Welcome!
Welcome to our Media Literacy page. I hope you can give your FINSTA thumbs a rest for a moment and settle in here for a passionate pursuit of becoming a more media savvy student & citizen.
Here you’ll find some of the resources needed to dive deep into the deliriously dangerous digital depths of our new media age & embark on our Media Literacy course excursion.
While even our deepest dive may seem like only dipping our toes into the complexities of the ever-changing media landscape, I believe you’ll come away a confident and well-equipped consumer & critic of all things media in the end.
Mostly, however, I am hopeful that our experience will be enjoyable and enriching and one of growth for us all. I am excited to share this brief experience with you & watch you flourish.
Course Materials
Just click on the links below to find helpful resources.
NOTE: Daily assignments & updates will be served up using our Google Classroom Stream page, so you’ll probably begin there and sometimes end up back here.
INTRO STUFF
- Love Letter to My Students
- Media Lit Intro Letter
- Syllabus – Media Literacy
- Mercy Core Values
- Who Have You Been
- Excel Grade Tracker (Be in control of your own destiny & know where you stand!)
SOME KEY CONCEPTS & QUESTIONS TO KICK IT OFF:
- Media Messages Key Concepts
- Key Questions for Analyzing Media Messages
- Keys To Media’s Hidden Codes (TedEd :6 mins)
- NEWSELA (Feel free to sign up as a student)
- STUDENTS HAVE TROUBLE JUDGING CREDIBILITY ONLINE (Stanford)
QUALITY RESOURCES
- CRASH COURSE – MEDIA LITERACY (YouTube Channel)
- CRASH COURSE – NAVIGATING DIGITAL INFORMATION (YouTube Channel)
- DIGITAL PUBLIC LIBRARY OF AMERICA (35+ M Primary Sources)
- PROTECT YOUR PRIVACY (SnapChat, TikTok, Spotify & More)
- MediaWise (Non-Profit, Non-Partisan Initiative of The Poynter Institute)
AREAS OF EXPLORATION & RESOURCES FOR OUR COURSE
- INTRO- Big Questions – History/Evolution
- How Communication/Technology/Visual Imagery Shape Us
- Media Types Strengths & Weaknesses (Or is this moot when one device does it all?!)
- Evolution of Television & Music (from CNN Series)
- The Media Biz (Ownership – Money Motives – Machinery)
- Politics & The Press (The Forces at Work)
- Propaganda (Motives-Manipulation-Manufacturing Reality)
- Social Media Gets Personal (Consumption/Creating Content/Body Image/Bullying/Personal Branding)
- Film
- Final Project- Media Literacy
MISC:
Noam Chomsky (Linguist-Political Philosopher-Activist)
- “Manufacturing Consent” Interview w/Bill Moyers (Part 1)
- “Manufacturing Consent” Interview w/Bill Moyers (Part 2)
- Noam Chomsky: Manufacturing Consent
- Noam Chomsky on Propaganda Terms: Language & Meaning
And an Examination of Advertising in Context of Pop Culture @ End of 20th Century
AND A WHOLE LOTTA RANDOM MEDIA ARTICLES TO BROWSE & DISCOVER:
- Fulbright Workshop: Fake News – Welcome to Pedagogy & American Literary Studies
- How to Escape Your Political Bubble for a Clearer View – The New York Times
- Scott Galloway: How Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google manipulate our emotions | TED Talk | TED.com
- Study: Historians Easily Fooled by Unreliable Content
- Silicon Valley Is Not Your Friend – The New York Times
- There’s Blood In The Water In Silicon Valley
- How Smartphones Hijack Our Minds – WSJ
- How Technology Changes Teen Romance – The New York Times
- Fareed Zakaria What in the World: Fake news – YouTube
- ‘Inappropriate’ Snapchat Post Disqualifies Softball Team From Championship Game
- factitious
- Google Doesn’t Want What’s Best for Us – The New York Times
- A Brief History of Book Burning, From the Printing Press to Internet Archives | History | Smithsonian
- No Apology, No Explanation: Fox News And The Seth Rich Story : NPR
- How do Americans view ‘fake news’ today? | PBS NewsHour
- A record number of journalists are behind bars | PBS NewsHour
- Spread of fake news prompts literacy efforts in schools | PBS NewsHour
- MoviePass Adds a Million Subscribers, Even if Theaters Aren’t Sold on It – The New York Times
- People who know how the news is made resist conspiratorial thinking | Ars Technica
- How Random Events Create Conspiracy Theories — truTV.com
- CDC gets list of forbidden words: Fetus, transgender, diversity – The Washington Post
- The Difficulties With Facebook’s News Feed Overhaul – The New York Times
- The End of the Social News Era? Journalists Brace for Facebook’s Big Change – The New York Times
- Apple Investors Warn iPhones and Other Technology May Be Hurting Children – The New York Times
- The Logan Paul YouTube controversy and what we should expect from internet platforms – Vox
- The Post makes an entertaining, timely case for freedom of the press – Vox
- PRESS FREEDOM: Reporters Arrested At Protest Still Faces Trial (USA Today)
- 10 reasons why Americans don’t trust the media – Trust, Media and Democracy – Medium
- How the robocall industry outwitted the government and wrecked the Do Not Call list – The Washington Post
- NFL Playoffs Are Just Dismal Viewing for TV Execs – Bloomberg
- Cracking the Sitcom Code – The Atlantic
- Facebook Says Social Media Can Be Negative For Democracy : The Two-Way : NPR
- Social Media Is Making Us Dumber. Here’s Exhibit A. – The New York Times
- The Follower Factory – The New York Times
- ‘The Shed at Dulwich’ was London’s top-rated restaurant. Just one problem: It didn’t exist. – The Washington Post
- Here’s Why Companies Spend Millions on a Super Bowl Ad | Fortune
- Why Companies Spend So Much on Super Bowl Ads – WSJ
- Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? – The Atlantic
- The Enlightenment Is Working – WSJ
- Welcome to the Post-Text Future – The New York Times
- Where Did All the Advertising Jobs Go? – The Atlantic
- Inside Facebook’s Fast-Growing Content-Moderation Effort – The Atlantic
- Center for Humane Technology
- What The Screen Time Experts Do With Their Own Kids : NPR Ed : NPR
- Screen Addiction Among Teens: Is There Such A Thing? : NPR Ed : NPR
- Student Journalists Launch Website After They Say School Censored Their Paper : NPR
- Tristan Harris: Do Our Devices Control More Than We Think? : NPR
- Tech Design Ethicist Works To Raise Awareness Of Internet Addiction : NPR
- ‘Irresistible’ By Design: It’s No Accident You Can’t Stop Looking At The Screen : All Tech Considered : NPR
- Inside Center for Humane Technology: Tech creators are pushing back
- Early Facebook and Google Employees Form Coalition to Fight What They Built – The New York Times
- Advice For Parents About Screen Time And Technology : NPR Ed : NPR
- 5 Things To Know About Screen Time Right Now : NPR Ed : NPR
- What Kind of Screen Time Parent Are You? Take This Quiz And Find Out : NPR Ed : NPR
- Young Children Are Spending Much More Time In Front Of Small Screens : NPR Ed : NPR
- Common Sense Education | Teaching strategies and digital citizenship tools for educators.
- For Two Months, I Got My News From Print Newspapers. Here’s What I Learned. – The New York Times
- Why you can’t compare podcasts to radio | Discover the Best Podcasts | Discover Pods
- How false news can spread – Noah Tavlin | TED-Ed
- Thirty countries use ‘armies of opinion shapers’ to manipulate democracy – report | Technology | The Guardian
- “Now we know what a digital native is…” – Ira David Socol – Medium
- Snopes.com | The definitive fact-checking site and reference source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.
- The Big Loophole That Helped Russia Exploit Facebook: Doctored Photos – WSJ
- 4 Great Lesson Plans for Internet Safety | Common Sense Education
- Breaking up with your smartphone is really, really hard. Just ask these people. – The Washington Post
- Why Can’t I Put My Smartphone Down? Here’s The Science : Shots – Health News : NPR
- A Family Finds A Way To Wean Themselves From Electronic Devices : NPR
- YouTube Pulls Ads From Vlogger Logan Paul After He Uses Taser On Dead Rats : The Two-Way : NPR
- Accidentally famous: The psychology of going viral – CNN
- Truth Isn’t the Problem—We Are – WSJ
- Facebook bans Trump campaign’s data analytics firm for taking user data – The Washington Post
- Putin’s Victory Is Assured In Russia’s Election : NPR
- Putin’s Strategy Is To Glorify Russia’s Past, Journalist Says : NPR
- Layoffs Hit ‘Chicago Tribune’ Newsroom : NPR
- The Man Who Knew Too Little – The New York Times
- Facebook Suspends Political Data Firm Used In Trump Campaign : The Two-Way : NPR
- Trump insults NBC News anchor Chuck Todd
- Where Facebook Goes From Here – On The Media | WNYC Studios
- Digital media literacy matters to all | Toronto Star
- NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week
- How Facebook Groups Are Being Exploited To Spread Misinformation, Plan Harassment, And Radicalize People
- BBC launches ‘fake news’ game for young people that puts them at ‘heart of newsroom’ amid a breaking news story – Press Gazette
- Quick start to verifying online media
- Jane Elizabeth on Twitter: “Fact? Opinion? If such things confuse you, please consult Jack the first-grader. h/t @lorikelley22… “
- ‘This is the hardest reporting there is’: Inside ProPublica’s correction on Gina Haspel – The Washington Post
- ProPublica Leads Media Into Correction of Murky CIA Story – The New York Times
- Soft power — not government censorship — is the key to fighting disinformation and “fake news” » Nieman Journalism Lab
- Facebook Suspends Cambridge Analytica But Privacy Feature Questions Mount : NPR
- Section 230: A Key Legal Shield For Facebook, Google Is About To Change : All Tech Considered : NPR
- On Twitter, fake news spreads faster than the truth – Vox
- A Former Google Exec on How to Make Facebook Likable – The Atlantic
- Develop Your Fact-Checking Skills | IFCD
- Nate Silver on Twitter: “When someone regularly cites outlier polls instead of the polling average it’s an **extremely** reliable tell that they’re a bullshitter.”
- Robert Reich: A Message To Laura Ingraham, Fox News And Trump—We Won’t Accept Your Bullying Anymore
- What the ‘Pivot to Video’ Looks Like at Condé Nast – The New York Times
- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify to a U.S. House committee April 11 – Recode
- Factfulness_Excerpt.pdf
- Hans Rosling: The best stats you’ve ever seen | TED Talk
- Why I want to stop talking about the “developing” world | Bill Gates
- Trump launches second day of attacks against the media – POLITICO
- Sinclair Made Dozens of Local News Anchors Recite the Same Script – The New York Times
- Reliable Sources podcast: How consumers can fact check the news in the age of misinformation
- For the love of facts! | TED Talks
- Recent Research | Poynter – A global leader in journalism.
- This tool makes verifying crowd sizes a breeze – YouTube
- Facebook Previously Failed To Keep Privacy Promises, Ex-FTC Adviser Says : NPR
- Facebook Down $80 Billion In Market Value, Playboy, Space X, Tesla Exit : The Two-Way : NPR
- You Think You Want Media Literacy… Do You? – Data & Society: Points
- Data Defenders, a media literacy game about data collection and targeting for kids in grades 4-6 / Boing Boing
- Watch Jordan Peele use AI to make Barack Obama deliver a PSA about fake news – The Verge
- I Downloaded the Information That Facebook Has on Me. Yikes. – The New York Times
- How to Protect Yourself (and Your Friends) on Facebook – The New York Times
- In one month, Facebook doubled the countries using its fact-checking tool — all outside the West | Poynter
- How Calls for Privacy May Upend Business for Facebook and Google – The New York Times
- Opinion | When TV Takes Part in Human Rights Abuse – The New York Times
- Press Freedom in U.S. Falls Again
- Facebook Has a New Data Policy—Here’s the Short Version – WSJ
- ISTE – International Society for Technology in Education – Home
- Scope & Sequence: Common Sense K-12 Digital Citizenship Curriculum | Common Sense Education
- The Wall Street Journal on Twitter: “Can streaming bring music back to its heyday, after fundamentally changing the way we consume it?… “
- All We Want to Do Is Watch Each Other Play Video Games – The New York Times
- Facebook Ad Wants You To Remember The Good Old Days: Before ‘Data Misuse’ And Fake News | Tech Times
- Facebook should take a step to stop fake news in Turkey, before the election
- Facebook dating feature sends Match shares plunging
- Facebook shrinks fake news after warnings backfire | TechCrunch
- Fake war videos are using footage from gamers on YouTube | Poynter
- Wikipedia Founder Says Internet Users Are Adrift In The ‘Fake News’ Era : NPR
- This Former Tea Party Activist Is Teaching People To Spot Fake News
- Fact-checking triples over four years – Duke Reporters’ Lab
- (38) Unfakery – Home
- Is it satire or fake news? Depends on who you ask | Poynter
- Think You Can Spot Fake News? Take This Quiz.
- After a week of Russian propaganda, I was questioning everything | PBS NewsHour
- Pepsi and Coke decline while bottled water grows – Business Insider
- Why we love to like junk news that reaffirms our beliefs | PBS NewsHour
- Online anger is gold to this junk-news pioneer | PBS NewsHour
- Miles To Go podcast takes a behind-the-scenes tour of junk news | PBS NewsHour
- Local News Bringing Back National Anthem Late- Night Sign-Off
- Google’s New Voice Bot Sounds, Um, Maybe Too Real : The Two-Way : NPR
- Government Will Test And Collect Data From New Drone Programs In 10 States : The Two-Way : NPR
- VR: Game Changer – 1A
- Why Disco Made Pop Songs Longer
- Some Users Wary Of Facebook’s Newest Venture In Online Dating : NPR
- Cambridge Analytica, Data Firm That Scraped Facebook, Is Closing : The Two-Way : NPR
- North And South Korea Dismantle Loudspeakers Blaring Propaganda On The DMZ : The Two-Way : NPR
- As Facebook Shows Its Flaws, What Might A Better Social Network Look Like? : The Two-Way : NPR
- Would We Be Better Off If We Didn’t Rely On 1 Social Network? : NPR
- Kids, Meet Alexa, Your AI Mary Poppins : NPR Ed : NPR
- Millennials stand out for their technology use | Pew Research Center
- Where Millennials end and post-Millennials begin | Pew Research Center
- Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything – Home Page
- Sunlight Foundation on Twitter: “Facebook Has a New Political Ad Transparency Website: A Thread. https://t.co/IodAoWQbg9… “
- Hotels and Tour Operators are Eliminating Plastic Straws
- Outdoor Guerrilla Ad Campaign?
- Teens, Social Media & Technology 2018 | Pew Research Center
- Did exactly 4,645 people die in Hurricane Maria? Nope. – The Washington Post
- Seth MacFarlane on Twitter: “A simple means by which to begin the rehabilitation of a deeply fractured nation would be through the restoration of the Fairness Doctrine, which required all TV and radio broadcasters to present opposing viewpoints on all iss
- Everything you need to know about the Fairness Doctrine in one post – The Washington Post
- What Elon Musk doesn’t understand about journalism | Salon.com
- Just Don’t Call Them Minivans
- Black Mirror – Choose Your Storyline
- The Breakfast Club in Age of #MeToo
- Sixteen Candles & 1980s Rape Culture
- Power of Political Cartoons – Kavanaugh
- 15 Historic Cartoons That Changed the World
- Gary Hart Scandal & The Media
- The Internet Gave Us Great TV. Now Where’s the Great TV Guide?
- When Twitter Hoaxes Fail
- Ripple Effect of Trump Tweet Storm
- Can Twitter Sock-Puppets Really Get You Fired?
- Correlation is NOT Causation (A FUN Take!)
- Subject of Racially Charged Video Goes Viral- Loses Job
- How Social Media is Changing the Presidency
- The Digital Gap Between Rich & Poor Kids: No Screens for Rich
- Who Pays for Giant Sports Stadiums?
- 23 Charts & Maps Showing the World is Getting Much Better
- 10 Most Important Events in Music History
- John Green Taking a Year Off From Social Media (YouTube)
- I Found the Best Burger Place in America, and Then I Killed It
- How to Stop Apps From Tracking Your Location
- THE RUSSIAN REPORT: Russia’s Manipulation of Social Media Messages-Election 2016 & Beyond
- TRUMP & Fact-Checker Poll: Few Americans Believe Him (VIDEO- 3 mins, Article, Results)
- TINY SHOULDERS: Re-Branding Barbie (The Atlantic)- And we’ll watch this film!
- “SOCIAL ANIMALS” – A Peek Into the Digital & Real World of Today’s Image-Focused Teenagers
- STUDENT CAM: Documentary Competition
- Why It’s Hard to Escape Amazon’s Long Reach
- Altria Invests $12.8 Billion in Juul
- The Day Trump Learned to Tweet (Politico)
- The 27-Yr-Old, Multi-Millionaire Face of FORTNITE Would Like Some Sleep
- She Helped Create Instagram – Then She Quit & Deleted the App
- Facebook’s Very Bad Month Just Got Worse (New Yorker 2018)
- YouTube Struggles to Shut Down New Zealand Shooting Videos- Humans Outsmart Systems?
- 7-Yr-Old YouTuber Earned $22 Million This Year (2018)
- How a 19th-Century Teenager Sparked a Battle Over Who Owns Our Faces
- Movie Poster Expert Explains Color Schemes (YouTube :10 mins)
- This is Your Brain on Ads: How Marketing Affects Our Minds
- ESPN the Magazine is Closing Down Print
- Political Campaigns Get Colorful (Not just red, white & blue anymore)
- How E-Commerce Sites Manipulate You Into Buying Things You Don’t Want
- Google Chrome Has Become Spy Software
- Instagram Accounts Are Exploiting the Sudan Crisis
- Facebook Deepfake Videos Test Policies on Altered Clips
- Deepfake Videos Not Just Entertaining, But a Warning
- Why Were We So Cruel to Britney Spears? (Atlantic)
- Framing Britney Spears (NYT)
- Comedy Central Caves to Cancel Culture, Removes “The Office” Episode (Newsweek)
- CNN’s Cuomo & Conflict of Interest Poisons the News (Wash Post)
- Information Literacy in the Face of Conspiracy Theories (Atlantic)
- 7 Media Lessons from Harry & Meghan’s Interview w/Oprah (CNN)
- Understanding Numbers: Denominators Matter (Image)
- How A Jeopardy Contestant’s Hand Gesture Became Part of a Conspiracy Theory (NYT)
- Why People Fall For Conspiracy Theories (538.com)
- The Package Is The Message – Americans Can’t Resist a Well-Designed Container (Atlantic)
- What Google Search Isn’t Showing You- Hard to Imagine Something Better (New Yorker)
