Critically Analyzing Digital Media

The social and private lives of adolescents are now influenced and displayed by information found on the internet. There are many forms in which they can stay involved online, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Snapchat, and many more. Mobile phones allow users to have access to online sources at hand and at the click of a button, and laptops provide a similar resource to smartphones, but bigger. Because of the easy access and large amount of information at the touch of a button, it is important to teach students how to recognize reliable sources of information through the questioning of the representation, language, production, and audience of each source.

The reason that students should critically analyze media is because it enables them to think about others in relation to themselves. David Foster says in his speech titled This Is Water, “part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean to be just a little less arrogant, to have just a little critical awareness about myself, and my certainties” (2013). Foster also compares being close-mindedness to being imprisoned. A goal of education, no matter the subject, is to prepare students for life outside of school, or the real world. So teaching students how to analyze media sources is helping them to think about the world around them, and how they can participate, contribute, and understand their society.

The first two things that students can question about media is the representation and language. For representation, questions can include: who is the author, are they correct, can they be trusted, and who are their followers? It is important for students to find out if what they are reading is reliable or untrustworthy. Students have access to digital media outside of school, and the information they see can influence them. For example, in the article Studies Show Lack of Media Literacy in Students Has Negative Impact, Laura Spilsbury shares that teaching how to evaluate modern news sources is teaching students how to make informed decisions (Spilsbury, 2018). The language of a source is also important to pay attention to. How is language used to portray the same thing, but differently? What are they trying to get the audience to think? Spilsbury mentioned how students will soon be registered voters. During elections there are the actual advertisements and then there are the others that are made-up or “fake news.” She also includes her “7 Tips To Be More Media Literate” (Spilsbury, 2018). Students need to know about what these ads are telling them, and how they can distinguish real from fake. Both representation and language of media sources paired with production and audience guide students to make informed decisions and thoughts.

Another important part of understanding news and modern digital media is the production. This is the understanding of who is communicating to whom, and why. This is done best by commercials. Their purpose is for people to buy, watch, use, etc their product or ideas and beliefs. Julie Warner writes in her book, Adolescents’ New Literacies with and through Mobile Phones, “Since the cellphone is a ubiquitous companion among this demographic, it is easy to see why marketers are flocking to mobile-phone-compatible advertising” (2017). Students are coming into contact with so many different ideas and beliefs that can have a lasting influence on them and their decisions. This leads to the final part, audience. To understand production, students need to be aware of who they are as a reader or user. In the following video link: by Dr. Catherine Burwell, she says that the term “fake news” is “too fun,” and propaganda is closer to being true (2017). With a lot of information coming at students very quickly, if they know who they are, they will be able to come to more thoughtful ideas and conclusions.

http://galileo.org/blog/critical-media-literacy/

By teaching students how to critically analyze media sources, they are learning how to make informed decisions. High school students will soon be out in the real world, and because digital media is so much a part of daily life now, they need to know how to find reliable sources of information. They should look at the representation, language, production, and audience to get a since of the source, and if it is trustworthy, then they can use it to make their informed decisions.

References

Required Readings

Foster, David. (2013, May 19). This Is Water — Full version-David Foster Wallace Commencement [Youtube]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI

Warner, Julie. (2017). Adolescents’ New Literacies with and through Mobile Phones. New York: Peter Lang.

Outside Readings

Burwell, Dr. Catherine. (2017, February 22). Critical Media Literacy: Integral to Students’ Learning. Retrieved from http://galileo.org/blog/critical-media-literacy/

Spilsbury, Laura. 2018. Studies Show Lack of Media Literacy in Students has Negative Impact. The Daily Universe. Retrieved from https://universe.byu.edu/2018/02/09/studies-show-lack-media-literacy-students-negative-impact/