The news media is as influential as ever, though its form is not newspapers anymore, but rather digital and web outlets. However, there are challenges when attempting to accurately decipher stories in the media. The chapter covers several of these. In your notes, discuss the ways that each of the following surfaces in news media and what this means for critical thinkers.
Sensationalism
Depth
Stereotypes/Racism
Bias
The word “literacy” in most contexts causes us to think about whether or not a person is able to read, i.e. if a person can see the symbols on the page, interpret them, give them context, and understand the meaning. The idea of media literacy is not far from this.
In your notes, write down the definition of “media literacy” from chapter 11. Then write the ways in which media literacy parallels the idea of literacy in reading.
With this understanding of literacy in mind, the book provided some questions to ask when analyzing media messages. Write those 10 questions in your notes. Several of the questions, though, should be re-worded to be more helpful! In the text, they are written as yes/no answers, but please word them as follows in your notes:
#6 – How do I know that my reaction to this message is reasonable and well-informed?
#8 – What potential biases appear in the message?
#9 – What good reasoning and facts are presented to back the message?
Take a few minutes to practice how these questions work when reading or listening to a piece of news. Listen to a news report or read a news article and jot down the answers to the questions in your notes.
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Find two news articles from different sources that report on the same subject and write a comparison/contrast using the media literacy questions found in Chapter 11 (page 375) of the textbook.
