Episode 7: Taking Media Literacy Beyond the Classroom

Send us Fan MailApril discusses media literacy in a wide-ranging conversation with Shanna Gilkeson, a doctoral candidate in media and communication at Bowling Green State University. They talk about what does and doesn't work when applying traditional media literacy skills to today's media landscape. Shanna gives some great tips about how she approaches fact-checking, talks about how she determines a source to be credible/reliable, and shares her favorite credible sources and fact-checking sites.  Episode 7 Show Notes: A good article discussing the basics of media literacy: https://mediastudies.pressbooks.com/chapter/the-importance-of-media-literacy/ Here's the CRAAP test pdf: https://library.csuchico.edu/sites/default/files/craap-test.pdf Danah Boyd's SxSW keynote speech "What Hath We Wrought" describes the epistemic crisis the US finds itself in, explains a little bit about how people get radicalized, and how the traditional way of teaching media literacy has failed us, that teaching people how to verify a source's credibility doesn't work when they're radicalized to mistrust any source they don't agree with: https://youtu.be/0I7FVyQCjNg Ad Fontes Media - a valuable resource in terms of determining how reliable or biased a source is. https://www.adfontesmedia.com/  In particular, their interactive media bias chart is helpful in terms of determining where a source lands on the trustworthiness spectrum: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart-2/  Also, they're super-transparent about their methodology, which they describe in great detail here: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/how-ad-fontes-ranks-news-sources/ On the need for fact-checking instead of source checking: https://medium.com/@holden/how-media-literacy-gets-web-misinformation-wrong-45aa6323829d On the value of acquiring knowledge before trying to apply criticism: https://hapgood.us/2016/12/19/yes-digital-literacy-but-which-one/ How media literacy gets misinformation wrong: https://medium.com/@holden/how-media-literacy-gets-web-misinformation-wrong-45aa6323829d Yep, this happened: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/10/16/trump-tweets-out-fake-story-criticizing-biden-from-satirical-news-site/#3cf6e9c55c38 This NPR interview is from 2012, but it still stands: https://www.npr.org/2012/01/10/144974110/political-fact-checking-under-fire