Contemporary technology has unloaded countless tools for developing and accessing media. There is the frequent materialization of new social media platforms and avenues of engagement to which people become drawn and actively participate in hours of information exchange. According to Statista Research Department as of 2022, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 147 minutes per day, up from 145 minutes in the previous year. During a global online user survey in February 2019, a significant share of respondents stated that social media had increased their access to information, ease of communication, and freedom of expression. On the flip side, respondents also felt that social media had worsened their personal privacy, increased polarization in politics, and heightened everyday distractions. (2021) This research spans users ages 16 to 64. Of those 147 minutes on social media a day, people are doing one of the following: finding content, seeing what's being talked about, and finding inspiration for things to do and buy. (Westcott et al. 2022) Within this social media usage time frame and with more access to tech and various exposure to media, are young people able to critically decipher the prepackaged content saturating their feed?
Professor Sam Wineburg, lead author and founder of Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) states "Many people assume that because young people are fluent in social media they are equally perceptive about what they find there. Our work shows the opposite to be true." SHEG researchers evaluate information that flows across multiple social channels and evaluate youth perception of news literacy, as well as students' ability to judge Facebook and Twitter feeds. This focus group studies comments left in readers' forums on news sites, blog posts, photographs, and other digital messages that shape public opinion. "In every case and at every level, we were taken aback by students' lack of preparation," the authors wrote. (Brooke, 2016) The initial wave of the COVID pandemic and its quarantine lockdowns forced a global uptick in
media use. During a March 2020 survey of social media users in the United States, 43.1 percent of respondents stated that if confined to their homes during the coronavirus, they would use Instagram more during that period. YouTube and Facebook were also popular social platforms that users were estimated to increase their usage during physical distancing at home. (Guttman, 2021) A myriad of media access became necessary for information, contact, and entertainment. With the required use of media pushed into the spotlight, states across the U.S. are only now attempting to develop policies for media literacy education. Between the years 2021 and 2022, 14 states are just now on their way to including a media literacy curriculum in their K-12 schools; only two have highlighted media literacy in their laws as an essential skill. (MediaLiteracyNow.org & McNeil, 2022) It’s been four decades since the introduction of the home computer and during that same amount of time we’ve been functioning as a country without initial exposure to media management, and etiquette, nor have we had logistical conversations about information sourcing.
In their abstract, Bulger and Davidson mention “Media literacy is traditionally conceived as a process or set of skills based on critical thinking. It has a long history of development aligned along the dialectic between protection and participation.” (2018) These skills must be introduced, taught, and practiced as part of curricula beginning at the elementary school level. Toddlers as young as two and three years of age are manning tablets while sitting in their stroller. This, for many, is the method of media introduction to the very young. In addition to an elementary introduction to media literacy education, a component of family/caregiver involvement must be considered so that critical thinking lessons carry-over into student’s homes. In his research study, Confronting The Challenges of Participatory Culture, Jenkins reminds us of the three obstacles which, in addition to lack of exposure to media literacy, are obstacles which we must acknowledge. The Participation Gap (lack of access of adequate wifi and tech devices at home), the Transparency Problem — The challenges young people face in learning to see clearly the ways that media shape perceptions of the world, and the Ethics Challenge — The breakdown of traditional forms of professional training and socialization that might prepare young people for their increasingly public roles as media makers and community participants. In this same study Jenkins and his team highlight research regarding affinity spaces where there are social connections and being able to contribute ideas, however best one can and still feel a “sense of value” (2007). During this evolving introduction of media literacy educators will have to understand how to approach students who are craving the rush of easy and immediate information in addition to that addictive “sense of value” which they derive from immersed social media moments. One resolution may be found in the use of Inoculation Science.
Baratunde Thurston, cultural critic, and podcaster produces “How to Citizen with Baratunde”. This podcast’s 3rd season theme is on Tech and “how to use it to bring us together instead of it tearing us apart.” In an interview, episode 8: Defending Our Collective Psyche, we are introduced to Social Psychologist Sander Van Der Linden. In partnership with game developers, Van Der Linden and his fellow team of researchers have created Inoculation Science. The website, by the same name (inoculation.science), has been designed to help people proactively protect themselves from misinformation by participating in multiple games of intervention in which the participant may experience the perspective of a person who is deliberately enacting three social media online misinformation triggers: rage baiting, flame wars, and trolling. Inoculation Science is an approach that borrows from biomedical science. Inoculation protects people against disinformation by teaching them to spot and refute a misleading claim. Inoculation messages can build up people’s resistance or “mental antibodies” to encountering misinformation in the future, the way vaccines create antibodies that fight against future infection (Goldberg, 2021). This is done via simulation kin to the website Troll Factory where examples of authentic social media content are used to create fake news, create internet memes, and create polarization of public discourse to foster an understanding of the systematic and organized act of “trolling”. Found on this website are brief videos explaining manipulative techniques used in disinformation such as the use of emotional language (which evokes negative emotions such as fear or outrage which increases the viral potential of social media content), incoherence (which occurs when someone uses two or more arguments to make a point that cannot logically all be true at once), false dichotomy (which is a logical fallacy in which a limited number of choices or sides are presented as mutually inclusive when in reality more options are available), scapegoating (when a person or group is singled out or takes unwarranted blame for a particular problem), and ad hominem attack (when someone attacks the person making an argument, instead of addressing the argument itself). The three games that have been developed for this simulation are Breaking Harmony Square, Bad News, and Go Viral. Each of these games is designed to encourage the participant to actively destroy the peace of a small town and develop a viral spread of fake news. This simulated social media feed exposes people to weakened doses of key techniques used to deceive us online and then, over time, people can build up immunity similar to pilot flight simulators and first-person shooter simulators for infantry. The game helps to fight off trolls by getting inside their heads like a fake news vaccine. (Thurston, 2022) People need motivation and incentive to be accurate and to have constructive conversations that fundamentally change their engagement with media. People share content to reinforce the narrative of their affinity group(s). Educators can use the important media literacy skills of Play and Simulation in order to help students synthesize the various modalities used in manipulating media and to critically think about their membership in their affinity group(s). Playing games can help students practice democracy and real-world interventions. It is the responsibility of educators to drive student motivation to be a supportive community member, to be a source of safety and dependability for others both inside and out of the classroom. These simulations align with Jenkins’ concept of participatory culture. Students become critically active in their investigations of media use instead of passively accepting the information scrolling by. After the past two COVID-filled years, we all need a mental break; some bubble gum for the brain. Instead of judging the 147 minutes a student spends each day on social media, educators can help support students to make better decisions on the kinds of information in which to luxuriate and trust. One can’t always influence what people think, but you can certainly help decide what they think about. Van Der Linden and his team hope that each Intervention game activates the “antibody production” which makes it less likely that people are going to share misinformation or disinformation content on social media. This psychological vaccine will eventually need a booster shot because of various media interference. The hope is to eventually boost people to “Technological Herd Immunity”. The more people use the tools of Inoculation Science the more they can expand upon it and share their findings with their friends.
Once a person is aware of the reasoning and manipulation methods of misdirection and illusion in media, that power is reduced. (Thurston, 2022)
The responsibility of education is to encourage, support, and nurture the growth of the students in its care. Ironically, wealthy corporations in charge of most large media outlets are responsible for a student’s lack of access to adequate wifi and tech devices causing the participation gap. The cost of ownership and access to both is inequitable. Educators were taken aback by having to pivot and learn how to teach online within a week of the start of the pandemic. Educational institutions must prepare now for the possibility of the near-future-mandated inclusion of Media Literacy within the NYS Department of Education curriculum. Local administration cannot continue to wait on the decisions of the state on whether or not to include Media Literacy in curricula. This wait time is perpetuating the lag that both the teachers and students will feel in the implementation of this vital subject once it finally becomes “important enough” to the state to do so. Technology is developing at rates at which school systems in the U.S. will not have time to play catch up. It is time for educators to find their affinity groups, regroup with a community cohort and learn the ins and outs of Media Literacy and include this curriculum into their lesson and unit plans from the start.
References
Brooke, D. (2016, November 22). Stanford researchers find students have trouble judging the credibility of information online. Retrieved May 5, 2022, from https://ed.stanford.edu/news/stanford-researchers-find-students-have-trouble-judging-credibility-information-online
Bulger, M., & Davison, P. (2018). The Promises, Challenges, and Futures of Media Literacy. The National Association for Media Literacy Education’s Journal of Media Literacy Education, 10(1), 1–21. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/jmle/vol10/iss1/1/
Goldberg, B. (2021). Inoculation theory, a beginner's guide. Retrieved from https://inoculation.science
Guttman, A. (2021, November 15). Coronavirus impact on media consumption worldwide - statistics & facts. Retrieved May 4, 2022, from www.statista.com
Jenkins, H. (2007). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century (Part One). Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 2(1), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.18261/issn1891-943x-2007-01-03
Media Literacy Now.org, & McNeil, E. (2022, January). U.S. Media Literacy Policy Report 2021. A state-by-state survey of the status of media literacy education laws for K-12 schools. Retrieved from https://medialiteracynow.org/policyreport/Statista Research Department. (2021, March). Daily time spent on social networking by internet users worldwide from 2012 to 2022. Retrieved May 1, 2022, from https://www.statista.com/
Thurston,B. (Host). (2022). Defending Our Collective Psyche (with Sander van der Linden) (No.8) [Audio podcast episode]. In How To Citizen With Baratunde. iHeartRadio Podcasts and Dustlight Productions. www.howtocitizen.com
Westcott, K., Arbanas, J., Arkenberg, C., Auxier, B., Loucks, J., & Downs, K. (2022, March 28). 2022 Digital media trends, 16th edition: Toward the metaverse. Retrieved May 4, 2022, from https://www2.deloitte.com/