understanding.

References:

ABC News, & Vox Pop Labs. (2022). Vote Compass. ABC News. Retrieved 11 May 2022 from https://votecompass.abc.net.au

AllSides. (2022). Rate Your Bias. AllSides: Don’t be fooled by media bias & misinformation. Retrieved 11 May 2022 from https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/rate-your-bias

Bano, M. (2022, 28 March). There is, in fact, a ‘wrong’ way to use Google. Here are 5 tips to set you on the right path. The Conversation. Retrieved 29 March 2022 from https://theconversation.com/there-is-in-fact-a-wrong-way-to-use-google-here-are-5-tips-to-set-you-on-the-right-path-179099

Nguyen, C. T. (2019, 11 September). The problems of living inside echo chambers. The Conversation. Retrieved 11 May 2022 from https://theconversation.com/the-problem-of-living-inside-echo-chambers-110486

The Political Compass. (2022, 24 April). Test. The Political Compass. Retrieved 11 May 2022 from https://www.politicalcompass.org/test

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Tackling misinformation - the Australian Electoral Commission

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Tackling misinformation - the Australian Electoral Commission

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While progressing through the early stages of this short-course, there have been many issues related to misinformation that have been highlighted. And I think it's fortunate that this course is being conducted while Australia prepares for a Federal election. I believe our Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is generally well trusted, yet it is battling a wave of misinformation fed by the events in the United States. The AEC is taking this head on and using social media languages that appeal to users of social media. Over the course of a few months, many articles have been published in Australian media, and overseas media, praising the AEC for their response to misinformation regarding the election. Below are references and links to five articles from various media outlets.

References:
Elias, M. (2022, 16 March). ‘Leave the eggplant off’: How the AEC is engaging online to counter fake claims about voting. SBS News. Retrieved 18 May 2022 from https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/article/leave-the-eggplant-off-how-the-aec-is-engaging-online-to-counter-fake-claims-about-voting/9ivuzvcqg

Ilanbey, S. (2022, 17 April). Baseless claims: Electoral commission sees rise in fake news in lead-up to federal poll. The Age. https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/baseless-claims-electoral-commission-sees-rise-in-fake-news-in-lead-up-to-federal-poll-20220417-p5ae0g.html

Kelly, C. (2022, 11 February). ‘Firm but friendly’: how the AEC Twitter account is winning friends and influencing people. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/11/raving-reviews-how-the-aec-twitter-account-is-winning-friends-and-influencing-people

Miller, M. E., & Vinall, F. (2022, 14 May). The Twitter account defending Australian democracy. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/14/australia-electoral-commission/

Worthington, E., Bogle, A., & Workman, M. (2022, 17 May). AEC on alert for electoral fraud conspiracies as fringe parties embrace Trump-style ‘stolen election’ lie. ABC Investigations. Retrieved 17 May 2022 from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-17/australians-spreading-trump-election-conspiracies/101057226

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I was intrigued by the possibilities through teaching lateral reading to students. Although I don't have a direct teaching role at my school, I will be running sessions on university readiness and teaching lateral reading will be an essential part of this.

As to how, the resources from the YouTube video and the resources from Stanford will be very helpful (Civic Online Reasoning, 2022; Crash Course, 2022). These, of course, will be informed by the excellent article by Sam Wineburg on Critical Thinking and Critical Ignoring (Wineburg, 2021). There is lots I can take from these resources.

I feel the concepts would have to be introduced gradually to students.  It is, as Wineburg suggests, very different to what students have been taught to do (Wineburg, 2021). That being said, I feel that students would readily embrace the concept of lateral reading as it will help them find the correct information and make their research more efficient. It will also help my research skills too!

References:

Civic Online Reasoning. (2022). Intro to Lateral Reading. Stanford History Information Group. Retrieved 19 May 2022 from https://cor.stanford.edu/curriculum/lessons/intro-to-lateral-reading/

Crash Course. (2019, 23 January). Check Yourself with Lateral Reading: Crash Course Navigating Digital Information #3 [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved 19 May 2022 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoQG6Tin-1E&t=469s

Wineburg, S. (2021, 14 May). To navigate the dangers of the web, you need critical thinking - but also critical ignoring. The Conversation. Retrieved 12 May 2022 from https://theconversation.com/to-navigate-the-dangers-of-the-web-you-need-critical-thinking-but-also-critical-ignoring-158617

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The Australian Federal Election & Misinformation - Article review:

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The Australian Federal Election & Misinformation - Article review:

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While there has been much talk in the day after the Australian Federal Election regarding how the parties fared, and how the voting panned out, I found an article penned by Malcolm Farr for 'The Guardian Australia' on how media run by News Corp blatantly showed a distinct bias. This article titled "The election outcome exposes a gaping disconnect between News Corp and voters" (22/05/2022), demonstrates that the information being presented by this particular media company was simply not real. Farr (2022) neatly sums this up in a series of paragraphs:

"News outlets back candidates for many reasons, the most salient being because they genuinely believe, after an honest evaluation, they would do the job properly, or better than the alternative.

It’s not unusual for a newspaper to stand by its principled assessment. In fact, that is an important purpose of their work.

But promoting an evaluation which isn’t genuine and balanced is a betrayal of that purpose.

In that vein, the brutal and relentless savaging of independent candidates by News Corp was telling. The attacks knew few boundaries."

Farr (2022) then goes on to write:

"The News Corp campaign was directed at preserving a two-party political structure - Labor vs the Liberal/Nationals coalition - no matter what the voters wanted."

It seems, from reading this article, that the News Corp media wanted to preserve a status quo and could not conceive that the information they were presenting was wrong, uninformed, or removed from reality.

Farr (2022) is correct in his analysis when he writes:

"One aspect of the election campaign, anecdotally at least, was that voters knew what they wanted in news and opinion and were open to fresh avenues of information."

Reference:
Farr, M. (2022, 22 May). The election outcome exposes a gaping disconnect between News Corp and voters. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/may/22/the-election-outcome-exposes-a-gaping-disconnect-between-news-corp-and-voters

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Topic 4: The 'Attention Economy', Advertising and You

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Topic 4: The 'Attention Economy', Advertising and You

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This topic and associated sub-topics gave me much to think about - and revisit as I did not fully understand everything. However, I feel I've understood enough to know that these aspects are important, and will be important for many years to come as we become more imbedded in digital life.

But is all of this enough to convince teenagers who have grown up in this digital life from a very young age? Would they believe the research?

The trick, then, will be to tailor lessons for this particular audience (as I'm a teacher-librarian in a school, teenagers are the audience for myself and my colleagues). I think the main aim will be to find appropriate material that will engage teenagers and make them think. The classroom resources from 'Checkology' would be very useful as they use an online environment that is familiar for teenagers. The Checkology website does say that their lessons are designed to "navigate today's challenging information landscape" (2022), and they are correct in this regard. If it is a challenge for us, it may not be a challenge for our teenagers. However, it's teaching them to navigate the correct information that is the challenge.

This is my starting point, and once this is done, other resources can be introduced including those that apply to certain issues. Collins (2021), for example, examined "how the attention economy stoked aggression towards retail workers" during the height of the pandemic.

References:

Collins, N. (2021, 09 December). Content from confrontation: how the attention economy helps stoke aggression. The Conversation. Retrieved 24 May 2022 from https://theconversation.com/content-from-confrontation-how-the-attention-economy-helps-stoke-aggression-towards-retail-workers-173062

News Literacy Project. (2022a). Checkology. News Literacy Project. Retrieved 23 May 2022 from https://get.checkology.org

News Literacy Project. (2022b). What is Checkology? News Literacy Project. Retrieved 24 May 2022 from https://get.checkology.org/what-is-checkology/

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Topic 5: We can all be Influences or Propagandists

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Topic 5: We can all be Influences or Propagandists

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There is no doubting that the social media landscape is fraught with "traps" designed to lure the unwary. Unfortunately, social media is also addictive. This topic highlighted how easy it is to be manipulated by social media and how easy it is to spread posts which may or may not be correct.

What we have learned in this topic is ties in with parts of a book that I am currently reading by Ed Coper (2022) - "Facts and other lies : welcome to the disinformation age". In this book there is a section on how bots and trolls rapidly promote controversial hashtags which are designed to snare and deceive, as well as to amplify disparate points of view.  It's quite frightening to read.

If anything is to be taught and gained from this topic, it is to check, check and recheck, and the aim will be to teach students and others to adopt a more rigorous attitude when it comes to verifying information. The 'Sanitise before you Share' infographic is an excellent resource which can be used by students.

References:

Coper, E. (2022). Facts and other lies : welcome to the disinformation age. Allen & Unwin.

News Literacy Project. (2020). Sanitize before you share : 4 quick steps to stop the spread of misinformation [Infographic]. New Literacy Project. http://newslit.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Sanitize-Before-You-Share-Guide.pdf

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This is a topic that is applicable to all age groups and communities, and it is increasingly important given that so much of our lives is in the digital space. Imparting and reinforcing messages of online safety is difficult as everyone has different levels of digital and information literacy.

So where do we start?

In my role as a Teacher-Librarian, I believe the teaching starts with the young and the classroom resources promoted by the eSafety Commissioner are excellent - all are excellent. They are designed to appeal to certain age groups and levels of understanding and can be backed up through the use of other resources, like the Infographic by Yurkofsky (2019).  Perhaps, a lesson might involve students designing their own infographics.

I once read a book by Martin Peter Hansen titled "Thoughts that breathe" which was published in 1932. Mr. Hansen was then the Victorian Commissioner for Education and he was a very forward thinker when it came to education, and some of his initiatives are still in place today. He suggested in his book that educating the young in proper attitudes feeds through to adulthood, and in turn, also teaches their immediate family (Hansen, 1932). Which is why he advocated for programs such as teaching children to grow food and eat a healthy diet, and join clubs and societies (Hansen, 1932).

Perhaps this is true of today. If we can find a way to reinforce the messages of online safety, this will help them in their adulthood, and also help their immediate and extended families.

References:

eSafety Commissioner. (2022). Classroom resources. Australian Government : eSafety Commissioner. Retrieved 01 June 2022 from https://www.esafety.gov.au/educators/classroom-resources

Hansen, M. P. (1932). Thoughts that breathe. Robertson & Mullens.

Yurkofsky, J. (2019). Life in the Age of Algorithms [Infographic]. Project Information Literacy Research. https://projectinfolit.org/pubs/algorithm-study/pil_algorithm-study_2020-01-15_algo-figure.png

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Touching back on aspects of media literacy and diversity of media, it was pleasing to open up my web browser and see this article in 'The Age' about a farmer who saved a local newspaper. This is another one of these reasons as to why a local newspaper in a country town is so important - instead of media empires gobbling up local newspapers only to produce content far away from towns. This is a very heartwarming story about care for local news. It is also a heartwarming story about how the newspaper saved the farmer.

Reference:

Webb, C. (2022, 01 June). For sale: Country newspaper that was a farmer’s bridge to health. The Age. https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/for-sale-country-newspaper-that-was-a-farmer-s-bridge-to-health-20220526-p5aos0.html

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Rumours, misinformation & social media - more articles

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Rumours, misinformation & social media - more articles

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Inspired by these weeks completing the short course, I've been having a good read of related articles and trying to link them back to what I've been learning. In the past week, two articles, one published by The Conversation and the other by The Age newspaper have caught my eye.

The first article published by Katie Attwell & Tauel Harper in The Conversation was about a study which examined the way in which social media amplified false rumors. These rumors were started by unscrupulous people who seized upon an article or story, and then twisted it to suit their own narrative, then sent their own narrative out through social media. And social media being what it is, amplified the story. Attwell & Harper traced some of these rumors back to their source before they were released on social media.

The second article by Nick Bonyhady & Zoe Samios published in The Age newspaper highlights an incident where certain social media accounts were active during the 2019 NSW State Election. Through this, they questioned how the voluntary industry Code of Practice is tackling misinformation given that Facebook let some of these accounts spread information during the period of the election campaign.

References:

Attwell, K., & Harper, T. (2022, 03 June). Social media spreads rumours about COVID vaccine harms … but it doesn’t always start them. The Conversation. Retrieved 04 June 2022 from https://theconversation.com/social-media-spreads-rumours-about-covid-vaccine-harms-but-it-doesnt-always-start-them-184169

Bonyhady, N., & Samios, Z. (2022, 06 June). What a ‘domestic operation’ on Facebook reveals about Australia’s misinformation debate. The Age. https://www.theage.com.au/technology/what-a-domestic-operation-on-facebook-reveals-about-australia-s-misinformation-debate-20220530-p5aplc.html