Because I Said So: Applying Critical Literacy to Digital Media
Picture this- you are twelve years old again. It is a crisp, autumn afternoon and you have just pulled into your driveway after an exhausting day of sixth grade. The first thing you want to do is run into the house, launch your bookbag across your room and rush right back outside to play with the neighborhood kids. Before you make it to the door, however, your mother pops up, seemingly out of nowhere. She immediately hits you with the typical mom catchphrase, “Nuh uh… just where do you think you’re going? You have homework to do.” Naturally, this statement directly challenges your afternoon plans. In response, you reply with the million-dollar question, “But mom, WHY?” However, before she even opens her mouth, you know exactly what she is going to say. The phrase we are all too familiar with, “…because I said so.”
This scenario highlights three concepts that coincide with elements of critical literacy. First, it includes the essential question — “Why?” As a child, we are often taught not to question others, especially those who are older and more experienced. Coincidentally, this inquiry is pivotal for accepting information, analyzing authorships, and becoming critically literate. The second concept is found in the mother’s infamous answer. To you, her request likely seems like an undeserved punishment. However, because she has been exposed to critical thinking skills, your mom is able to determine that doing well in school far outweighs forfeiting thirty minutes of outside free-time. Therefore, mother really does know best. Lastly, this scenario demonstrates that the outside world can be a distracting, misleading place. As the sassy preteen you are, your eyes are not yet set on seeing the big picture. Instead, you are still blind to the value of academics and easily tempted by your surrounding environment. Through the adoption of critical literacy elements, the world’s diversions are placed under scrutiny. As a result, outside influences are challenged to reach conclusions concerning what is meaningful and what is not.
Now let’s fast-forward to present-day. Twelve-year-olds are currently influenced by a totally different set of societal practices. When playing with neighborhood friends, most have traded in bikes and trampolines for iPhones and Xboxes. Just as their methods of entertainment have adapted with changing technologies, so too must our critical literacy techniques. Every day, people of all ages are engulfed by news reports, ads, social medias, and other digital platforms. Therefore, in order to accurately interpret information, avoid blind certainties, and challenge confirmation biases, it is essential for adolescents to develop a cautious approach to digital media by critically analyzing content.
While this may come as a shock to some, we certainly can’t trust everything we read on the Internet. This is where critically evaluating digital media comes into play. As described by Buckingham, critical literacy is “the ability to understand and make informed judgements about the place of technology within society and culture” (2007, p. 47). This process is mainly concerned with determining the reliability of the texts and medias you encounter. The first step is not being afraid to question EVERYTHING.
In fact, we should be teaching youth to “interrogate texts, which contain and represent cultural information, to uncover issues of social injustices and to critique the status quo” (Warner, 2017, p. 146). However, showing young adults how to weed through digital gardens in search of fruitful content is far easier said than done. This is largely due to thorny patches of blind certainties and confirmation biases.
As David Wallace featured in his commencement speech, blind certainties result from a narrow-mindedness that ultimately sets the brain on default mode (Wallace, 2005). This unawareness can also lead to the establishment of confirmation biases, which alter “how we seek, interpret, and remember information,” as described in the video below (Bennett, 2014, 1:42).
Rather than simply dismissing contradictory evidence, all aspects of media should be evaluated for accuracy. Critical literacy helps to combat these bad habits and highlights the do’s and don’ts of digital media. While it teaches youth “when to click on videos or hyperlinks, how to stray from the initial text, and whether and how to pass the information along to others,” it also gives them a voice to ask, “Why?” (Hetilin, 2016). This time however, they are equipped to find more meaningful answers for themselves and not just “because I said so.”
Course Resources:
Buckingham, D. (2007). Digital Media Literacies: rethinking media education in the age of the Internet. Research in Comparative and International Education, 2 (1), 43–55.
Wallace, D. F. (2005). This is Water. Speech presented at Commencement Speech in Kenyon College. Retrieved October 20, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI
Warner, J. (2017). Critical Digital Literacies. Adolescent’s New Literacies with and through Mobile Phones (pp. 143–159). New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing.
Outside Resources:
Bennett, B. (Director). (2014, March 29). Confirmation Bias [Video file]. Retrieved October 20, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_YkdMwEO5U
Heitin, L. (2016, November 8). What Is Digital Literacy? Retrieved October 20, 2018, from https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/11/09/what-is-digital-literacy.html
Kaitlin Olson Mickey Gif by The Mick [Digital image]. (2017, February 15). Retrieved October 20, 2018, from https://giphy.com/gifs/themick-mickey-alba-3o6Yg3X7yS0anKUDf2
Questions a Critical Thinker Asks [Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved October 20, 2018, from https://learningcommons.ubc.ca/student-toolkits/thinking-critically/#
