Teaching Critical Literacy Skills: the Responsibility of News Publishers
Conspiracy theories and fake news are nothing new to us, they have been circulating since humans were able to think and speak - and especially publish. The digitisation in combination with the COVID-19 pandemic has given a real boost to the emergence of conspiracy theories. You must constantly challenge any information you receive to tell if something is true or fake, thus it’s not surprising that even for adults it’s hard to maintain mental health through this sometimes, but imagine what it must be like for children. Therefore, teaching critical literacy skills is important when it comes to parenting and education, but there are more to take into responsibility: News Publishers. The question is: what can be done?
The necessity for action shows this report from National Literacy Trust from 2018. It investigates the critical literacy skills from children and young people in the UK, showing that only 2% of this group have adequate critical literacy skills. The majority of teachers believe this affects the children’s wellbeing directly “by increasing levels of anxiety, damaging their self-esteem and skewing their world view”.
As scientists, parents and teachers have seen the necessity to educate children in critical literacy skills, the following approaches might provide a guidance for News Publishers on how children can find information that actually represents the world they live in.
Approaches
Workshops
One approach may be publishers or media workers coming into schools, helping teachers trough workshops to show the importance of critical literacy skills. This approach is supported by Nicky Cox, Editor-in-Chief from First News. She says that
Publishing Children’s News
Another approach may be publishing news from children, such as the BBC Young Reporter Project. It helps children to get a feeling for news and their impact, and also improves their wellbeing by writing what bothers them.
Control in Platforms
Even though it does not directly affect news publishers, it’s nevertheless often the main source people get their news from: Social Platforms. Many children (as well as adults) use Facebook and other social platforms as a form of getting and sharing information and news and this trend increases with COVID-19. The Reuters Institute declares in its Digital News Report 2020 that Social Media is a real threat to trust in news publishing. Restrictions on these pages would help to give children the necessary attitude towards and use of social media platforms in relation to news. And to be honest — some adults too.
“[…] We did need some new regulation [of social media platforms, like the traditional media platforms have,] but just imposing the old regulation of publishing media is the wrong answer”, Lord Knight stated.
Independent agencies like Full Fact help social platforms and companies to spot fake news, in order to reduce them in quantity and preserve a certain quality in posted content. By this, people could gain more trust in information provided by News Publishers on Social Media.
Conclusion
Focusing on the new generations when it comes to gaining their trust is essential for News Publishers, and they should start today.
In my opinion adults profit from these measures too. It is important to realize these skills are not just critical literacy skills and something that needs to be enhanced in the education and upbringing of children— these are life skills.
National Literacy Trust, fake news and critical literacy Report 2018: https://cdn.literacytrust.org.uk/media/documents/Fake_news_and_critical_literacy_-_final_report.pdf
National Literacy Trust, Commission on Fake News and the Teaching of Critical Literacy Skills in Schools: https://literacytrust.org.uk/policy-and-campaigns/all-party-parliamentary-group-literacy/fakenews/
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Digital News Report: https://www.digitalnewsreport.org/
The Digital Life Skill Company: https://www.digitallifeskills.org.uk/
The Guardian, “Why critical literacy skills are vital to year 6 pupils”: https://www.theguardian.com/newswise/2020/jul/08/why-critical-literacy-skills-are-vital-to-year-6-pupils
BBC Young Reporter Project: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/young-reporter
Full Fact: https://fullfact.org/
