Before we look into the main questions this post is focused on, what is media literacy? According to Kaiser Moffat, media literacy is “the ability to identify different types of media and the messages they are sending”. Viewers of certain media should be able to decipher messages that are being conveyed in the media they are exposed to. With media literacy, we can determine for ourselves whether something is reliable or not. One way media literacy is used is in determining whether an online store is reliable or not. Without media literacy, we wouldn’t be able to decipher the content of websites and determine their reliability or lack thereof.

  • Open dialogues about media literacy and factual information can create conflict, why does this happen?

With the overwhelming amount of technology and growing media sources, we are discovering new things, connecting with people in new ways, and enjoying new technologies. However, Julie Smith (2020) explains that with the access to so much information, it can sometimes be impossible to figure out what is valid and reliable. With this firehose of information, people don’t like that it’s on us to fact-check things.

During this time where COVID-19 has changed our way of life, we are bombarded by even more information through all sorts of online media. During this time, we see plenty of information and statements made by millions of internet users, with many statements that could be deemed false. This abundance of information makes it difficult to navigate and determine what is truthful.

Although I typically avoid discussing politics, I felt like this would be relevant to the topic. The US election had many people posting information related to the election, real or not. Even the current president of the United States was spouting false information, claiming he won the election before the winner was announced. Twitter kept fact-checking Trump’s twitter posts. Although this is useful, it’s important to know that in most cases we don’t have someone else to fact-check things for us and give us evidence of why something is true or false. That is typically information you need to find for yourself.

Julie Smith explains that one reason for the conflict between media literacy and factual information is a “familiarity backfire” effect (2020).  She explains that we put our shields up and when that occurs, any information we don’t want to hear won’t get through. In the past we were limited in news sources and we didn’t have as much freedom in choosing what news outlets to hear from, but now we have thousands of news sources and we choose which sources to hear from. As humans, we typically don’t like being wrong. We like to find information that justifies our opinions and our knowledge. Because of that, people look at news sources catered towards our beliefs. We don’t want to be told we’re wrong, so we listen to news outlets that justify our thinking and make us seem smart and like we are the better person.

Another note Julie Smith makes is the visual appearance of people and the influence that has. The Fyre festival is a prime example of this that I remember seeing dozens of videos about, where celebrities and people who are just visually appealing and are deemed “influencers” were featured in video ads for the festival, showing a dream vacation. What ended up occurring was people who paid to go to a Coachella-style festival and rent out villas and other wonderful living spaces were met with poorly made tents and cheese sandwiches. Many people were stranded there as well. (And although it’s not necessary for this blog,  I thought I’d mention that the people who paid to go there got something in return as an apology for the mess: free tickets to the next Fyre festival. That’s hilarious.)

  • What is the benefit of having a PLN that values media literacy?

In our PLNs, especially nowadays, these are made up of online sources, online personalities, and people we connect with solely online. All these online connections could easily spout false information, which doesn’t benefit our learning network even if it benefits our opinions. Having a PLN that values media literacy means you and your learning network put in the work to fact-check any information shared amongst one another. Having media literacy as a top priority in your PLN allows for trustworthy connections in which we are safely able to fact-check the information people share and respectfully call out any mistakes in information shared. As long as we are comfortable enough to not only call people out for sharing false information, but also own up to our mistakes and understand why our information is wrong, our PLN grows to be trustworthy and our own media literacy improves. This benefits all parties in the PLN as we know that our PLN is one that generally shares truthful information, and on the off-chance that it doesn’t, we are comfortable learning from our mistakes and correcting one another.

 

References:

EDCI 338 (2020, Nov 1). A01 Smith, Julie [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_T9RghwJlI&feature=youtu.be