I'm sure this will vary for many people depending on their schools, where/when they were taught, and the like, so I'm interested to see what others' experiences have been with this.

I'm also curious about what resources some have used to learn better research skills & media literacy (and found useful) if their school didn't adequately teach either (or they may have whiffed on it at the time).

  • keepcarrot [she/her]
    ·
    9 months ago

    It's been a while for me. I remember school covered a bunch of basics. What is this text trying to say outside of its explicit wording? I don't remember it going into sources or framing much, but I also did pretty badly at it in school. A lot of students are checked out most of the time. I don't really remember anything to do with the preponderance of media (e.g. If NYT, CNN, MSNBC, and FOX all agree on something, how will this be perceived by the public, how small will your voice be if you say "But the UN sent investigators and found no evidence of chemical attacks" etc). We certainly didn't explore, say, Chomsky's reading of how the media industry is structured, even though I think most students at my school would be capable of absorbing the information.

    The thing is, I think people often have the skills for media literacy if it's a message they disagree with. They can question sources and motivations, peel apart euphemisms etc. But most of the time they are insufficiently motivated, especially with messaging they agree with. Or they want to agree with.