Media Literacy Workshop

I would like to develop and deliver a media literacy workshop. I'd start with holding two focus groups to find out 1) how people are selecting their news sources and 2) how they judge what they think is credible. Working from what I find, I would create a participatory workshop, drawing from a range of media literacy curricula and research. The workshop might start by asking attendees how they evaluate credibility and making a list to discuss as a group, then adding some additional approaches. The presenter would also introduce tools for situating news sources on a continuum to identify where they stand in terms of accuracy and political bias. Attendees could then find different reports of a single event to analyze and compare. We could also experiment with fact-checking tools to compare their results. This workshop could be offered anywhere - for high school students in public schools, at community centers and libraries.

Many people do not have a systematic approach to evaluating the credibility of a news source. Adult students taking a college prep class I taught at CSI last summer were unsure where to locate a news article online. They mostly got news from social media and did not notice the news source when they clicked through a headline to an article. They didn't have a clear idea what makes blogs, organization websites and youtube commentators different from news agencies. The difficulty people have evaluating information on the internet has serious implications for democracy.

Youth (under 24)

Older Adults (65 +)

Public Housing Residents

People with Disabilities

Immigrants / Migrants

Veterans

LGBTQIA+ People

Parents