How Does Media Literacy Education Advance the Practice of Civic Education and Democracy?
Research Question: How does media literacy education advance the practice of civic education, leading people to actively participate in democracy?
T Chart
Video
Annotated Bibliography
Ashley, S., Maksl, A., & Craft, S. (2017). News media literacy and political engagement. Journal of Media Literacy Education. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1151035.pdf
This source was important for supporting my research question because it highlighted the importance of media literacy when it comes to understanding the news. This is how a lot of people stay up to date with current events leading to political efficiency.
Board, D. W. O. (2020, December 8). Editorial: Media literacy and its essentiality to a functioning democracy. The Daily Wildcat. https://wildcat.arizona.edu/100685/opinions/editorial-media-literacy-and-its-essentiality-to-a-functioning-democracy/
This source was valuable for my research project because it spoke about an event involving Trump tweeting over 300 false claims about the presidential election results. This stresses the importance of media literacy and being able to spot false information.
Knowles, R. T., Camicia, S., & Nelson, L. (2023, May 5). Education for Democracy in the Social Media Century. Research in Social Sciences and Technology.
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1389071.pdf
This source provided valuable information to my research project, highlighting how critical media literacy can uncover hidden power structures and support education of democracy. It is also an argumentative essay, so there is more than one perspective of the argument provided.
Martens, H., & Hobbs, R. (2023, July 20). How Media Literacy Supports Civic Engagement in a Digital Age. DigitalCommons@URI. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1048&context=com_facpubs
This article was useful to my research process because it address how people believe social media use natural results in people being more involved in civic engagement and how media education is required for this to be true.
McCarthy, C. (2022, December 20). Making the connection between Media Literacy and Democracy. News Literacy Project. https://newslit.org/updates/making-the-connection-between-media-literacy-and-democracy/
This source stuck out to me because of the quote “‘We were teaching civics and figured it made no sense to teach students how to be citizens without teaching them how to navigate the media,’ recalled Robb, who teaches social studies at Andover High School in Andover, Massachusetts.” I think that this quote truly stresses the importance of teaching students to understand the information that they are consuming and knowing they will be able to truly digest it.
Mihailidis, P., & Thevenin, B. (2013). Media Literacy as a Core Competency for Engaged Citizenship in Participatory Democracy. College Writing . https://collegewriting.commons.gc.cuny.edu/files/2021/11/Mihailidis-P.-Media-Literacy-Engage-Citizenship.pdf
This source discusses being an active citizen goes hand and hand with being media literate. Participation in society has changed from its original ways and is more towards the media.
Stoddard, J. (2014). The need for media education in Democractic Education. W&M ScholarWorks. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=articles
This source addresses that the world has changed and it is almost impossible to think of present day civic participation and political action without thinking about modern day media.
Team, A. (2023, December 1). How people decide what to trust on social media and online. American Press Institute. https://americanpressinstitute.org/news-trust-digital-social-media/
This article is important to my research because it talks about how people today get their news and how much time they spend actually looking through the news. People are very busy so they do not have as much time to sit, read, and fact check. This is also important because it discusses what people look for in order to trust the news that they are receiving.
Team, G. P. P. (2023, November 15). Media Literacy Basics: Bridging the information gap. Good Party. https://goodparty.org/blog/article/media-literacy-bridging-information-gap
I found this article to be useful in my research because it discussed the information gaps in politics and how harmful this gap can be when it comes to politics and civil matters. It highlights how becoming media literate can help minimize this gap, making new media a helpful tool when it comes to receiving information.
Tessa Jolls and Michele Johnsen, Media Literacy: A Foundational Skill for Democracy in the 21st Century, 69 Hastings L.J. 1379 (2018). https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_law_journal/vol69/iss5/4
This source was important to my research because it focuses on the fact that in today’s world media literacy is an important skill to have and be able to use. It has become a foundation for effective information gathering and understanding what is going on in the world around us.
Reflective Essay
I completed this project by going through multiple steps, starting with what I find the most interesting when it comes to media and democracy. The question that stood out to me the most was, how does media literacy education advance the practice of civic education, leading them to actively participate in democracy? I did some light research to decide if this is really the topic that intrigued me the most and see what information was available. There was no shortage of sources, articles, and journals to choose from when it came to this topic. This was how I chose my topic for the LEAP 3 project. After choosing my topic, I did a lot of research and weeding through sources for both sides of the argument. I found ten great sources that I used for my annotated bibliography. After doing this, it was easy to gather information and create my T chart. After completing this much research, I had a lot to talk about and discuss in my video. For the video, I chose to put together a slideshow and talk about the information that I had gathered using a screen recording. I learned a lot about myself from completing this project, like I have a harder time gathering information than I do actually talking about the information. It is easy for me to be able to talk about a subject that I feel I have a lot of knowledge on, but starting from square one and having to gather the information is a little harder for me. I also feel like I learned that I work better when I have someone to talk to about the project and work through it with. Sometimes it is hard to get the ball rolling and having someone to go through that process with is a little easier. That being said, I did this project by myself and I am happy with the work that I have submitted. I feel like I am definitely more media literate now than I was starting this course and I believe my research shows that. I have a few minor questions after the research of this project. One of them being, how do we guarantee that the information that kids, teens, and young adults are exposed to are as accurate as possible? The second question is how can we encourage people to take a second and think about what they are consuming and want to learn more about the topic from professionals? I believe it is also important to think of ways to get people to be active in their democracy and the first step in doing this is to give people the resources so they can become media literate.
