Media Literacy in the Classroom

Media is around everywhere you look. Whether you are on a tablet, phone, watching tv or social media you will see media everywhere you look. But what is real? What is "fake news"? And what does it all mean?

Media literacy is defined as the "ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in a variety of forms," by the Center for Media Literacy. From young to older ages, media is a huge part to most of societies' daily lives. But with how fast news and the evolution of social media, how can we not only keep up but make sure we understand it all? We are on a new frontier of media intake that is moving faster than we can process. Many colleges are becoming wise of this and starting media literacy classes. Many college students are learning more and more how to not only read media and interpret it but also make educated decisions on said media. But many believe it should start before college and become a staple in our education system. And it looks like this is beginning to come true.

In Colorado, a bill known as the Cutters's bill would be the first step in getting the teaching of media literacy to younger students. If this bill passes, it would form a committee of teachers and media members to implement a mandatory media literacy education from kindergarten through 12th grade.

"If we want people to make educated decisions we have to first educate them on how to make educated decisions," says Lisa Cutter, sponsor of the bill. "Kids are exposed to news every minute of the day. They constantly have things blowing up on their phones and coming across on text."

According to a 2018 Pew Research Poll, around 95 percent of kids have access to a smartphone. Kids may get some friendlier content but for the stuff that comes up that may not be or is news, how are they to tell whether the news they read is true or not? They have a higher chance of believing a first read no matter what it is because of their age. Many of these children have their own phones and social media and can follow many different types of accounts but not fully understand what they are reading or able to easily discern whether it's real information or something else. Social media and technology are all fantastic advancements for us as a society, and if we can start kids learning how to know what is what, why it is that way, and how they should use this information, then they can become much more advanced than our current generation and really help to push our society to even further bounds.

"We need to teach students to think like journalists," says Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alan Miller. "everybody is their own editor and everybody can be their own publisher."

This is in a very early stage but if we can get started implementing media literacy in our younger generation, we can help to make them prepared for the future. How they can do all this is still a question. One option is to have a class taught over it. Some people believe that it'd be better to incorporate it more in every class. For example, a class talking about advertising could talk about why advertising for certain situations is used and help figure out who the audience is. Why is this group the audience? And does this company have my best interests and well-being in mind within this media. But hopefully, with the help of the media industry and journalists we can work in tandem and make a non-biased and great learning experience to help mold generations in the unknown future that is social media and media literacy.

Here are a few websites that can give you more information behind my blog:

https://www.boulderweekly.com/news/what-would-media-literacy-mean-for-colorados-students/https://www.medialit.org/media-literacy-definition-and-more

https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/teaching-and-learning-in-a-media-literacy-class

---