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New York high school teacher Matt Polazzo devoted his first post-election politics class to media coverage of Donald Trump’s victory. After one student complained that the television coverage was “one-sided,” Polazzo scrolled through screenshots of articles from the New York Times, Politico, and the Free Press.
“My goal is to keep my readers informed about the news,” he told the teens. “Change your media diet. Understand the ideology of the outlets and read the opposing ideology. There’s a lot of sewage on Twitter (X), but there’s a clearer vision of the manosphere and the tech fraternity there.”
In recent years, young people in the United States have led the shift from traditional media organizations to social media, raising concerns about growing partisanship and the consumption of fabricated stories.
A recent study conducted by the News Literacy Project found that only 18 percent of American teenagers can accurately distinguish between news, advertising, opinion, and entertainment. Nearly half said they believe news organizations do more to undermine democracy than protect it.
“You can’t overestimate the urgency,” says Michelle Lipkin, president of the nonprofit National Association for Media Literacy Education. “We have a lot of work to do. We have seen advances in AI, misinformation and disinformation, deepfakes, online fraud, and growing concerns about mental health and how it is managed. It is very necessary for people to understand and think about the information they consume and not just blindly follow what they see and hear.”
These concerns have led to new regulations and educational resources aimed at improving media literacy among young people. More than half of all U.S. states have held public hearings or debates, and 18 states have passed legislation on the topic, according to the grassroots group Media Literacy Now. However, teachers seeking to educate students on this subject face multiple obstacles. One is the lack of a consistent definition of media literacy. There are different interpretations of its purpose and navigation between opinions, bias, error, and disinformation.
Renee Hobbs, professor of communication studies at the University of Rhode Island, said: “Different politicians see this as a hammer that can be used for different purposes. After I finished a presentation on media literacy in the Bible Belt of Oklahoma, two middle school teachers thanked me and said, ‘Disney Movies. I intend to use it to critically analyze the demonic images in the book.”
A second concern is that without a legal requirement backed by funding, it may be difficult for schools to squeeze this subject into their already crowded timetables. “I think it’s important to understand that the media literacy law is being passed,” said Michael Martirone, a high school social studies teacher in New Jersey, which recently passed a media literacy law. It is not mandatory and must be incorporated into the course. You can’t dig deep. ”
The third uncertainty is what approach to take. Sam Weinberg, a professor of education at Stanford University, argues for the need for “lateral reading,” checking the credibility of a source before you click to read it. Some people use online games. Philip Higham, a professor of psychology at the University of Southampton, supports “inductive learning”, where students are shown multiple examples of true and fake news and interpret them.
Evidence remains thin about the extent to which any approach changes actual reading habits, beliefs, behaviors, and especially voting in presidential elections. Martirone said: “You can practice something for 55 minutes in the classroom, but when your students are with their friends, will they take the time to think critically?”
Young people may also simply be turning away from news and evidence-based content because they believe facts don’t lead to meaningful political change on topics that matter to them, such as climate change. . Reflecting on his politics class, Polazzo wondered whether the U.S. election would help encourage his students to seek out more legitimate news sources. “Our generation reads newspapers, but this generation only watches TikTok. They don’t really care about politics, so if they start getting involved, this is what happens to them. .”
andrew.jack@ft.com
