Critical Digital Literacy: What’s Real and Not Real?

Critical digital literacy is an important concept to understand equally among adults and adolescents when it comes to using digital media. We, as a nation, are dependent on technology which means we’re always reading things online. David Buckingham states that media literacy is “the ability to access, understand and create communications in a variety of contexts” (Buckingham, p. 2, 2007). Media can play a huge part into how adolescents act with other peers socially and culturally. Technology in the 21st century has sparked a great many things to appear on the internet that includes news articles, blogs, videos on phones and other cameras, that easily go viral among specific adolescent age groups. Sometimes, however, it’s incredibly difficult to discern between what is actually true online and what is false. Many people all over the world post things on the world wide web to intentionally trick adolescents to believe in something that’s either been altered or completely made up. Critical digital literacy is incredibly important for adolescents to understand and comprehend in order to decipher between what’s real on the internet and what’s not and to develop good social skills to help benefit adolescents’ culture.

It’s very unlikely that adolescents aren’t infatuated with social media and watching various comedic videos and looking at pictures posted by celebrities and friends. Adolescents seem to really build a culture based on media produced in the 21st century which can potentially be problematic. If what students are watching isn’t necessarily real or information they receive can be easily fabricated by adults, socially, the culture that they form could be built on lies. In an article written last year that highlights the dangers of fake news among students, the author writes, “Some 20% of children believe everything they read online is true, and 35% of UK teachers say pupils have cited fake news or false information found online as fact in their work” (Douglas, p. 1, 2017). Based on this article, what students learn on the internet outside the classroom can severely damage their literacy skills. The presentation of so much false information can lead adolescents to question if everything that pops up on their tablets is a lie.

In another recent study, Stell Simonton writes that “a report from the Stanford University School of Education showed middle school students have a difficult time distinguishing ads from news articles” (Simonton, p. 2, 2017). What’s so disheartening is that there are multiple reports and endless articles written on how deceived the youth in today’s society is and how easily bought into what’s out there on the internet. Educators need to emphasize critical digital literacy skills more than ever because it’s vital to obtain in order for adolescents to understand what’s fake news. This goes not just for schoolwork, but from life outside of school as well. The media can influence adults just as easily, and if everyone is in danger of falling into the tricks of those who put up fake news, then students are far more at risk of walking into the trap.

Critical digital literacy helps adolescents actually analyze what they’re reading. It allows them to fact check, look up the author of certain articles, being able to discern what the difference between photoshop and reality is. Adolescents will become more successful in the classroom as well as when they’re out in the real world because after gaining those skills, falling into the trap of fake news becomes much more difficult. This also helps adolescents socially as Julie Warners writes, “Using a framework that regards literacies as social practices can help to foreground the ways that power organizes the physical and social spaces that youth inhabit” (Warner, p.145, 2017). The media can easily manipulate whole societies and it becomes difficult to trust anything after being lied to so often. Developing critical digital literacy skills allows individuals to analyze more efficiently and also helps them help others to know what is true and what is false.

Resources

Required Readings:

Buckingham, D. (2009). Digital Media Literacies: Rethinking media education in the age of the Internet[PDF].

Warner, J. (2017). Adolescents’ New Literacies with and through Mobile Phones[PDF]. Peter Lang.

Outside Sources:

Douglas, J., & Director of the National Literacy Trust. (2017, October 17). Fake news: Improved critical literacy skills are key to telling fact from fiction. https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2017/oct/17/fake-news-improved-critical-literacy-skills-teaching-young-people

Simonton, S. (2017, January 10). Media Literacy: Help Youth Think Critically in Age of ‘Fake News’. https://youthtoday.org/2017/01/media-literacy-help-youth-think-critically-in-age-of-fake-news/

Video:

Creating critical thinkers through media literacy: Andrea Quijada at TEDxABQED. (2013, February 19). https://youtu.be/aHAApvHZ6XE