We’re all in this together: Approaching media literacy from a holistic point of view

Abstract

Recognizing the need to approach media literacy education from a lifelong and holistic point of view, an academic librarian and a K12 teacher reflect on their teaching journeys both individually and in partnership, sharing their pedagogical approaches to teaching media literacy skills in both K12 and higher education environments. The authors discuss how they’ve worked together to teach students how to analyze media and news sources using critical thinking skills, to engage in conversations with their communities about how we consume information, and the importance of having an open mind when participating in these discussions. Finally, the authors reflect on their mutual conversations and brainstorms about how to best teach media literacy in the classroom, while providing strategies and suggestions for successful teacher and librarian partnerships.

Keywords

Media Literacy, Critical Thinking, Teacher Librarian Collaboration, Pedagogy, Civil Discourse

Introduction

We, the authors, are two educators: one K12 teacher (Megan) and one academic librarian (Melissa). Throughout our individual careers, it has become evident to us both that there is a very strong need to explicitly teach students at all levels the importance of holistically incorporating media literacy into their lives: to learn how to analyze media and news sources using critical thinking skills, to engage in conversations with their communities about how we consume information, and the importance of having an open mind when participating in these discussions. This awareness has resulted in many conversations and brainstorms amongst the two of us about how to best teach media literacy and all that it entails in our classrooms and libraries. 

In the course of our teaching practice and throughout our research into common pedagogical strategies, we have confirmed the fact that how we communicate these ideas with students is key. However, at the core, we recognize the fact that the population in general can benefit from this perspective shift, and that our students have a unique opportunity to pass on the importance of media literacy to their community (e.g. their friends, family, and/or neighbors). It is our hope that our students, whether they are in elementary school or at university, will think critically about the media they are consuming and will in turn relate this criticality to their family members, who will then become contributing forces in the general public. In this way, our students are empowered to be the catalysts to change that we need to see in our world.

In this article, we delve further into this approach, reflecting on our own journeys both individually and in partnership as educators and (a) librarian. Throughout our careers, we have brainstormed and experimented with many pedagogical approaches to teaching media literacy skills in both K12 and higher education environments, working together to identify ways of bridging the gaps between the students (and their families) that we work with. We are excited to share our journey with teaching students the importance of media literacy and hope to inspire a call to action for our fellow educators and librarians to join us in this important endeavor. 

How it started. . .

Encouraging and fostering critical thinking has always been at the forefront for us as educators, but media literacy was always hovering slightly on the periphery. We’ve always known the importance of asking students to question and justify the information they’re taking in, but it wasn’t until the term “fake news” became part of society’s vernacular that we realized the importance of explicitly teaching students to apply critical thinking skills directly to the media and news that they were consuming.

As we continued to teach these skills to our students, we thought: why stop there? Why not share our passion with other educators? Together, we designed an online course to challenge and guide fellow K12 and higher ed educators and librarians to examine their pedagogy. We asked participants to identify lessons that could be modified in order to expose their students to critical media literacy, and they immediately met the challenge with open and enthusiastic minds. While working with these amazing teachers and librarians from across the world, it really reaffirmed to us the necessity of explicitly teaching these skills to students of all ages and, in doing so, hopefully reaching our communities more broadly.

How it’s going. . .

Fast forward several years and we are still as passionate about this topic as ever! Students are consuming news and media in all aspects of their lives, both in and out of the classroom, and the necessity of teaching students how to critically examine that information is at the forefront of our minds. While we are always reflecting together on how best to approach this in our work with students, we have honed in on several pedagogical approaches that we feel provide a foundation for students to develop necessary critical thinking skills. We’ve found it helpful to first start with teaching our students how to evaluate the sources through which they are gaining information. Once they have learned how to look critically at those sources, we teach them how to converse with others about that information. Whether they agree or disagree with their peers on the content of the media they’re consuming, it’s incredibly important that students learn how to engage in conversations in a respectful, kind, and productive way. Ideally, this approach will assist students as they continue these conversations outside of an academic setting. Finally, we have cemented the importance of fostering a collaborative relationship between our classrooms and libraries. A close collaboration between educators and librarians is beneficial in all aspects of education, but especially so when approaching media literacy from a holistic point of view.

In this next section, we explore the pedagogical approaches we have found to be especially successful, and will share ways that we have addressed these approaches in our respective academic settings and through collaborative teaching opportunities.

Teaching Source Evaluation

Although the importance of teaching students to think critically about media and how they consume it is indisputable, it might be difficult to figure out where to start. Throughout this section, we will share practical strategies you can use to begin the conversations with your students.

Megan: In the last several years, more and more emphasis has been put on “fake news.” As a result, the importance of teaching students how to navigate information online is more important than ever. As Pilgrim and Vasinda (2021) found, most elementary students conduct research on specific, pre-approved websites given to them by their teacher. I believe it is important to teach students how to find and evaluate websites on their own. This is a skill that is necessary both inside the classroom and out.  

With this strategy, I first share an infographic (Kirschenbaum, 2017a) that outlines several aspects to look for when evaluating a website or news article for accuracy, quality, and legitimacy. This infographic helps students identify a variety of aspects of a website to assess. For example, students might do a separate search on the author’s last name or attempt to find other websites that discuss the same topic so they can compare the information. They may also want to look for quotes or statistics listed in the original source and attempt to verify those facts on another site. After discussing these elements with the students, I then share a website that was, unbeknownst to the students, created for the purpose of helping students identify factually inaccurate media. Kirschenbaum (2017b) has curated a list of several websites such as this, and my fifth graders especially enjoy the one dedicated to the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (Zapato, 1998).

Finally, I introduce the Media Analyzer (Appendix A) to encourage students to think critically about the media they are consuming. The students fill out this graphic organizer with information garnered from the source material. Students include the title and publication date of the source; this helps the learners realize the concerns with using outdated materials, especially when working with current events. Students must also give a summary of the source and work to verify the content through another source. Students then answer a variety of questions to check for credibility, such as the following:

• Are there any errors?
• Is there an author listed?
• Does the headline match the content?
• Are there references, links, and citations included?
• Do the photos have a citation/caption?

After using the Media Analyzer, students should then be able to decide if the news or media source should be used. The goal is that, eventually, students will think through these aspects on their own without the help of the Media Analyzer (Mallon, 2023).             

Melissa: For years, librarians have been using a form of the “CRAP” test to introduce source evaluation. CRAP (or, currency, relevance, accuracy, purpose) is a handy checklist method for teaching students how to identify good information versus mediocre, or even downright harmful content. This approach works well with students in a K12 academic setting, mostly because they need to have a more structured environment in which to find information. But, as Megan notes, students need to learn how to evaluate sources without the help of checklists; the CRAP test, in particular, avoids the nuances of many information sources and, simply put, it’s not often that cut and dry. Mike Caulfield (2019) introduced a new way of thinking about source evaluation, called the “SIFT” model (formerly known as the “Four Moves”), which takes source evaluation a step further, asking the searcher to stop; investigate the source; find better coverage; and trace claims, quotes, and media to their original context. The key here, as Megan points out, is to encourage students to think critically about the information they are faced with. Caulfield (2019) calls this recontextualizing; in other words, these moves “are about reconstructing the necessary context to read, view, or listen to digital content effectively.” Introducing students (and educators) to the SIFT model often causes a shift in thinking – it’s less about checking off criteria that a source may or may not meet, but rather about thinking deeply and critically about where that source is coming from, what biases exist, and how that information will meet students’ information needs.

Similarly, helping students connect source evaluation with specific disciplines can provide added context for developing media literacy skills. Chen and Rattray (2017) note that media literacy “necessitates the capacity for making appropriate judgments to deconstruct messages and act in the real world,” which is key in developing the critical thinking skills necessary to analyze news and media (pg. 280). Librarians can work with educators to provide opportunities for students to develop these critical media literacy skills by considering how different disciplines are represented in news and media. Kellner and Share (2007) suggest several questions to consider:

• Who is conveying this message?
• What incentive might they have to convey information from this perspective?
• What language and media (e.g., text, audio, video, graphics) are they using to describe this message?
• What audience is this message crafted for?
• How is the media and language displayed tapping into commonly held stereotypes or representations (e.g., the polar bear on the melting ice cap to represent global warming)?
• How are these points valid or in opposition to current research?
• What communication strategies and representations might the field take to refute misinformation?

Reflective activities surrounding these questions can easily occur within the space of a library instruction class, or, to further facilitate critical thinking and analysis, can be embedded into a research project or paper.

Facilitating Dialogue & Civil Discourse

At this point, you have worked to lay a foundation for your students so they are able to independently analyze a media or news source for legitimacy, accuracy, and a lack of bias. The ideal next step is to engage your students in conversation. By facilitating discussions between students, they gain the skills necessary to engage in civil discourse with their peers inside of an academic setting.

We have found that as access to news and information sources has become ubiquitous across a variety of platforms and venues, encouraging students to think critically regarding what they see, share, and promote is crucial. This task is shared by educators across all grade levels and disciplines, and requires us to engage students in educational conversations and initiatives that both teach critical media literacy skills and promote civil discourse (Martens & Hobbs, 2015). As the urgency surrounding media literacy grows, and as conversations on these matters become increasingly polarized and contentious, it is crucial to provide our students with the awareness and skills they need to address these issues firsthand, regardless of their educational or professional pursuits. Indeed, this is not a scholarly issue nor one situated solely in the classroom; it is up to all of us as researchers, educators, information professionals, and global citizens to address issues of misinformation and disinformation in a civil and productive manner.

Megan: One of the challenges in working with K12 students is that many of them bring the thoughts, opinions, and emotions of their families into the classroom. Especially at a young age, when they have not yet learned how to source information for themselves, students may adopt the beliefs of their family members and present them as their own. According to Liabenow (2022), while civil discourse is a necessity when students have conflicting ideas on certain subjects, it does not always come naturally to students. Providing students with sentence stems can be very helpful as they navigate civil discourse early on. These sentence stems can help transition students from having an argument to having a conversation that encourages difference of opinions (Liabenow, 2022). Students may very well be familiar with sentence stems in other subjects such as science (e.g. “I can predict that. . .” or “I wonder what would happen if. . .”), math (e.g. “I believe the first step is. . .” or “To explain my thinking. . .”) or even within social and emotional learning (e.g. “I’m feeling anxious because. . .” or “When I feel frustrated, I. . .”). Critical thinking stems are especially ideal to facilitate civil discourse among students when discussing media literacy topics.

As Melissa discusses below, the classroom serves as a safe space for students to become comfortable with the skills needed to engage in civil discourse with their peers. While some students may continue to rely on sentence stems, the hope is that, eventually, they will be able to engage in these conversations independently and then carry these discussion habits beyond the classroom.

Melissa: Megan has the excellent observation that an important part of civil discourse is getting students beyond “my way or the highway” behavior and toward a mindset where differing opinions are necessary for productive conversation. This “all sides” approach is particularly important when conducting research, as students need to realize that their papers and projects will be strengthened by incorporating findings that may differ from their own stance. Librarians and teachers can work together to design assignments that encourage students to face this kind of discourse head on: for example, students might choose to research a topic that reaffirms their belief system (public health or political topics are excellent for this type of activity), finding articles that both support and counter their argument. Pushing this even further, you might have students present these findings in class, which requires them to both synthesize these opposing arguments and present their findings in a civil and respectable manner. I’ll never forget the time in a library instruction session when I had a class researching the 2014 media’s coverage of the protests and unrest in Fergueson, MO, related to the murder of Michael Brown. A group of students found a broadcast from Fox News that supported their argument; the rest of the class was horrified by this choice of source material, but this group of students eloquently and calmly explained why they chose that particular source. It was eye-opening for all of us. This type of uncomfortable adversity in the classroom is healthy in that it encourages students to confront their own belief systems, which both Megan and I have found to be an important part of growth and development of media literacy skills. As Hobbs and Frost (1998) found, classrooms which engage in more extensive and comprehensive approaches to integrating media literacy skills into existing curriculum result in students with higher levels of information processing skills including recall and comprehension of ideas. Providing safe spaces for students to have these sometimes uncomfortable conversations about particular news and media sources and/or topics will hopefully increase their confidence to participate in civil discourse “out in the wild” with parents, family, and peers with differing belief systems.

Extending the Conversation Beyond the Classroom

Once students are familiar and comfortable with communicating their own thoughts, opinions and perspectives with their peers, it is our hope that they will then feel empowered to apply these techniques of civil dialogue in conversations with their family and friends in social situations. As mentioned earlier, we both see a vital need for educators and librarians to help students extend these conversations outside the school setting; part of doing that is helping students to feel empowered to look at all sides of a topic and source. Through these collaborations with their librarian, teachers can emphasize the importance of continuing these conversations outside of the limited boundaries of an academic setting.

Megan: As we discussed in the previous section, this may be the first time in a student’s life that they are forming their own opinions on the media and news that they are consuming. It can be hard enough for students to express a differing opinion to their peers, let alone their family or community outside of school. As educators, it is not our job to tell our students what to believe; rather, it is vital that we assist students in learning how to develop their own opinions. One way we can accomplish this is by building upon the foundational skills of source evaluation. Once students have developed the capacity to critically evaluate information sources, we can then deepen their understanding of these sources by helping them determine whether or not it covers dissenting sides fairly and thoroughly. This often means helping students identify sources that counter one another, as Melissa explores above. By teaching students the necessity of finding and analyzing multiple sources, they will eventually be able to come to these conclusions on their own. A great website to start with, as an educator, is https://www.allsides.com/schools (2023), which provides many resources for educators.  Once students have had practice engaging in civil discourse with their peers, and have had experience finding sources that help them see multiple sides to a variety of issues, they will be more likely to feel equipped to transfer these skills to situations outside of the classroom.

Melissa: An important part of creating a media literate society is building capacity for educating others in the tenets of information and media literacy. As Megan notes, one of our primary goals as media literacy educators is to help students both confront and speak to their own thoughts and opinions. This means that students should be aware of their positionality, and how their individual knowledge and/or power can be used to navigate conflicts, particularly those surrounding mis- and disinformation (Carter, Lapum, Lavallée, & Martin, 2014). While this self-awareness can take time to develop, it is an important step in helping students interrogate their preconceived belief system surrounding media and information (a belief system which often forms at home). Academic librarians in higher education can build on the work of our K12 colleagues by asking students to reflect on how their approach to consuming news has changed over time. Asking interrogative questions such as where they get their news; what types of news sources they trust; why they trust them; and how their own biases may be at play when consuming various media can provide students with the opportunity to begin to unravel long-held belief systems. This reflective exercise is particularly enlightening with first year university students, many of whom are on their own for the first time.

It is also important to build this critical awareness in students as they begin exploring the world beyond the classroom, whether that be in elementary, high school, or college. As humans, we are lifelong learners; just as many of our daily habits change with age, so too do our students’ information seeking behaviors as they progress throughout their academic careers. An important characteristic of being a lifelong learner is recognizing that our individual biases morph over time, which can affect both cognition and processing of information (Sui & Humphreys, 2107). Educators must keep this in mind as they continue to build upon the skills taught at an early age.

Library + Classroom Collaborations 

As you may have gathered, we are just a bit biased in our enthusiasm for building partnerships between teachers and librarians. In our experience, these partnerships provide more robust and meaningful learning experiences for both students and educators. After all, the adage is true – teamwork makes the dream work!

Megan & Melissa: Communication is key to successful teaching collaborations; a shared understanding of content, student learning outcomes, and assessment of learning is crucial when approaching a partnership that includes sharing classroom instruction (Kammer et al., 2021).

Media literacy provides ample opportunity for partnerships between librarians and educators due to its interdisciplinary nature and authentic applicability in K12 and higher education classrooms. Teachers and librarians that are used to collaborating on the integration of information literacy skills into their courses will see media literacy as a natural progression – a launching point to create deeper and more meaningful learning experiences. According to one faculty member (referencing a partnership with the library):

I think it kicked into another gear when we realized that there is this critical strand in both of the [information and media literacy] fields. I’d only been familiar with the media literacy component, but just basically questioning knowledge, power, how do you know what you know, these big meta‑questions that you’re always trying to get students to wrestle with, and knowing that those kinds of things are also a big part of the information literacy field became the building block for our collaboration […] We wanted to facilitate this kind of high order critical thinking and go beyond these kinds of checklists [and] sort of skills based approaches. For students to seriously consider the ways in which authorities of whatever sources they use should be challenged. (Mallon, 2018)

Of course, these partnerships do require a brokered deal of sorts. In our experience, the most successful teaching collaborations are true equal partnerships, following some basic tenets:

• Assignments and lessons should focus on transferable skills that support lifelong learning: how will students utilize these skills both now and in their future?;
• Librarians and educators should work together to identify library resources that fit curricular goals;
• Approach the partnership holistically, embedding librarian support the entire way, through assignment design to content delivery to assessment.

In any given academic year, semester, or class, we must cover so very many subjects, state standards, curriculum components, accreditation requirements, and more. Championing educator + librarian collaborations is an excellent way to ensure that our students leave us with more than just grade or subject level skills; through these partnerships, we can model the importance of extending media literacy skills, behaviors, and dialogue outside of our classroom walls. 

Reflecting on the Future: Our Hopes & Dreams

Megan & Melissa: As adults, we have likely all been in a situation – probably around a holiday dinner table or maybe scrolling through social media – where we are confronted with family members or friends who have differing opinions and thoughts on the news and media they are consuming. Often, those differing opinions and thoughts may not be free of the conversant’s own individually held biases. Our hope is that when our students inevitably find themselves in similar situations, they will feel confident that they have the skills and tools to approach these conversations calmly and rationally.

We both care deeply about our roles as educators, and have found ourselves talking for hours about the importance of media literacy, not only in an academic sense, but in a life sense. We truly believe empowering our students with the skills to navigate and analyze the contemporary media landscape is a responsibility of all educators, and we have faith that the combined power of teachers and librarians around the world is the key to making this belief a reality. It is our ultimate hope that our students will leave us having garnered a lifelong ability to holistically and critically consider the news and media they are consuming in their everyday lives, and, hopefully, pass on those abilities to those around them.

References

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Caulfield, M.A. (2019). SIFT (The Four Moves). Hapgood. https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/

Carter, C., Lapum, J. L., Lavallée, L. F., & Martin, L. S. (2014). Explicating positionality: A journey of dialogical and reflexive storytelling. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 13(1), 362–376. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940691401300118

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Hobbs, R., & Frost, R. (1998). Instructional practices in media literacy education and their impact on students’ learning. The New Jersey Journal of Communication, 6(2), 123–148. https://doi.org/10.1080/15456879809367343

Kammer, J., King, M., Donahay, A., & Koeberl, H. (2021). Strategies for successful school librarian and teacher collaboration. School Library Research, 24.

Kellner, D., & Share, J. (2007). Critical media literacy Is not an option. Learning Inquiry, 1(1), 59–69. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11519-007-0004-2

Kirschenbaum, M. (2017, January). How savvy are your students: 7 fake websites to really test their evaluation skills. EasyBib. https://www.easybib.com/guides/7-fake-websites-to-test-students/

Kirschenbaum, M. (2017, February). Identifying fake news: An infographic and educator resources. EasyBib. https://www.easybib.com/guides/evaluating-fake-news-resources/

Liabenow, A. (2022). Conversations about book challenges and bans: Civil discourse through talking frames and sentence stems. [Culminating experience project, Grand Valley State University]. Graduate Research and Creative Practice at ScholarWorks@GVSU.

Mallon, M. D. (2023). Case study 1: Analyzing news & media sources. In J. Kramer & L. Hayes (Eds.), Digital literacy made simple: strategies for building skills across the curriculum.

Mallon, M. N. (Host). (2018, May 7). Natasha Casey and Spencer Brayton (No. 39) [Audio podcast episode]. In Leading Lines: A podcast on educational technology. Vanderbilt University. https://leadinglinespod.com/episodes/episode-39natasha-casey-and-spencer-brayton/

Martens, H., & Hobbs, R. (2015) How media literacy supports civic engagement in a digital age. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 23(2), 120-137. DOI: 10.1080/15456870.2014.961636

Pilgrim, J. & Vasinda, S. (2021). Fake news and the “wild wide web”: A study of elementary students’ reliability reasoning. Societies, 11(4). https://doi.org/10.3390/soc11040121

Sui, J., & Humphreys, G. W. (2017). Aging enhances cognitive biases to friends but not the self. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24(6), 2021–2030. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-017-1264-1

Zapato, L. (1998, March 8). Help save the endangered pacific northwest tree octopus. Zpi. https://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

Appendix A