critical thinking in media literacy

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Critical media literacy in teacher education, theory, and practice.

Jeff Share , Jeff Share University of California Los Angeles
Tatevik Mamikonyan Tatevik Mamikonyan School of Education, University of California Los Angeles
and Eduardo Lopez Eduardo Lopez University of California Los Angeles
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1404
Published online: 30 September 2019
This version: 20 September 2023
Previous version

Democracy in the digital networked age of “fake news” and “alternative facts” requires new literacy skills and critical awareness to read, write, and use media and technology to empower civic participation and social transformation. Unfortunately, not many educators have been prepared to teach students how to think critically with and about the media and technology that engulf us. Across the globe there is a growing movement to develop media and information literacy curriculum (UNESCO) and train teachers in media education (e-Media Education Lab), but these attempts are limited and in danger of co-optation by the faster growing, better financed, and less critical education and information technology corporations. It is essential to develop a critical response to the new information communication technologies, artificial intelligence, and algorithms that are embedded in all aspects of society. The possibilities and limitations are vast for teaching educators to enter K-12 classrooms and teach their students to use various media, critically question all types of texts, challenge problematic representations, and create alternative messages. Through applying a critical media literacy framework that has evolved from cultural studies and critical pedagogy, students at all grade levels can learn to critically analyze the messages and create their own alternative media. The voices of teachers engaging in this work can provide pragmatic insight into the potential and challenges of putting the theory into practice in K-12 public schools.

critical literacy
critical pedagogy
media education
media literacy
critical media literacy
social justice
politics of representation
cultural studies
teacher education

Updated in this version

The authors made minor revisions to this text to reflect more recent scholarship. The reference list and further readings have similarly been updated.

Introduction

It is a formidable challenge to prepare critical educators to work inside a system in which every brick in the wall has been laid to transmit the information, skills, and ideas necessary to reproduce the social norms, inequities, ideologies, and alienation that are undermining the quality and sustainability of life on this planet. However, education can be a powerful tool to challenge these problems and create opportunities for students to work in solidarity with others to create a more socially and environmentally just world. To support these changes, we need teachers ready to engage students in critical inquiry by posing questions about systemic and structural issues of power, hierarchies of oppression, and social injustice. In the current media and information age, information communication technologies (ICTs) are available to either continue the control and degradation or to deconstruct the systems of oppression and reconstruct a more just and sustainable society.

Digital technology is opening opportunities for individual participation and alternative points of view, while at the same time a handful of enormous media and technology corporations have become the dominant storytellers, often repeating the same story at the expense of countless different perspectives and creative ways of thinking. Many of these storytellers are actually story-sellers, more interested in peddling ideas and products than informing, enlightening, inspiring, or challenging. While young people are using more media, they are also being used more by media companies. Giant transnational corporations are targeting youth as one of the most valuable markets for building brand loyalty and selling to advertisers. Researchers found 8- to 18-year-olds in the United States spend well over 10 hours a day interacting with various forms of media, such as music, computers, video games, television, film, and print ( Rideout et al., 2011 ). Another investigation discovered that 95% of American 13- to 17-year-olds have access to a smartphone and 97% say they are online daily and 46% use it constantly ( Vogels et al., 2022 ).

Not only is the amount of time with media increasing but the quality of that engagement is also changing by becoming more commercial and rarely critical. Researchers at Stanford University administered six tasks to 3,466 high schools across 14 states in the US to judge their ability to assess online information. In one task, students were asked to evaluate the credibility of a website that claimed to “disseminate factual reports” and 96% failed to learn about the site’s ties to the fossil fuel industry. In a different task, over half of students believed an anonymously posted video purporting to show voter fraud in the US was real, even though it was filmed in Russia ( Breakstone et al., 2021 ). In another study, Vosoughi et al. (2018) examined approximately 126,000 stories tweeted over 4.5 million times between 2006 and 2017 . The researchers were interested in understanding what accounted for the differential diffusion of verified true and false news stories. They found that false news stories spread “farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth because humans, not robots, are more likely to spread it” (p. 5). In analyzing the tweets, the authors concluded, false stories were 70% more likely to be retweeted because people found them not only more novel but the stories also inspired emotional responses of fear, disgust, or surprise.

The concern about “fake news” has encouraged many people to recognize the need for critical readers and writers of media. Some have suggested that we simply need better cognitive skills to determine truth from lies. However, making sense of the media and our information society is far more complicated than a reductionist idea of simply finding the truth. Rather than judging information as either true or false, students need to learn to search for multiple sources, different perspectives, and various types of evidence to triangulate and evaluate findings. In order to best evaluate and understand the information, they also need to question the influence of media in shaping the message and positioning the audience. Since all knowledge is an interpretation ( Kincheloe, 2007 ), interpreting the meaning of a message is a complex process that requires skills to probe empirical evidence, evaluate subjective biases, analyze the medium and construction of the text, and explore the social contexts.

This is an opportunity for educators to guide their students to think critically with and about the ICTs and media that surround them. Morrell et al. (2013) argue that the technology itself will not bring about transformative educational change. “That change will only come through teachers who draw on critical frameworks to create learning communities where the use of these tools becomes an empowering enterprise” (p. 14). Therefore, the changes in media, technology, and society require critical media literacy (CML) that can support teachers and students to question and create with and about the very tools that can empower or oppress, entertain or distract, inform or mislead, and buy or sell everything from lifestyles to politicians. Now more than ever, teachers should encourage students to be reading, viewing, listening to, interacting with, and creating a multitude of texts, from digital podcasts to multimedia productions.

Teacher Education

Even though youth are immersed in a world in which media and technology have entered all aspects of their lives and society, few teacher education programs are preparing teachers to help their students to critically understand the potential and limitations of these changes. It is crucial that new teachers learn how to teach their K-12 students to critically read and write everything, from academic texts to social media.

This means that schools of education responsible for training the new wave of teachers must be up to date, not just with the latest technology, but more importantly, with critical media literacy (CML) theory and pedagogy in order to prepare teachers and students to think and act critically with and about media and technology. In Canada, where media literacy is mandatory in every grade from 1 to 12, most new teachers are not receiving media literacy training in their preservice programs ( Wilson & Duncan, 2009 ). Researchers investigating media education in the United Kingdom and the US have found that many teachers are unprepared to teach media education and that professional learning opportunities are limited ( Butler, 2020 ; Kirwan et al., 2003 ). The progress has been slow, especially considering that inclusion of media literacy in formal public education has a history dating back to the 1980s in Australia, Britain, and Canada. However, nonformal media education has been occurring in many parts of the world for decades ( Hart, 1998 ; Kaplún, 1998 ; Kubey, 1997 ; Pegurer Caprino & Martínez-Cerdá, 2016 ; Prinsloo & Criticos, 1991 ).

While it is difficult to know for sure who is and who is not teaching critically about media and technology ( Mihailidis, 2008 ), there seems to be an increased interest in media literacy in the United States. In 2022 , the National Council of Teachers of English published a position statement recommending implementation of media education in English Language Arts along with two special issue journal publications ( Lynch, 2021 ; Kist & Christel, 2022 ) devoted to critical media literacy, arguing that “media education must be an essential component of the professional identity of teachers” ( National Council of Teachers of English, 2022 ).

As technology and media continue to evolve and increasingly enter public and private spaces, more educators are recognizing the need for training new teachers about media literacy ( Domine, 2011 ; Goetze et al., 2005 ; Hobbs, 2007a ) and some are even addressing the need to teach about CML ( Flores-Koulish et al., 2011 ; Funk et al., 2016 ; Robertson & Hughes, 2011 ; Trust et al., 2022 ). Researchers Tiede et al. (2015) studied 64 universities or colleges of teacher education in Germany and 316 U.S. public educational institutions that provide teacher training and graduate studies, concluding that very few offer more than media didactics (basic educational technology that teaches with media, not about media). From their data in the United States, they report, “media education, with emphasis on the instructional practices associated with the critical evaluation of media, culture, and society, were scarce, representing only 2% of all study programs in teacher training programs” (pp. 540−541). In Germany, the percentage increases to 25%, but “media didactics tends to be emphasized to the disadvantage of media education in both countries” (p. 542).

In 2011 , the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published a curriculum guide online in 11 languages for training teachers in media education ( Grizzle & Wilson, 2011 ), declaring that “teacher training in media and information literacy will be a major challenge for the global education system at least for the next decade” ( Pérez-Tornero & Tayie, 2012 , p. 11). 1 In Europe, Ranieri and Bruni (2018) analyzed the successes and challenges of training preservice and in-service teachers about media and digital literacy. An initiative called e-Media Educational Lab, funded by the European Commission, provided blended training to 279 preservice teachers and 81 in-service teachers in six countries. Based on surveys and fieldnotes, Ranieri and Bruni (2018) reported that the preservice and in-service teachers found critical media analysis and media production to be very important; they described their intent to transfer their media competency to their classrooms and expressed a desire to learn more practical ways to help their students develop media competencies.

UNESCO’s approach to media education combines media and information literacy (MIL) to include many competencies, from learning about and using information communication technologies to thinking critically about ethics and democracy. Carolyn Wilson (2012) explains, “MIL is both a content area and way of teaching and learning; it is not only about the acquisition of technical skills, but the development of a critical framework and approaches” (p. 16).

Combining information technology with media-cultural studies is essential, but still infrequent. Within the current wave of educational reform that prioritizes the newest technology and career readiness over civic engagement and critical inquiry, schools are more likely to adopt only information technology or information literacy and not critical media education. In the United States, few universities offer more than a single course in media literacy and most do not even offer that ( Goetze et al., 2005 ; Meehan et al., 2015 ).

Schwarz (2001) asserts that because of the power of emerging literacies, “teacher education needs media literacy as an essential tool and an essential topic in the new millennium” (pp. 111−112). She calls for integrating media literacy across all subject areas of teacher education, “from methods courses and educational psychology to foundational courses and student teaching” (p. 118). This interdisciplinary approach for media education could be easier now for K-12 teachers in the United States since the Common Core State Standards require literacy to be taught and technology to be used across the curriculum ( California Common Core State Standards, 2013 ; Moore & Bonilla, 2014 ; Trust et al., 2022 ).

Two studies with a total of 31 preservice teachers found a discrepancy between their positive attitudes for teaching media literacy and the lack of attention and support in their teacher education programs to prepare them to teach MIL ( Gretter & Yadav, 2018 ). Based on interviews with these preservice teachers, Gretter and Yadav (2018) report that they associated MIL with critical thinking skills and expressed concerns about not knowing how to teach MIL because their teacher preparation program encouraged “teaching with technology and not necessarily about technology” (p. 115). These preservice teachers complained about “a lack of preparation to help them transfer their knowledge of digital media to MIL pedagogies that would benefit students” (p. 111). This highlights the importance of preparing educators with the theory and conceptual understandings as well as the pedagogy and practical applications for how to teach their students to critically analyze and create media.

Teaching Teachers Critical Media Literacy

Transforming education to critically use media, technology, and popular culture for social and environmental justice is the overarching goal of a critical media literacy (CML) course in the teacher education program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The authors of this article have been involved in designing and teaching this course to in-service and preservice teachers. Through combining theory from cultural studies and critical pedagogy with practical classroom applications of digital media and technology, this course prepares K-12 educators to teach their students how to critically analyze and create all types of media. In 2011 , this four-unit course on CML was officially approved and became a required class for all students working on their teaching credential at UCLA.

The teacher education program at UCLA is primarily a two-year master’s and credential program that accepts about 130 candidates annually. The program is committed to developing social justice educators to work with and improve the schooling conditions of California’s ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse children. While most of the students go through the two-year program, additional pathways for earning a teaching credential and master’s degree have been offered, such as a master’s-only program for in-service teachers with two years or more of full-time teaching experience.

The CML class is taught in separate sections, usually divided by subjects, with 25−50 students per section. Most of the candidates taking the class are student teaching at the same time, except for the master’s-only candidates, who were teaching full-time while attending the class once a week in the evening. The class includes lectures, discussions, and activities interwoven into each session during the 10-week quarter.

Beginning with a theoretical overview, the course explores the development of media education that is defined less as a specific body of knowledge or set of skills and more as a framework of conceptual understandings ( Buckingham, 2003 ). Much of the theory behind CML has evolved from cultural studies, a field of critical inquiry that began in the 20th century in Europe and continues to grow with new critiques of media and society. From the 1930s through the 1960s, researchers at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research used critical social theory to analyze how media culture and the new tools of communication technology induce ideology and social control. In the 1960s, researchers at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham added to the earlier concerns of ideology with a more sophisticated understanding of the audience as active constructors of reality, not simply mirrors of an external reality. Kellner (1995) explains that cultural studies has continued to grow and incorporate concepts of semiotics, feminism, multiculturalism, and postmodernism. Incorporating a dialectical understanding of political economy, textual analysis, and audience theory, cultural studies critiques media culture as dynamic discourses that reproduce dominant ideologies as well as entertain, educate, and offer the possibilities for counter-hegemonic alternatives ( Hammer & Kellner, 2009 ).

Critical media literacy includes three dimensions ( Share & Gambino, 2022 ). The first involves the content students learn about systems, structures, and ideologies that reproduce hierarchies of power and knowledge concerning race, gender, class, sexuality and other forms of identity and environmental justice, as well as general understandings about how media and communication function. The second dimension engages the skills to critically think and question media representations and biases, to deconstruct and reconstruct media texts, and use a variety of media to access, analyze, evaluate, and create. The third involves developing a disposition for empathy, critical consciousness, and empowerment to take action to challenge and transform society to be more socially and environmentally just. This third dimension is based on Freire’s (2010) notion of conscientização , a revolutionary critical consciousness that involves perception as well as action against oppression. These three dimensions of critical media literacy pedagogy are supported through an inquiry-based democratic approach that follows ideas of transformative educators like John Dewey and Paulo Freire. We incorporate feminist theory and critical pedagogy to analyze relationships between media and audiences, information and power ( Carlson et al., 2013 ; Garcia et al., 2013 ). When we first began teaching the course, we used a simple framework with five core concepts and key questions from the Center for Media Literacy. 2 To emphasize the critical potential of these ideas, while providing an accessible tool for teachers to use in the classroom, the following critical media literacy framework was developed, with six conceptual understandings and questions, as shown in Table 1 ( Kellner & Share, 2019 ).

These six conceptual understandings and questions are referred to regularly and are addressed in all lesson plans. It is important for teachers to understand the concepts and questions because theory should inform practice for all three dimensions. However, it is better for K-12 students to learn to ask the questions rather than memorize the concepts, since the questions, with appropriate guidance, can lead students on a path of inquiry where they are more likely to make meaning themselves, related to the conceptual understandings.

The CML framework is designed to help teachers and their students question the role of power and ideology that socialize and control society through making some people and ideas seem “normal” and “natural” while the rest are “othered” and “marginalized” ( Hall, 2003 ). This critical framing supports teachers and students to deepen their explorations of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, overconsumption, environmental exploitation, and other problematic representations in media. Candidates analyze and discuss current media examples, while also learning how to use various ICTs to create their own media with alternative counter-hegemonic representations. Using an inquiry process and democratic pedagogy, problems are posed to the students to collaboratively wrestle with, unpack, and respond to through media production.

Critical media literacy promotes an expansion of our understanding of literacy to include many types of texts, such as images, sounds, music, video games, social media, advertising, popular culture, and print, as well as a deepening of critical analysis to explore the connections between information and power. In our digital networked media age, it is not enough to teach students how to read and write just with print while their world has moved far beyond letters on a page. Literacy education in the 21st century requires breaking from traditional practices to include all the varied ways people communicate with media, technology, and any tool that facilitates the transfer of information or connects people. This calls for new skills and understandings to decode and analyze as well as to create and produce all types of texts. The California Teaching Performance Expectations also require teacher education programs to expand this view of literacy and integrate media and technology into coursework in order to “deepen teaching and learning to provide students with opportunities to participate in a digital society and economy” ( California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, 2016 , p. 9).

Each class starts by reviewing and applying the conceptual understandings and questions. Since one goal of the course is for candidates to understand that literacy includes reading and writing all types of texts, we encourage students to analyze as well as produce media. A series of assignments requires candidates to work together to create various types of media projects such as visual posters, photographs, podcasts, memes, digital stories, and social media. The candidates are also expected to work collaboratively on a CML lesson plan and learning segment that they write up, present a summary of to the whole class, and when possible, also teach it. For a detailed description of this course, see Share (2015) and visit the UCLA Library Critical Media Literacy Research Guide for links to articles, videos, and websites used in the course. 3

Table 1. Critical Media Literacy Framework

From a desire to explore if and how former students are applying the skills and knowledge gained from the critical media literacy (CML) course into their teaching practice, we created an online survey for students who had taken the course. Through purposeful sampling, we sent out the survey to the 738 students who had taken the CML course and ended up with 185 usable responses (25% response rate), 153 preservice and 32 in-service teachers. Of the 185 respondents, 53 taught elementary school and 132 were secondary-level teachers. The breakdown of the middle school and high school teachers was: 38 science, 34 math, 33 social sciences, 28 English, and several reported teaching a combination of subjects as well as some who taught other areas such as music, visual arts, Spanish, English language development, or adult education. The span of experience was wide; some just started teaching and some had been teaching over seven years, yet most of the teachers (52%) had been teaching between two and three years.

The mixed method survey included 20 questions. The first eight sought to identify participants’ teaching background. The remaining 12 questions inquired about their experiences teaching CML skills and concepts to their K-12 students. Ten quantitative questions used a Likert scale with a choice of responses, including very frequently, frequently, occasionally, rarely, and never, as well as an option to choose not applicable. The final two qualitative questions were open-ended in which respondents could type their thoughts about any “memorable moment(s) teaching critical media literacy” and “any additional comments.” During the analysis phase, we found it helpful to combine the categories very frequently and frequently and refer to them as VF/F.

Voices From the Field

Using mixed methods of quantitative and qualitative data, we analyzed the survey responses to explore teachers’ ideas about what they had been doing with their students. The overall feedback suggested that the majority of the respondents had brought aspects of media literacy education into their K-12 classrooms, and sometimes even incorporated CML. One of the most recurring patterns we noticed was that these teachers had been expanding the traditional concept of literacy by engaging their students with various types of media.

Teaching With Media

In reply to the first question, most of the respondents reported having integrated media into their class activities: 64% VF/F, 30% occasionally, 6% rarely, and no one responded never ( N = 185). The responses to Question 1 were very similar for elementary and secondary teachers, with only a 1% to 5% difference. Where we saw greater variation was when comparing the subject matter of secondary teachers. The English and science teachers had the highest percentages (75% and 76%) of VF/F responses to Question 1 about integrating media into class activities. Math teachers, by contrast, reported the lowest percentage, with 44% reporting VF/F and 15% rarely integrating media into the curriculum (see Figure 1 ).

Figure 1. Responses from secondary teachers to Question 1 about how often they integrated media into class activities.

While these responses demonstrated an overall high amount of media integration, it was not clear how the teachers integrated media and what students were doing with the media. The responses from Question 5 (“my students have created the following media”) provided more information about the students’ interactions with media, showing that the vast majority of respondents (92%) had their students create some type of media (see Figure 2 for a list of the various media students created).

Since the question only asked teachers to check the box for the type of media their students created, we did not know how often this occurred or with what degree of analysis. Questions 1 and 5 indicated that teaching with media occurred with over 90% of the respondents.

Figure 2. Responses to Question 5 about the different types of media that all 185 respondents report their students have created. They were asked to choose all that apply.

Teaching About Media

The second question tried to find out more about those interactions with media by asking respondents to rate how often they had given their “students opportunities to engage in media analysis.” For Question 2, about one-third of all 185 respondents, 32%, reported VF/F, 43% occasionally, 21% rarely, and 4% never. When comparing responses from Questions 1 and 2, the respondents seemed to have been doing more teaching with media (Question 1) than teaching about media (Question 2) (see Figure 3 ). A similar finding was mentioned in the research conducted in Germany and the United States by Tiede et al. (2015) .

Figure 3. Comparing all responses from Question 1 about integrating media into class activities (teaching with media) with Question 2 about engaging in media analysis (teaching about media).

A more nuanced perspective of Question 2 is possible when comparing the responses about media analysis from different content area secondary teachers. In response to Question 2, the teachers who reported VF/F were the following: 63% of English teachers reported giving the most opportunities for their students to engage in media analysis, as compared to almost half as often by 32% of science teachers and about five times less often by 12% of math teachers (see Figure 4 ). Since literacy is a primary goal of English instruction, it is not surprising that English teachers reported the highest levels of media analysis ( Hobbs, 2007b ).

It is important to recognize that teaching about media can be a highly complex and multifaceted undertaking, especially when done through a CML lens. For example, the second conceptual understanding encourages students to analyze the codes and conventions of the media text and the medium through which they travel by asking how the text was constructed and delivered or accessed. This, in itself, can have many layers and yet is just one of six questions intended to help students think critically about media. Livingstone (2018) asserts, “media literacy is needed not only to engage with the media but to engage with society through the media .” As Luke and Freebody (1997) argue, it is not enough to only have a psychological approach to literacy, as if reading and writing is just an individual cognitive process. We need to also bring a sociological lens into the process of questioning the contexts, the dominant ideologies, and the systems that make some things seem “natural” or “normal.” The CML framework is a holistic tool for thinking about and questioning the dynamic role media play in our relationships with ourselves, each other, and society. Responses and comments to other questions in the survey provide more insight into how some teachers have engaged their students in various types of media analysis.

Figure 4. Comparing responses from different content areas about Question 2 regarding how often secondary teachers gave their students opportunities to engage in media analysis.

Evaluating Information and Advertising

In the qualitative responses to Questions 11 and 12, teachers mentioned embracing basic media literacy principles in the ways students were evaluating the credibility of information and advertising as well as creating different types of media. The popularity of the term “fake news” and the growing amount of disinformation have increased the challenge to distinguish misinformation and propaganda from journalism and scientifically researched facts ( Rogow, 2018 ). An elementary teacher who reported “frequently” integrating media into the classroom, asserted:

Though my students are younger and some of these concepts are more difficult to teach than others, I find it important to bring up especially in terms of making sure they don’t believe every YouYube video they watch. We’ve had many meaningful discussions about what can be created for a video shouldn’t just be accepted as the truth. For example, the ‘mermaid’ documentary that came out a few years ago had all of my students convinced that they had found a mermaid. It led to an interesting discussion on hoaxes and further reading about Bigfoo[t] and other such stories.

Since all media contain bias because they are created by subjective humans, it is important for teachers to help their students to recognize the bias and also be able to judge the credibility of information. A high school math teacher wrote:

It has not happened until this school year, when I began teaching Statistics. I introduced some pictographs for students to analyze and an article for students to read about how a website stated that if polls were unskewed, Trump would be leading the polls for election. I had students read and discuss about the validity and why/why not it is trustable.

Several respondents mentioned having their students study political advertising, and since all U.S. elections are now multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns (e.g., Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign won the top prizes at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Awards), there is little distinction between selling products, ideas, and political candidates.

Analyzing advertising is an important aspect of media education because advertising is the motor that drives commercial media and has become so common in our lives that there are few spaces that are completely ad-free ( Jhally, 2003 ). Several respondents reported about their students investigating advertisements for false health messages, misleading packaging, political campaigns, tobacco, alcohol, and different perspectives. One secondary English teacher wrote, “My students took pictures of advertisements that surrounded their neighborhood and we analyzed them for patterns, themes, and purposes.” A high school science teacher reported, “I had many times this past year where students were able to reflect on marketing strategies and how they affect the viewer’s perspective of their life and themselves. Students made great connections.”

During the critical media literacy (CML) class, students scrutinize consumer culture and the role advertising plays in creating anxieties, shaping desires, and normalizing representations about all things, from consumption to gender, race, and class. Candidates in the CML class learn about these ideas through readings, by analyzing advertisements, and also by creating ads for different target audiences. When asked about the media their students had created, one third reported their students created advertisements.

Creating Different Types of Media

When students are taught print literacy, they are instructed how to decode letters on a page and how to write with those letters to construct words, sentences, and paragraphs. The same process of teaching reading and writing should be applied to visual images, movies, songs, video games, social media, and all the various multimedia texts that students are encountering daily. In responses from the survey, teachers reported about having their students write and create many different types of texts beyond print (see Figure 2 ).

One English teacher wrote that having students create media was “very successful. They loved being able to create memes, posters, Prezis, etc. to present their work.” An elementary teacher shared about students “creating podcasts/npr style news stories regarding UN sustainability goals.” Several respondents commented on their students designing commercials or challenging ads by producing spoofs that parody the ads. One middle school teacher shared, “students analyzed ads for nicotine and alcohol products, then used the practice with critical media skills to create ‘anti-ads’ with Google drawings.”

During the first year of teaching, a high school science teacher reported about a memorable moment when “creating a multi-lingual, easy-to-understand and scientifically supported pamphlet on the hazards in LA’s environment.” A high school Spanish teacher wrote about his students creating critical memes in Spanish, like the ones they created in the critical media literacy (CML) class. During the session exploring racism and media, candidates challenge racist representations through creating racial myth-busting memes. As a strategy to demonstrate the value of media production, the CML class has students create various media in almost every session, and these activities are often the favorite lessons mentioned in the end of course evaluations.

Increasing Engagement

While engagement is not a learning objective, all teaching benefits from students being engaged in their learning. One of the patterns that emerged from the responses was teachers’ observations that student engagement increased. An eighth-grade English teacher wrote that after incorporating media literacy, the students’ “entire attitude toward learning shifted. Especially the hard to reach students.” An elementary teacher reported, “Media literacy has made great contributions in my class with science research in the past. The simple act of using google images, google maps and finding credible sources has sparked learning and interest in my class.” Another elementary teacher shared about using critical media literacy (CML) to analyze food justice issues: “They were instantly engaged and students who had a difficult time writing and with critical thinking then did not.”

A secondary science teacher reported, “Students spent the entire class engaged in discussion when I intended for it to only be an introduction to the unit.” Another high school science teacher wrote, “When I did teach a class specifically geared towards media literacy, it was great because students were engaged. They were quick at analyzing images and creating their own.” A third science teacher wrote, “using critical media literacy made engaging my students in abstract chemistry concepts more meaningful and engaging.” Engagement tends to increase when students are genuinely interested and intrinsically motivated, something that often comes out of personal connection, a sense of meaningfulness, and an authentic belief in the value of the learning ( Dewey, 1963 ). These are all elements of good CML pedagogy. A high school science teacher described the feelings of students and their parents as they responded to their CML work: “My favorite moments are students exuding pride and passion over the work they are creating that speaks to their perspectives and experiences; parents proud of their students’ media creations.” Feelings of pride and passion are important for all students to experience; they help lower students’ affective filters for learning ( Krashen, 1995 ) and increase intrinsic motivation to want to learn.

Critical Media Literacy

As we analyzed teachers’ written responses, we saw a number of comments in which they were taking basic media literacy concepts to deeper levels of criticality. Several mentioned how useful the class was to understanding critical theory and be able to see how it can be enacted in their K-12 classroom. Similar findings were mentioned after Joanou (2017) analyzed data about a critical media literacy (CML) class taught to master’s-level practicing K-12 educators. Joanou (2017) reported, “critical media literacy helps bridge the gap between theory and practice” (p. 40). The use of media texts and popular culture can provide relevant examples for entry into abstract concepts that are often politically and emotionally charged, and sometimes too sensitive or too distant to begin discussing on a personal level.

Teaching about the connections between information and power reflects a key goal of CML ( Kellner & Share, 2007 ) and our respondents demonstrated this through their qualitative comments about recreating counter-narratives, analyzing the politics of representation, making critical connections between history and current events with media texts, and engaging in political, social, and environmental media activism. Questions 3 and 4 attempted to assess the frequency in which teachers were bringing critical aspects of media education to their students.

Question 3 asks teachers to rate how often: “My students have engaged in media analysis by exploring media representations of ideology, race, class, gender, sexuality, environmentalism, and/or other social justice issues.” Elementary and secondary teachers reported almost identical frequencies in response to Question 3: 22% in both groups reported VF/F while 42% (elementary) and 45% (secondary) stated occasionally. When asked Question 4 about making connections between information and power, the differences increased: 39% of the secondary teachers responded doing this VF/F while just 23% of the elementary teachers reported doing this VF/F.

In-service teachers reported higher frequencies for Question 3: 54% of in-service teachers reported VF/F while preservice teachers reported 14% VF/F. For Question 4: 56% of in-service teachers reported VF/F compared with 30% of preservice teachers who reported VF/F.

When comparing responses separated by subject matter with secondary teachers, 33% of English teachers and 30% of social science teachers reported VF/F for engaging in critical media analysis, as seen in Question 3 about exploring media representations. This is considerably higher than the 16% of science teachers and 9% of math teachers reporting VF/F. The math and science teachers reported the highest percentages for rarely or never having their students explore media representations of social justice issues (see Figure 5 ). The literature supports similar findings. Garii and Rule (2009) reported that student teachers had a difficult time integrating social justice into math and science content due to several factors. In their research with novice elementary teachers, Garii and Rule discovered that the candidates were not confident in their ability to teach math and science and had limited and unsophisticated knowledge of the content. They also viewed math and science “to be a set of routinized, algorithmic practices that lead to a single, correct answer and neither science nor mathematics are assumed to be closely connected to real-world issues and concerns” (p. 491). Given that they are struggling to learn and understand the content, math and science candidates turned to classroom textbooks to guide instructional practices. Incorporating nontraditional practices or making connections to students’ lives becomes a challenge because they disconnect social justice from their teaching and focus on teaching to the content ( Garii & Rule, 2009 ).

Figure 5. Responses to Question 3 from secondary teachers about how often they engaged their students in critical “media analysis by exploring media representations of ideology, race, class, gender, sexuality, environmentalism, and/or other social justice issues.”

One of the more significant findings of the study is the number of respondents reporting they “noticed that using critical media literacy encourages critical thinking among students” (Question 9). Of the preservice respondents, 61% reported VF/F, and for the in-service teachers, the percentages jump to 81% who reported VF/F. In both cases, the majority of respondents expressed their feelings that CML promotes critical thinking most of the time (see Figure 6 ). A middle school social science teacher wrote that after teaching CML, “students were deeper thinkers and our discussions were so much richer. Students were highly engaged and more invested in the classroom.” When comparing grade levels for Question 9, we see 78% of elementary teachers reported that using CML VF/F encourages critical thinking, and 61% of secondary teachers reported VF/F. This large percentage of elementary teachers reporting about CML encouraging critical thinking shows great promise for the potential of CML in the early grades.

Figure 6. Comparison of preservice and in-service teachers’ responses to Question 9 about how often they have noticed CML encourages critical thinking among their students.

Creating Counter Narratives and Supporting Students’ Voices

Many of the responses regarding transformative education centered on guiding students to create counternarratives and supporting student ideas and voices. Respondents mentioned activities that enabled their students to recreate media texts with a critical lens. These counternarratives included recreating superhero comic books, news, advertisements, digital storytelling, national holiday observances, and poems. A high school English teacher noted, “after analyzing recent and popular superhero comic books, my students used the comic medium to tell an autobiographical story wherein they exhibited power in the face of oppression.” A middle school English teacher reported:

The most memorable lesson I’ve taught involving critical media literacy was a unit based on perseverance and the power of the human spirit in regards to power structures and oppression. After analyzing multiple types of media, students created their own VoiceThread using spoken word in order to share their own messages of perseverance. It was incredibly powerful to hear their messages.

For most respondents, the notion of enabling their students to share personal stories using multimedia tools meant that they were integrating critical media pedagogy into their teaching practice. Traditionally, personal and experiential knowledge as a form of literacy is not often valued; thus, it is a critical pedagogical orientation to encourage students to recreate media texts that reflect their intersecting realities and challenge the pervasive dominant ideologies. Students’ personal histories become scholarly pursuits when digital storytelling encompasses media production skills taught through a critical media literacy (CML) framework. Vasquez (2017) asserts, “students learn best when what they are learning has importance in their lives, using the topics, issues, and questions that they raise should therefore be an important part of creating the classroom curriculum” (p. 8). A middle school math and technology teacher commented about incorporating CML into her master’s inquiry project:

The project we ultimately created was a digital storytelling project, in which students interviewed their parents or someone they admire and created some sort of media project around that story to tell counter-narratives to the dominant story told in media about people of color.

Guiding students to create counternarratives can be an empowering instructional strategy that nurtures their personal realities and supports their voice. Considering the context of urban education, it becomes particularly important for low-income students and students of color, who have been historically denied the power to be heard, to engage in their learning as empowered subjects through creating digital counter-narratives.

Politics of Representation

A major difference between critical media literacy (CML) and the more common media literacy practiced in the United States is the rigorous examination of the politics of representation; an analysis of how historically disenfranchised social groups are represented in media ( Funk et al., 2016 ). Many of the respondents discussed analyzing issues related to representations of different identities with their students. A high school visual arts teacher reported that through “using current events in the media, students created headline news with people of color perspective.” The majority of the responses highlighted engaging in discussions related to gender and a few responses about race. One elementary teacher noted:

My grade level did a Critical Media Literacy unit and after it was over, a week later, a student showed me a box of Chips Ahoy cookies and said that it was made to be sold to boys and girls. She compared it to a rainbow pop tarts box made for girls and a basketball cereal box made for boys that we had discussed during the CML unit.

A high school social science teacher reported:

My 11th and 12th grade Sociology class created representation boards. Each group was assigned an identity (‘white male,’ ‘Asian male,’ ‘black female,’ etc.). When each group was done, we compared the images and discussed the similarities between representations of race and gender. It really opened their eyes.

The politics of representation explores the complexities and intersections of identity markers, such as ethnicity, culture, gender, class, sexual orientation, religion, and ableism. Several candidates alluded to the intersectionality between race and gender in their responses, mostly engaging their students in discussions related to the unequal representation and socialization of gender roles. They also noted that discussing stereotypical gender roles challenged their students’ internalized notions of gender. Responses such as the following highlight the shift in their students’ perspectives about gender: An elementary teacher wrote, “We’ve had some successful discussions around gender stereotypes and I’ve heard the language change in the classroom and students be more thoughtful about others’ choices.” Another elementary teacher reported, “My students showed greater acceptance. After teaching a lesson invoking gender all my male students felt accepted to choose any color paper—the favorite was pink for the rest of the year.”

Making Critical Connections

In response to the open-ended questions, an array of items was mentioned that demonstrate critical engagement, from teaching about racism and whitewashing, to numerous examples of analyzing gender and sexism, as well as projects on environmental justice and climate change at all grade levels. Some respondents discussed their transformative practice through the way their students analyzed and created media to make critical connections between historical and current events.

A high school social science teacher stated, “I had students create videos explaining the situation in Ukraine and relating it to the Cold War. In United States history, I often had students look at political cartoons and think about current examples of imperialism and how they’re represented in media.” Similarly, another social science teacher described a memorable moment of teaching critical media literacy (CML) as: “When students could make the connection between yellow journalism in Spanish-American War and media sensationalism during the War on Terror.” An elementary school teacher wrote:

My students began to think critically about history after showing them the spoken word poem ‘History Textbooks,’ which talked about world history being American Propaganda. Through this poem, they began questioning: who gets to write history and whose stories are told? It was a really powerful lesson we returned to over and over again throughout my course.

Analyzing media texts by acknowledging their historical continuity is vital because marginalization and exploitation are historically bound. Discovering these historical connections helps teachers and students learn how dominance and ideology are perpetuated, transcending time and space. Bridging the gap between the past and the present enables students to identify the common thread of hegemony across various spheres of social life. This instructional approach of CML promotes critical thinking with a social justice emphasis.

Another topic on which respondents commented was using CML to teach about environmental issues, especially the climate crisis. This is an important area for CML, since so many media messages about climate change distort the scientific evidence and mislead the public ( Beach et al., 2017 ; Share & Beach, 2022 ). A high school science teacher reported, “My class analyzed the politics behind climate change denial and how climate change is represented in the media. It was very easy for my students to see the connection between the message and its creators.” Exploring the connection between media ownership and media messages, another high school science teacher commented that a memorable moment was having a “discussion with students about where they were getting their information about environmental issues, and talking about who owns and controls Univision.”

In addition to becoming more aware, being engaged in critical analysis and creating counternarratives, some respondents noted that their students had engaged in political, environmental, and social media activism. A high school science teacher mentioned:

My class was looking at environmental justice and one student took that information and used it for an English project she was working on and that project transformed into a petition to the city council to plant more trees as her contribution to offsetting pollution in the inner city.

Another science teacher reported about how his “students created social media campaigns to raise awareness about animals affected by climate change. Different groups created the ‘Puffin Dance’ and #peekatmypika to help their campaigns get going.” A kindergarten teacher wrote about her students creating a video with opinion posters for change they shared with their school community.

Activism can be enacted in multiple ways; some efforts are more explicit, like petitions and protests, while others are more subtle, such as creating alternative media. Teacher responses reflect their students’ activism related to social, environmental, and political issues materialized through local and issue-specific efforts.

In analyzing the responses, we found many encouraging and hopeful comments about how critical media literacy (CML) has helped teachers rethink their pedagogy and increase student engagement. However, the responses also highlight challenges for implementing CML, such as limited resources, support, and clarity about how to integrate it into the curriculum. An elementary teacher wrote about the scarcity of technology at the school and how that “makes it difficult to do anything around critical media.” From the answers to Question 7 (incorporating CML into my teaching is difficult), secondary teachers reported more difficulty teaching CML (35% VF/F) than elementary teachers (26% VF/F). This is another place where the potential for CML in the lower grades surfaced, since they seem to have less difficulty incorporating it than secondary teachers. The design of most elementary classrooms, which requires the same teacher to cover all subject matter to the same group of students throughout the day, opens the potential for integrating CML pedagogy through thematic teaching, project-based learning, or problem-posing pedagogy.

A first-year middle school social science teacher shared wanting to use more CML, but had little departmental and administrative support. An elementary teacher shared about an administrator who “is reluctant to have me teach how to be critical of all media.” Three responses focused on wanting more resources, instructional strategies, and school-appropriate material in order to be able to implement CML in their classrooms. These qualitative statements of lack of support can be seen in the quantitative responses to Question 10 in which respondents rated the statement: “I feel supported by people at my school when teaching critical media literacy”: 36% VF/F, 24% occasionally, 18% rarely, 6% never felt supported, and 17% not applicable.

The group that shared the most challenges for implementing CML consisted of five teachers who taught secondary math and science. Their qualitative responses broadly discussed the difficulty of integrating CML into their content and finding only limited application. One of these responses from a high school math teacher mentioned:

I remember how when I was in the [CML] class, it seemed all over the place. I was unable to fully find the purpose of the class and how we can use it in a math class. In a traditional math class, such as Pre-Calculus or Calculus, it was rather difficult to find ways to incorporate the idea of CML.

This same person also commented that once he began teaching statistics, he was able to find ways to integrate CML. Of the 34 math teachers who answered Question 7, 59% of them reported that incorporating CML into their teaching was difficult VF/F. This is about double the VF/F responses from the other subjects.

A high school math teacher saw the value in teaching students CML but limited its application to challenging students’ misinformation about math and who is or is not a mathematician:

Critical Media Literacy is pretty important for students, especially in an age where they’re exposed to various forms of media, a lot of which is very skewed in one way or the other, and usually takes a reductionist viewpoint of the issues it addresses. I try to use CML to help students understand the misinformation about mathematics, the nature of mathematics, and challenge stereotypes of who is or isn’t a mathematician (examples: Not all mathematicians are white or Asian, there are Latino and African/African American mathematicians, there are mathematicians from faith backgrounds, mathematics isn’t just about calculations, etc.).

Two additional respondents also acknowledged the benefits of CML but felt challenged by the additional work needed to integrate it into the curriculum. A high school science teacher shared:

When I took the Critical Media Literacy class, it felt like it was more geared towards the humanities and not necessarily for the sciences. While it would be great to come up with lessons that connect chemistry and critical media literacy, it is immensely time-consuming when I can’t find other people to brainstorm with.

Another secondary science teacher also felt CML was important but struggled to find ways to integrate it into the classroom:

It was a great shared learning space and I got a ton of inspiration from taking the class; however, it has been difficult to use CML when direct instruction does focus on the explanation of scientific concepts. That’s not to say it is impossible, it just does take one more step of planning and student buy in.

Researchers in Canada found that after teaching CML concepts and skills in a Language Arts methods course, their preservice teachers felt enthusiastic about teaching media literacy, but challenged when designing CML lessons ( Robertson & Hughes, 2011 , p. 51). Robertson and Hughes (2011) list five reasons why teaching CML was so challenging for their students: (1) when these preservice teachers were K-12 students, most did not experience CML lessons; (2) the majority of their mentor teachers did not teach CML or know much about it; (3) critical analysis practices are not easy; (4) few resources are available; and (5) some schools have little technology and technical support. These are many of the same challenges that our teachers reported.

Intent and Importance of Incorporating Critical Media Literacy

Numerous teachers wrote about how meaningful, vital, transformative, and important this class was for them. A high school science teacher shared that the critical media literacy (CML) class, “was transformative! I’m still working on ways to fully integrate what I learned, but I have had my students creating media ever since.” A middle school English teacher commented about how the CML class “gave us techniques, projects, lessons that we can incorporate in our classrooms. Teaching students how to be critical of information related through the media is highly important because student[s] gain that critical awareness necessary for a technology-based society!”

A desire to bring more CML into the classroom surfaced throughout many of the qualitative responses. When asked to indicate any additional comments, 16 out of 64 respondents (25%) expressed their intention to integrate concepts related to media literacy or CML. A high school math teacher who wrote about having students create ads to represent data in graphs stated, “I wish I could incorporate more. I’ll keep trying.” A kindergarten teacher commented, “I wish I had more time to engage my students in this topic. As I grow in experience and expertise, I incorporate it more and more. Teaching in urban areas is a challenge but I do find the ideas of the course to be valuable in the classroom.”

The data and voices of these teachers raise practical, theoretical, and policy implications for future work in supporting teachers in adopting a pedagogical approach that can ignite engagement, make learning relevant, and deepen critical thinking with media, technology, and all information. In order for this to happen, teacher education programs need to address some of the challenges and limitations highlighted in the study.

The teachers surveyed reported challenges for implementing critical media literacy (CML) such as limited access to resources, lack of support, and a struggle to understand how to integrate it into the curriculum. This was especially evident for the math and science teachers. CML courses need to help teachers in all content areas rethink the silo approach to separate subject matter instruction and recognize the ways literacy is used in all areas and how information is connected to students’ lives through issues of power, privilege, and pleasure. To help teachers integrate CML into the curriculum, it is important for them to see content and grade-level examples while also receiving ongoing support and resources.

One way to support teachers in various subject matter is to create groups or projects modeled after the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) or the Center X professional development projects. 4 The SHEG is a research and development group that provides free online resources and lesson plans for history teachers to support students in developing historical thinking skills. In a similar way, the Center X projects provide resources, lesson ideas, and professional development to support working teachers and administrators, while also creating curriculum, providing trainings, and engaging in research. The creation of a CML project or research and development group could provide ongoing professional development for new and experienced teachers in order to sustain CML implementation and support the growth of CML as an important field of investigation.

In-service teachers in our survey reported higher rates of integration of CML, perhaps because experienced teachers have figured out issues of classroom management, lesson planning, and how to balance work and life expectations. As a result, they are better situated to build and expand their curricula and teaching practices to bring CML into their classrooms. While creating a site modeled after the SHEG or Center X projects will require a significant investment of time and money, a more immediate and economical way to provide support for preservice teachers could be through integrating CML across various teacher preparation courses, especially in methods classes. This integration would require working with teacher educators to explore the CML theoretical framework and co-construct new practices and curricula for integrating these ideas throughout different content areas.

Despite the challenges reported by our teachers, the data also suggest promising possibilities for CML. While we do not claim causality between their teaching and the CML course, the data provide a window into how our preservice and in-service teachers have supported critical engagement with the information, entertainment, and social media embedded in the lives of students.

The similarities between elementary and secondary teachers suggest that CML can be just as appropriate for lower grades as it is commonly assumed to be for older students. The work in critical literacy by Comber (2013) and Vasquez (2014) offers support for the notion that young children can engage deeply in critical thinking and social justice education. The elementary teachers in our study demonstrate these ideas through the work they have done to engage their young students with media analysis and critical media production from kindergarten on up. While some teachers reported deep levels of critical analysis more often than others, many expressed their belief in the importance of CML and their desire to teach about social justice. Vasquez (2017) reminds us that critical literacy should not be a topic to teach: “Instead it should be looked on as a lens, frame, or perspective for teaching throughout the day, across the curriculum, and perhaps beyond. What this means is that critical literacy involves having a critical perspective or way of being” (p. 8). Developing social justice educators who internalize a critical way of looking at the world and questioning systems of power is the project for which CML provides a pragmatic framework and pedagogy.

It is impressive to see the majority of teachers reporting that using CML encourages critical thinking, something more important than ever in the age of fake news and alternative facts. There is hope in the teachers’ voices as they describe the activities they have been doing with their students, the successes they have encountered, and the challenges they have struggled to overcome. The comments about their intentions to teach CML and the importance they attribute to teaching these concepts provide encouragement for teacher educators to embrace CML. More than anything, the data demonstrate the potential for teaching CML in elementary and secondary settings with preservice and in-service teachers and in all content areas, even though some are more challenging than others. The use of media and technology offers opportunities for teachers to build on students’ prior knowledge, create a bridge to connect the outside world with school learning, and provide the raw material to examine everyday experiences of power, marginalization, and resistance.

Simply integrating media into the curriculum is not enough to develop critical literacies given the changing and multiple literacies associated with new digital information and communication technologies and practices. In the contemporary moment, there is a pressing pedagogical need to navigate the increasingly consequential artificial intelligence (AI) systems that collect, collate, process, predict and disseminate information determined by algorithms. Data from the survey suggest that our teachers are teaching more with media than critically analyzing it. Further studies are needed in order to better understand how to develop teachers’ CML frameworks and support more implementation.

Preparing educators to teach CML is not easy, and unfortunately, few institutes of higher education are attempting the challenge. However, it is possible, and in fact, it can be highly rewarding. By listening to the voices of teachers who have taken a CML course, we see the potential. As one high school science teacher commented, “CML changed me, changed my teaching, continues to change my students.”

While information communication technologies are integrating into all aspects of our lives, we are also witnessing increasing divisions between the haves and have nots, out-of-control climate change, and the weaponization of information and media. In order to create a socially just democratic society and sustainable planet, we must have people who can critically read and write the word and the world ( Freire & Macedo, 1987 ). The need for CML has never been greater. A high school English teacher wrote, “there is no literacy without media literacy. There is not critical pedagogy without critical media literacy.” It is our hope that this article serves as a resource to continue exploring the potential that CML offers to transform students, schools, and society.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the following educators who helped us design and teach this critical media literacy course: Shani Byard, Peter Carlson, Steven Funk, Antero Garcia, Mark Gomez, Clifford Lee, Elexia Reyes-McGovern, and Martin Romero. We are grateful to Megan Franke for her guidance with the creation of the survey. We also appreciate the assistance of Jarod Kawasaki, Jose-Felipe Martinez, and Brandon McMillan with helping to organize the survey data.

Media Literacy in the Modern Age

How to understand the messages we observe all day every day

Cynthia Vinney, PhD is an expert in media psychology and a published scholar whose work has been published in peer-reviewed psychology journals.

Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Morsa Images / Getty Images

How to Practice Media Literacy

Media literacy is the ability to apply critical thinking skills to the messages, signs, and symbols transmitted through mass media .

We live in a world that is saturated with media of all kinds, from newspapers to radio to television to the internet. Media literacy enables us to understand and evaluate all of the media messages we encounter on a daily basis, empowering us to make better choices about what we choose to read, watch, and listen to. It also helps us become smarter, more discerning members of society.

Media literacy is seen as an essential 21st-century skill by educators and scholars, including media psychologists . In fact, the mission statement of Division 46 of the American Psychological Association , the Society for Media Psychology and Technology , includes support for the development of media literacy.

Despite this, many people still dismiss media as harmless entertainment and claim they aren't influenced by its messages. However, research findings consistently demonstrate that people are impacted by the media messages they consume.

Media literacy interventions and education help children and adults recognize the influence media has and give them the knowledge and tools to mitigate its impact.

History of Media Literacy

The earliest attempts at media literacy education are often traced back to the British Film Institute's push in the late 1920s and early 1930s to teach analytical skills to media users. Around the same time in America, the Wisconsin Association for Better Broadcasters sought to teach citizens to be more critical consumers of media.

However, the goal of these initial media literacy efforts, which continued into the 1960s, was to protect students from media by warning them against its consumption. Despite this perspective, the dominance of media—and television in particular—continued to grow, even as interest in media literacy education waned.

More recently, the advent of the internet and portable technologies that enable us to consume media anywhere and anytime has led to a resurgence in the call for media literacy. Yet the goal is no longer to prevent people from using media, but to help them become more informed, thoughtful media consumers.

Although media literacy education has now become accepted and successful in English-speaking countries including Australia, Canada, and Britain, it has yet to become a standard part of the curriculum in the United States, where a lack of centralization has led to a scattershot approach to teaching practical media literacy skills.

Impact of Media Literacy

Despite America's lack of a standardized media literacy curriculum, study after study has shown the value of teaching people of all ages media literacy skills.

For example, a review of the research on media literacy education and reduction in racial and ethnic stereotypes found that children as young as 12 can be trained to recognize bias in media depictions of race and ethnicity and understand the harm it can cause.

Though the authors note that this topic is still understudied, they observe that the evidence suggests media literacy education can help adolescents become sensitive to prejudice and learn to appreciate diversity.

Meanwhile, multiple studies have shown that media literacy interventions reduce body dissatisfaction that can be the result of the consumption of media messages.

In one investigation, adolescent girls were shown an intervention video by the Dove Self-Esteem Fund before being shown images of ultra-thin models. While a control group reported lower body satisfaction and body esteem after viewing the images of the models, the group that viewed the intervention first didn't experience these negative effects.

Similarly, another study showed college women (who were at high risk for eating disorders ) reported less body dissatisfaction, a lower desire to be thin, and reduced internalization of societal beauty standards after participating in a media literacy intervention. The researchers concluded that media literacy training could help prevent eating disorders in high-risk individuals.

Moreover, studies have shown that media literacy education can help people better discern the truth of media claims, enabling them to detect "fake news" and make more informed decisions.

For instance, research into young adults' assessment of the accuracy of claims on controversial public issues was improved if the subjects had been exposed to media literacy education. In addition, another study showed that only people who underwent media literacy training engaged in critical social media posting practices that prevented them from posting false information about the COVID-19 pandemic.

The evidence for the benefits of media literacy suggests it is valuable for people of all ages to learn to be critical media consumers. Media scholar W. James Potter observes that all media messages include four dimensions:

Cognitive : the information that is being conveyed
Emotional : the underlying feelings that are being expressed
Aesthetic: the overall precision and artistry of the message
Moral : the values being conveyed through the message

Media psychologist Karen Dill-Shackleford suggests that we can use these four dimensions as a jumping off point to improve our media literacy skills. For example, let's say while streaming videos online we're exposed to an advertisement for a miracle weight loss drug. In order to better evaluate what the ad is really trying to tell us, we can break it down as follows:

On the cognitive dimension we can assess what information the ad is conveying to us by asking some of the following questions: What does the ad promise the drug will do? Does it seem likely the drug can deliver on those promises? Who would need this kind of drug?
On the emotional dimension, we can evaluate the feelings the creator of the ad wants us to feel: Do they want us to feel insecure about our weight? Do they want us to imagine the positive ways this drug could change our lives? Do they want us to envision the satisfaction we would feel after the drug delivers its quick fix?
On the aesthetic dimension, we can determine how the ad employs messages and images to make us believe the product will deliver on its promises: Does the ad show "before" and "after" images of someone who supposedly took the drug? Does the "before" image look sad and the "after" image happy? Does the ad offer testimonials from people that are identified as experts?
On the moral dimension, we can examine what the ad makers wanted to say: Are they equating thinness with happiness? Are they sending the message that it's a moral failing when someone is overweight? Are they saying that one has to be thin to be loved and respected?

This is one avenue for learning to practice media literacy in everyday life. Remember, the purpose of media literacy isn't to enjoy media less, it's to give people the tools to be active media consumers.

Not only will media literacy enable you to detect, analyze, and evaluate negative or false media messages, it will actually enable you to enjoy media more because it puts control over the media back into your hands. And research shows this is likely to increase your health and happiness.

About the Society for Media Psychology & Technology . Society for Media Psychology & Technology, Division 46 of the American Psychological Association. 2013.

Dill-Shackleford KE. How Fantasy Becomes Reality . New York: Oxford University Press; 2009.

Arke ET. Media Literacy: History, Progress, and Future Hopes . In: Dill-Shackleford KE, ed. The Oxford Handbook Of Media Psychology . 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press; 2012. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195398809.013.0006

Scharrer E, Ramasubramanian S. Intervening in the Media's Influence on Stereotypes of Race and Ethnicity: The Role of Media Literacy Education . Journal of Social Issues . 2015;71(1):171-185. doi:10.1111/josi.12103

Halliwell E, Easun A, Harcourt D. Body dissatisfaction: Can a short media literacy message reduce negative media exposure effects amongst adolescent girls? Br J Health Psychol . 2011;16(2):396-403. doi:10.1348/135910710x515714

Coughlin JW, Kalodner C. Media literacy as a prevention intervention for college women at low- or high-risk for eating disorders . Body Image . 2006;3(1):35-43. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2006.01.001

Kahne J, Bowyer B. Educating for Democracy in a Partisan Age: Confronting the Challenges of Motivated Reasoning and Misinformation . Am Educ Res J . 2016;54(1):3-34. doi:10.3102/0002831216679817

Melki J, Tamim H, Hadid D, Makki M, El Amine J, Hitti E. Mitigating infodemics: The relationship between news exposure and trust and belief in COVID-19 fake news and social media spreading . PLoS One . 2021;16(6). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0252830

Potter WJ. Media Literacy . 4th ed. Los Angeles: SAGE; 2008.

By Cynthia Vinney, PhD Cynthia Vinney, PhD is an expert in media psychology and a published scholar whose work has been published in peer-reviewed psychology journals.

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Enhancing critical thinking skills and media literacy in initial vocational education and training via self-nudging: The contribution of NERDVET project

Riccardo sartori.

1 Department of Human Science, University of Verona, Verona, Italy

Francesco Tommasi

Andrea ceschi, mattia falser, silvia genero.

2 ENAIP Veneto Foundation, Padova, Italy

Silvia Belotto

Associated data.

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Vocational Education and Training (VET) programs are fuelled by technical and practical educational modules. The teaching staff adopts both traditional and innovative pedagogical frameworks to increase the generalization and maintenance of practical skills. At the same time, VET teachers and trainers have a few occasions to promote and include disciplines and educational programs for enhancing students' soft skills, e.g., critical thinking skills (CT) and media literacy (ML). Following the European VET framework and literature of the field, CT and ML represent a social challenge that requires even more efforts by academics, practitioners, and policymakers. Thisstudy situates into this context with the aim of introducing a novel educational approach for supporting the teaching staff in the promotion of students' CT and ML. This educational approach has been realized by the team of researchers and trainers of the NERDVET project, an Erasmus+ KA3 project devoted to the promotion of new tools and policies for enhancing CT and ML in VET. To pursue this aim, the team has employed the self-nudging model which regards the individuals' set of cognitive and behavioral strategies that individuals can develop to target a specific objective. By framing pedagogical strategies into this perspective, the team realized an initial approach for educational activities and teaching strategies to promote students' CT and ML.

Introduction

Vocational education and training (VET) programs aim at equipping students and learners with a supply of technical and practical skills aligned with the labor market's needs. This is notable not only in VET pedagogical frameworks, and in the choice of educational modules of VET providers, but also more institutionally in normative definitions and operationalization of VET centers. This is due to the nature of the purpose of VET to equip students with skills as the glue in between the new workforce and the productivity of specific working sectors. The transformations concerning the labor market underline that the labor market benefits more from the VET sector than other educational pathways. However, this entails that the promotion of technical and practical skills can be insufficient with respect to the promotion of additional skills, e.g., critical thinking skills and media literacy. Focusing more on technical skills at the expense of metacognitive skills may compromise individuals' citizenship behavior (Pfaff-Rüdiger and Riesmeyer, 2016 ; Tommasi et al., 2021a ; Perini et al., 2022 ). The lack of educational models for the promotion of metacognitive competences in VET-led scholarly authors, practitioners, and policymakers to move toward the creation of pathways aimed at the development of these specific components. For example, the European Union (EU) has made skills like critical thinking and media literacy key objectives for the education and training sectors. Following this trend, the EU countries and the European Commission (EC) have used and financed multiple initiatives (e.g., Erasmus+, the Connecting Europe Facility, (European Commission, 2020b )).

It is in this context that the Think smart! Enhancing critical thinking skills and media literacy in VET (NERDVET, n.d.) project, an Erasmus+ KA3 project co-funded by the European Commission 1 , takes place with the proposition of developing a novel educational program to support VET teaching staff in increasing CT and ML skills of their students. The NERDVET educational program is based on different techniques, among which a novel concept of self-nudging has been developed: according to this new self-nudging concept, teachers and trainers can foster students' capacity to create a set of specific personal strategies to reach a target or to tailor their behavior for a proactive purpose, e.g., behaving critically in a digital environment. Through self-nudging, it is possible to develop the proactive commitment of individuals in the processing of information, also aiming at supporting the creation of specific individuals' strategies to critically evaluate information and adopt a specific behavior.

The aim of this study is to present the NERDVET proposal to use the self-nudging model for enhancing students' critical thinking skills and media literacy. At the base (i.e., ontologically, Creswell, 2014 ), critical thinking and media literacy represent two linked metacognitive competences. On the one hand, critical thinking is a metacognitive competence concerning the knowledge and skills of reflection, analysis, and questioning of information, which results in proactive and citizenship behavior. On the other hand, media literacy as a metacognitive competence includes the knowledge and skills to think critically about media information through understanding media representations, structures, and implications (Tommasi et al., 2021a ). Studying critical thinking and media literacy via a psychological (behavioral-cognitive) approach finds a connection with the notion of self-nudging, that is the individuals' own set of metacognitive strategies to pursue personal targets (Hertwig and Grüne-Yanoff, 2017 ; Torma et al., 2018 ). With this framework, we propose indications of possible ways through which teachers and trainers can enhance critical thinking and media literacy among VET students. Our indications serve to create the basis for realizing learning strategies to be implemented within the classroom. Ultimately, this proposal covers both the theoretical background and educational suggestions on implementing exercises whose purpose is the development of these metacognitive competences.

In the following sections, we will first report the current trends for the enhancement of CT and ML in the context of VET. Given the area of intervention of the NERDVET project, we will focus on the European trends for the enhancement of CT and ML in the VET context. Then, we will introduce how CT and ML are considered at the academic level. Here, we will report the definitions of CT and ML as well as an overview of the practices for the enhancement of CT and ML in VET. Second, considering these pieces of knowledge as a reference framework, we will report the self-nudging approach for the implementation of training techniques in the context of VET. We will refer to the ontological similarities between the notions of critical thinking, media literacy, and self-nudging theory to propose a novel approach serving learning strategies within the classroom. Lastly, we will end the discussion of the NERDVET approach for the enhancement of CT and ML by presenting the direct users and beneficiaries of this novel approach for training VET students.

Approaches to critical thinking and media literacy

European trends for the enhancement in the vet context.

The integration of CT and ML in VET curricula is still very scant at the European level, although some preliminary initiatives have been carried out successfully in the last few years. The European institutions have introduced several policies and financial initiatives to support the goal of enhancing CT and ML in the context of vocational training, especially following the COVID-19 outbreak. This is the case of the EC Recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning, which has outlined a set of eight competencies that all individuals need for personal fulfillment and development, active citizenship, social inclusion, and employment. Similarly, the New Skills Agenda for Europe highlights 10 actions to make relevant training, skills, and support available to EU citizens. The European Trend 2020 strategic framework promotes peer learning, including through the collection and dissemination of good practices in the field of CT and ML, while paying special attention to effectively reaching out to disadvantaged learners and those at risk of marginalization. Also, the Commission's Digital Education Action Plan contains 11 actions to make better use of digital technology for teaching, learning, and developing digital competencies, based on the precondition that digital competence includes the confident, creative, and critical use of information and communications technology, which is also considered a crucial component of media literacy. To promote ML and CT, EU funds and programs, such as Erasmus+, the Connecting Europe Facility, the European Structural and Investment Funds, Horizon 2020, Creative Europe and Europe for Citizens, have been utilized by EU countries and the EC. Overall, experts in the field (e.g., policymakers, practitioners, and researchers) agree on the fact that “critical thinking is a widely accepted educational goal […] and its adoption as an educational goal has been recommended based on respect for students' autonomy and preparing students for success in life and democratic citizenship” (Hitchcock, 2018 ).

In contrast to this background, in the VET sector, there is little to no integration of critical thinking skills and media literacy within VET curricula or competence standards. In contrast to other countries (Decreto 220, 1998 ; Decreto 254, 2009 ; Australian Government Department of Education Training, 2016 ), VET curricula at the European level rarely contemplate systematic or integrated teaching of critical thinking either as specific content or as a transversal one (European Commission, 2020a ). The organization of teaching sessions devoted to the development of such competences for students is thus left to VET schools, which–however–do not often have the means and opportunity to do so. Although some transversal skills related to critical thinking are embedded in different subjects and skills, they are neither sufficiently highlighted nor presented in a structured form. The largest part of learning projects remains grounded in implementations meant as a singular intervention and, even when it is not so, it tends to focus exclusively on specific aspects of critical thinking and media literacy. Quite often, these aspects are not treated in an integrated way, but their focus depends on the specific purpose of the project or lesson being carried out (Bergstrom et al., 2018 ).

Overview of reference definitions and current practices

Notwithstanding the institutional context, academics in the field of VET have produced several contributions to CT and ML in recent years. The term critical thinking regards the human metacognitive ability to think clearly and rationally about something. Through critical thinking, individuals can (a) understand logical connections between ideas, (b) identify and evaluate arguments, (c) detect inconsistencies and common mistakes in reasoning and (d) achieve other fundamental aspects (e.g., daily decision-making process) (Kenyon, 2014 ; Bergstrom et al., 2018 ; Tommasi et al., 2021a , b ). Critical thinking is also crucial to moving through the wide world of news that we read every day and avoiding judgment errors (Ceschi et al., 2019 ; Ceschi and Fioretti, 2021 ; Tommasi et al., 2021a , b , c ). It also helps us to judge and understand a lot of aspects of what we read in the media. In this context, critical thinking is viewed at the same level of optimal decision-making competence which relates to the ability to avoid cognitive errors and the use of heuristics (Kenyon, 2014 ). Moreover, it is also an antecedent of positive social skills to critical thinking with issues such as body image, racial stereotypes, and gender (Bergstrom et al., 2018 ).

As for other terms such as information and digital abilities (Bolaños Cerda et al., 2020 ; Bolaños and Pilerot, 2021 ), media literacy is also characterized by terminological ambiguity as it has been discussed in a plurality of different forms with multiple arguments on how to improve it (van Laar et al., 2017 ; Bolaños et al., 2022 ). This partially reflects the lack of consensus on how to enhance media literacy among VET students, namely how to define media literacy in such context and to consider it in line with critical thinking. Arguments have been proposed that media literacy is linked to the notion of critical thinking and regards the ability to identify different types of media and understand the messages they are sending. Media literacy represents a core characteristic of citizenship behavior as well as an indispensable aspect for dealing with the huge amount of information presented in different shapes. Despite the agreement on its importance, authors reported different definitions and attributes of what media literacy means, such as the ability to critically access, analyze, evaluate, and create media messages (Banerjee et al., 2015 ; Schilder and Redmond, 2019 ). Other authors considered media literacy as the cognitive awareness of the importance of media messages and their impact on the public. Such awareness is meant to foster individuals' responsibility to critically evaluate media messages (Geers et al., 2020 ). Moreover, other authors considered media literacy as the ability to reach and understand the information within the media context, although the authors did not provide a clear idea about how such a process is sustained (Cohen and Mihailidis, 2013 ). In particular, they support the idea that individuals can make meaning of the contents and enhance their ability to make decisions.

However, there is still a certain degree of uncertainty concerning the agreement on what could be done to support teaching staff in the promotion of CT and ML in VET students. With respect to these, there are different ways of approaching CT and ML in VET. Some authors refer to the model of social interactions as a learning process to promote these competences (Bandura, 1986 ). This theory has been used to support the idea that CT and ML, as learning processes, may be the result of the vision and interaction between students and teachers (Banerjee et al., 2015 ). Other authors propose a broad social view of the importance of CT and ML, using the human capital theory model to sustain the need to actualize educational models on CT and ML in the context of VET (Edokpolor and Abusomwan, 2019 ). Similarly, others refer to Watson and Glaser ( 2002 ) model to argue that the promotion of critical thinking and media literacy is a consequence of a greater sense of belonging among students and, if promoted, also better active citizenship. Finally, through a cognitive approach, other authors use cognitive psychology models of the so-called debiasing as an intervention tool for the promotion of critical thinking and media literacy in the context of Initial VET (iVET) and citizenship behavior through teaching error recognition and cognitive distortions (Kenyon, 2014 ).

Such uncertainty is due to the multiplicity and complexity of factors interviewing on CT and ML, which makes it even more difficult to realize effective educational models for their promotion. Reviewing the literature in the field, Tommasi et al. ( 2021a ) argued that there is a wide range of relevant factors for students, teachers, group-class, and communities that scholarly authors have been considering to propose training interventions. These include teaching techniques that, through stimulating reflectiveness, can help promote critical thinking and media literacy, also beyond the iVET context. Although there is not vast literature in this regard, this literature review suggests the existence of possible strategies which allow for improving individuals' disposal, personal resources, and reducing biases and cognitive prejudices (Noorani et al., 2019 ). In this regard, the teacher's role becomes crucial because they are called to set up the right conditions in the learning contexts to enhance those metacognitive skills. It is important to give appropriate input and tools that can support these processes to offer students the chance to keep implementing those metacognitive competences through personal and self-developed stimuli. Teachers may use significant samples, combined with the possible specific contextualization, to foster the comprehension of the consequent benefits of applying critical thinking and media literacy. In addition, this contribution aims to suggest learning practices and cues for personalizing the interventions toward the enhancement of critical thinking and media literacy in the context of iVET. This entails the importance of focusing on the individual and the comprehension of where to apply those skills in their specific situations.

The NERDVET approach

Considering the very definitions and practices (Tommasi et al., 2021a ), and the very institutional approaches as well, these can be interpreted through a behavioral-cognitive psychology approach and in particular via nudging and self-nudging models. At the base (i.e., ontologically, Creswell, 2014 ), critical thinking skills and media literacy regard how individuals understand information and concepts as well as promote specific cognitive and behavioral strategies. This echoes both the theoretical and empirical knowledge of the bunch of psychology and behavioral sciences devoted to the study of the human decision-making process (Cohen and Jaffray, 1980 ; Bell et al., 1988 ). In this, scholars have proposed an approach aiming to make ideal normative decision-makers, considering their cognitive limitations and trying to help them through the implementation of particularly difficult tasks and operations as a reframing action (Baron, 2000 ). Accordingly, individuals would be equipped with a set of logical abilities linked thanks to their reflective abilities in problem-solving activities, and their comprehension of the causes and effects of possible flawed choices. Trainers are asked to support the decision-making process of individuals with methods that help to reduce or eradicate errors. For example, the observation of commonly used reactions that are inconsistent with certain information for problem-solving can be considered to think more deeply about these inconsistencies, i.e., heuristics and biases, and foster critical thinking (Cohen and Jaffray, 1980 ; Bell et al., 1988 ).

Practically (e.g., epistemologically, Creswell, 2014 ), behavior economy and cognitive psychology propose training techniques are meant to remove the occurrences of mistakes for decision-making process optimization. The underlying idea of this method is to work with individuals' common cognitive errors indicating logical inconsistencies and inconsistent perceptions of reality (Gerling, 2009). Bias removal (Debiasing) programmers are similar to the prescriptive method and the use of reminders, such as warning individuals to consider the base rate of success in the workplace before concluding. Different problems offered by Soll et al. ( 2014 ) include training programs in which students share professional experiences about overwhelming errors (to correct underestimation of rare events) and providing new tips and methods for trained employees to critique. Nudging and self-nudging approaches serve for interpreting the multiplicity of these perspectives for the realization of an educational toolkit for enhancing CT and ML in VET students. In this framework, the urgency is to (a) supporting the use of specific procedures to understand whether the information is fake or real; (b) enhancing the awareness of cognitive errors (e.g., cognitive biases) supporting the idea that all people can be irrational, as irrationality is embedded in humans but it can be reduced by the awareness of biases; (c) enhancing the individuals' tools to develop personal skills and procedural activities to address information.

Self-nudging

The NERDVET community builds up on these previous ontological and epistemological interpretations (Creswell, 2014 ) and refers to the notion of self-nudging as a general behavioral-cognitive process which can be supported among individuals to help them to reach their targets. The self-nudging is a novel notion whose roots are in the nudge theory. This latter is defined as a strategy to design individuals' choice environments, guiding their behavior to increase wellbeing and work efficacy, productivity, and social engagement (Johnson et al., 2012 ; Lehner et al., 2016 ). The impact of nudges is widely recognized, and authors are even more supportive of the idea that individuals can create a simple set of nudges that can be used to apply specific reasoning and behaviors (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008 ). The self-nudging concept instead is based on the idea of autonomous implementation of nudges, which are non-regulatory and non-monetary strategies that may change the choice architecture to target behavior in a predictable way, toward their ultimate goals, without eliminating any options or significantly changing personal incentives (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008 ). Nudges are aids or signals that individuals experience all the time: some are designed to initiate or shape new behaviors; others can be used to provide information or guide thinking. In turn, self-nudging is a behavioral science strategy that focuses on individuals' capacity to define a set of strategies to improve their self-control. The idea behind self-nudging is that people can design and structure their environments in ways that make it easier for them to make the right choices and also to reach long-term goals. Also, self-nudging requires consciousness about a connection between one's behavior and the environment's architecture, as well as knowledge of a procedure that can help to modify that connection (Torma et al., 2018 ).

Considering the congruency of the understanding of CT and ML as two interconnected metacognitive competences (Tommasi et al., 2021a ) while assuming the orientation of the self-nudging approach to developing an individual set of behavioral-cognitive strategies (Torma et al., 2018 ), training bases on eliciting the application of proactive engagement in information processing and also supporting the creation of specific individuals' strategies for critically assessing external information and personal reasoning (Hertwig and Grüne-Yanoff, 2017 ). By facilitating the use of self-nudge, people have the opportunity, through adequate training, to become architects of their own choices in a fully conscious way. For this reason, it becomes necessary to address people on the causes related to probable behavioral problems and on how to deal with them. According, behavioral researchers are often called to contribute to the change process, but at the same time, they are limited in how they can modify the underlying environment or the entire chosen architecture. Often, they try to push in the context of complex systems in which they can at the most change behavior in a marginal way. Therefore, moving on to reducing “sludge,” like eliminating obstacles that make decision-making difficult, could be more productive, which is indeed the idea behind self-nudging training.

Self-nudging for CT and ML in VET

By raising awareness about individuals' social responsibility, it becomes possible to improve responsible thinking, critical interpretation, and information comprehension. In an educational context, nudges can thus help increase motivation in students, and encourage them to become more interested and involved in the proposed initiatives; moreover, highly motivated peers contribute to promoting the quality of support and discussion between subjects (Ebert and Freibichler, 2017 ).

According to this definition, a key factor to enhance CT and ML in VET students is identifying which are the learning purposes associated with self-nudging. Specifically, interventions are meant to develop in subjects the competence to autonomously create nudges for the self, addressed to social responsibility. A significant aspect of this process is the maintenance of motivation, which may aid the growth of critical thinking and media literacy. Another relevant factor is the ability of teachers and trainers of managing to influence the habits of students regarding comprehension and interpretation of information. Those who work in these contexts should pay great attention and provide constant support to any thinking process and proactive behavior.

In this framework, we propose that to enhance CT and ML, the teaching staff can follow the self-nudging circuit of behaving and thinking critically ( Figure 1 ).

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Self-nudging circuit of behaving and thinking critically.

The focus is on eliciting the application of CT and ML by supporting students' proactive engagement in information processing and supporting the creation of specific individuals' strategies for critically assessing information and adopting informed behavior. Teachers and trainers represent one of the key elements for students' creation of their cognitive-behavioral strategies. Thus, the circuit comprehends students' ability to understand the role of personal nudges (cognitive strategies) via which activating self-nudging activities influence their behavior. That is, self-nudging as an individual approach to CT and ML leads students to behave critically in a proactive way. In turn, behaving critically and proactively leads to strengthening one's strategies (personal nudges) as well as creating new ones. As noted, individuals can themselves create a simple set of nudges that can be used to apply specific reasoning and behaviors (Thaler and Sunstein, 2008 ).

Self-nudging techniques

In the digital era, the problem of fake news affects both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the information environments. The challenge of recognizing fake news worldwide can be addressed by developing learners' ability to evaluate and chose better sources of information. In these terms, self-nudging can focus on supporting the use of debunking strategies and the use of reliable sources. This means teaching students how to understand whether the information is fake or real by enhancing their awareness of the relevance of the sources. Thus, teachers can help students to realize specific strategies to control the source of data in reading and choosing information. An efficient way for developing these self-nudging strategies can be supporting the use of debunking by providing resources for students to debunk, such as a guide on how to flag suspicious stories on social media networks and a list of websites that have carried false or satirical articles. Alongside, this approach should also include training on the use of reliable sources, which means teaching students how and to what extent sources of information matter and how to find good sources.

To behave and think critically, individuals also need to avoid their prejudices and irrational beliefs, which may be due to the use of specific cognitive shortcuts, i.e., heuristics and biases. In these terms, the main aspect of reducing the incidence of cognitive biases and prejudices (i.e., irrational beliefs) is to develop awareness about them. Teaching people what cognitive biases are, how to recognize them, and what their effects can be, help reduce their incidence but also, in the view of self-nudging, help support the creation of specific strategies to avoid their use in fast reasoning. As already mentioned, CT is also related to addressing irrational beliefs (i.e., stimulating emotional strategies), which are usually connected to prejudice and emotional judgments (Kahneman, 2003 ). Applying self-nudging to counter bad heuristics processes could result in both stopping them and creating good ones: in this context, some examples of nudges could be forcing oneself to consider more options, using checklists, activating reminders, and learning to practice rewording in the presence of ambiguous information (Orosz et al., 2016 ).

Finally, another relevant aspect related to CT is the ability to break down information or problems to solve a small problem or analyze a simpler piece of information at a time. Using self-nudging in this framework would mean helping people to foster their abilities to practice continuous but simpler problem-solving and to constantly check their activities against a prior detailed plan they had formulated.

Direct users and beneficiaries

Following our model, teachers and trainers represent one of the key targets as direct users of the NERDVET approach. The contemporary setup of VET contexts underlines (a) the need for VET teachers and trainers to equip students with critical thinking skills and media literacy as well as (b) the lack of formal training paths on the identified topics, thus supporting teachers and trainers in empowering students to become the future generation of EU citizens. The role teachers and trainers can play has crucial importance as long as they are (1) better equipped and trained, (2) well-aware of the direct benefits for and impact on students, (3) capitalizing on the expertise developed at the European and national levels by other VET peers, having direct access to successful practices and teaching and training methods.

Furthermore, the upskilling proposal is expected to have a direct impact on iVET students as beneficiaries of the NERDVET approach. Motivation and active engagement are two key factors for a successful teaching and learning process, especially in the iVET sector where major challenges derive from the disadvantaged socioeconomic background owned by students. In fact, these pre-conditions affect not only students' performance but also their willingness to contribute to the overall learning process proposed by teachers and trainers. Following a motivational-oriented approach and applying active teaching methods, the target is to put students at the very center of the learning process with a double scope: (1) to equip iVET students with both technical and soft skills that are considered crucial to entering the labor market, (2) to allow teachers or trainers to be perceived as proactive actors–mentors and not as mere instructors–who are capable to turn teaching into a mutual learning process, where dialogue and support pave the way for students' personal and professional development.

Evaluating the NERDVET approach

The NERDVET project is administrated by teachers and researchers to propose forward normative instruments and projects characterized by high effectiveness to promote students learning. Hence, the evaluation of the NERDVET approach should focus on the outcomes of students and teachers involved in the training activities. A valuable pathway for the evaluation of the effectiveness of the NERDVET approach to enhance CT and ML should be based on the use of mix-methods involving qualitative interviews and quantitative instruments for students' performance assessment (Sartori and Ceschi, 2013 ; Creswell, 2014 ). First, a qualitative evaluation approach could be based on Vergani's (2004) core-methodological perspective. Vergani proposed a system of qualitative evaluation based on viewing the prospects of participants in training activities and creating the evaluation system itself. He suggested considering the point of view of the evaluated rather than applying a standardized system and making inferences on the effectiveness of the training programs (2004). By the explicit comparison between all the data collected, i.e., documents, and interviews, the evaluation of a training project can emerge and core aspects of the students' competence development. Hence, researchers could collect qualitative data after the training in class and in the workplace using interviews coupled with document analysis. Students and teachers can be interviewed with a semi-structured questionnaire about their experience in the study. Moreover, qualitative methods aim to understand the features of the project as a result of the experiential contents, and the comparison with the documents made by teachers and authorities involved.

Second, quantitative methods can be used to assess students' and teachers' competence development (Sartori et al., 2015 ). To pursue this aim, researchers can develop a new self-report questionnaire for teachers and students. We suggest the use of a self-evaluation tool for allowing teachers and trainers to verify their level of CT-ML, whether there is room for improvement, and whether the task was effective for the learning process. Results would be easily interpreted by looking at the range of the answers by assessing students before and after training to have a quantitative indication of their improvement in CT and ML.

We proposed this contribution to offer initial suggestions on the possibility of applying a novel educational approach. This limits this work to a mere presentation of the state of the art of literature on CT and ML in the context of VET, and the self-nudging approach realized by the NERDVET project. In this framework, our ultimate aim is to offer a link between the social need for the promotion of CT and ML and the progress of research in cognitive-behavioral psychology. Considering the actual limitations in promoting CT and ML in the VET world, this work represents the first step, by setting a theoretical approach that can be further developed and implemented in educational programs. Indeed, the present contribution contains both a terminological orientation and a general depiction of the possibilities of using self-nudging in VET for promoting CT and ML. Future applied research activities may use this work as a starting point to devise training interventions. Similarly, this study can lead to realizing policy recommendations and novel educational frameworks in the field of VET.

Data availability statement

Author contributions.

FT and RS are responsible for the title, the abstract, the general idea of the paper, and wrote the manuscript. FT, RS, AC, and MF developed the concept behind the manuscript. SG and SB provided the literature sources and contributed to the design of the model. AC, MF, SG, and SB edited the final version of the manuscript. MF is, in particular, responsible for the introduction and the conclusion. All authors contributed to the elaboration of the concept to a publishable topic, have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

Authors' work on this paper was supported by of the European Union funding for the project NERDVET, ERASMUS + KA3 - Support for Policy Reform, Social inclusion through education, training, and youth.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

We gladly acknowledge the NERDVET project's partners, who envisioned the study of critical thinking and media literacy in the context of iVET, as they have contributed to the development of this study. They are representative of the following VET centers in Europe: ENAIP NET (Italy), Centro San Viator (Spain), Stichting Clusius College (The Netherlands), INOVINTER (Portugal), and American Farm School (Greece). We particularly thank Alfredo Garmendia, Ainhoa De La Cruz, Lara Meijer, Ryanne Sandstra, Clara Bovenberg, Yrina Res-Drost, Susanne Libbenga, Paula Cristina Soares Pedro, Susana Isabel Rodrigues Casimiro, Stavroula Antonopoulou, and Erikaiti Fintzou for their comments and discussions on our study.

1 NERDVET - Think smart! Enhancing critical thinking skills and media literacy in VET - Project no. 621537-EPP-1-2020-1-IT-EPPKA3-IPI-SOC-IN | Erasmus+ KA3 - Support for policy reform - Call EACEA/34/2019. Website: https://www.nerdvet.eu/ .

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The Importance of Critical Thinking for News Media Literacy

With news available at the tap of a finger, keyboard, or remote, we are often exposed to a barrage of news media. Some of it is high quality, informational news, while other pieces may be riddled with biases, inaccuracies, and misinformation. That’s why it’s so important for students to learn to properly evaluate the news they’re consuming. Read on for an exploration of news media literacy and the importance of critical thinking in supporting it.

News Media Literacy

News media literacy is the ability to critically analyze, evaluate, and interpret the information presented in news media. It involves understanding how news is produced, identifying bias and misinformation, and being able to distinguish between fact and opinion. In our modern world, where information is instantly available and constantly changing, news media literacy has become an essential skill for individuals of all ages to navigate the media landscape and make informed decisions.

Students being taught news media literacy develop a variety of interrelated and crucial skills and knowledge. They learn to identify when news sources are presenting biased or misleading information and to seek out additional sources to confirm or refute claims. News literacy also helps students understand how news is produced and distributed, including the role of journalists, media organizations, and the impact of social media on the news cycle.

A study in the Journal of Media Literacy Education found that highly news literate teens were:

More intrinsically motivated to consume news
More skeptical
More knowledgeable about current events

This is important because it can help prevent the spread of misinformation and disinformation, both of which can have serious consequences, such as spreading false information about health, elections, or social issues. News media literacy skills can help students recognize harmful reporting or sharing, and take steps to stop their spread.

The difference news media literacy makes is not limited to the student alone, but can also impact their wider community. Authors Hobbs et al. explore this concept in their article “Learning to Engage: How Positive Attitudes about the News, Media Literacy, and Video Production Contribute to Adolescent Civic Engagement.” They found that “the best predictors of the intent to participate in civic engagement are having positive attitudes about news, current events, reporting, and journalism.”

Given its importance and wide-ranging impact, news media literacy is an essential part of education today. Here’s how teachers can use critical thinking to build up news literacy—and vice versa—in their students.

Critical Thinking Skills for News Literacy

Critical thinking is a key component of news media literacy, as it allows individuals to assess the accuracy and credibility of news sources, identify biases and misinformation, and make informed decisions. Critical thinking involves questioning assumptions, evaluating evidence, and considering multiple perspectives, which are all crucial skills for navigating our complex and constantly evolving media landscape. Let’s explore these critical thinking skills and their impact on news literacy in more depth.

Evaluating Sources and Evidence

One essential critical thinking skill that supports news literacy is the ability to evaluate sources. In today's world, where anyone can publish information online, it is important to be able to distinguish between credible sources and those that lack credibility. This means understanding the differences between primary and secondary sources, recognizing when a source is biased or unreliable, and evaluating the credentials of the author or publisher.

Being able to evaluate sources and evidence for credibility and accuracy allows students to identify fake news and other harmful media. Research on fake news and critical thinking highlights critical thinking as “an essential skill for identifying fake news.”

Analyzing Information

Another critical thinking skill that supports news literacy is the ability to analyze information. This involves breaking down complex information into its component parts, evaluating the evidence presented, and considering the implications of the information. For example, if a news article presents statistics about a particular issue, it is important to evaluate the methodology used to collect the data, the sample size, and the relevance of the statistics to the issue at hand.

Identifying and Evaluating Biases

Critical thinking also allows students to identify and evaluate biases. News sources may have biases based on political or social values, financial interests, or personal opinions. It is important to be able to recognize these biases and to evaluate how they may affect the presentation of information. By developing these critical thinking skills, students can become more discerning consumers of news media, and better equipped to make informed decisions based on the information presented.

How Practicing News Literacy Develops Critical Thinking

Becoming more news literate can also help develop critical thinking skills in turn. By engaging with news media and seeking out diverse perspectives on issues, individuals can develop their ability to question assumptions, evaluate evidence, and consider multiple perspectives. This can lead to a more nuanced understanding of complex issues and a greater appreciation for the diverse perspectives that exist in society.

This creates a powerful education win-win. News literacy and critical thinking effectively support each other and allow students to become informed and discerning consumers of media.

How THINKING PRO Helps Students Build News Literacy

Our THINKING PRO system is built around local news media and teaches students media literacy and critical thinking in a meaningful and impactful way. It walks students through a simple but effective process for analyzing news media, involving:

Differentiating simple statements (answers to who, what, when, and where questions) and complex claims (answers to why and how questions)
Evaluating evidence supporting each
Differentiating evidence and opinion in complex claims

Our interactive learning videos allow students to hone these media literacy and critical thinking skills. With THINKING PRO, students will learn to:

Identify various categories of claims that can be made within an informational text (e.g.: cause and effect, problem and solution, value judgments)
Evaluate internal logic of informational text by:
analyzing the consistency of information within the text and with one’s own background knowledge, and
identifying conflicting information within the text.
Synthesize information, as well as claims and their supporting evidence, across multiple passages of texts, and integrate it with one’s own understanding

Here at Thinking Habitats, we use thinking tools to empower young people to lead successful lives and contribute to the wellbeing of their communities. Our online platform has helped students improve their critical thinking, reading comprehension, and news media literacy, and has had significant individual and community impacts. Try THINKING PRO today , and join our students who feel more empowered in decision-making, more mindful with their news engagement, and more connected to their local community!

Hobbs, R., Donnelly, K., Friesem, J., & Moen, M. (2013). Learning to engage: How positive attitudes about the news, media literacy, and video production contribute to Adolescent Civic engagement. Educational Media International , 50 (4), 231–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523987.2013.862364

Machete, P., & Turpin, M. (2020). The use of critical thinking to identify fake news: A systematic literature review. Lecture Notes in Computer Science , 235–246. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45002-1_20

Maksl, A., Ashley, S., & Craft, S. (2015). Measuring News Media Literacy. Journal of Media Literacy Education , 6 (3), 29–45. https://doi.org/10.23860/jmle-6-3-3

Research guides: Identifying bias: What is bias? . University of Wisconsin Green Bay. (n.d.). https://libguides.uwgb.edu/bias

Media Literacy Education and AI

Posted April 3, 2024
By News editor
Online Education
Teachers and Teaching
Technology and Media

How can educators help students think critically and evaluate all types of communication including digital platforms? In this edition of Education Now, panelists discuss the skills needed to navigate a world increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence, misinformation, and fake news.

Merve Lapus , vice president, Education Outreach & Engagement, Common Sense Education
Sarah Newman , director of art and education, metaLAB (at) Harvard, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
Faith Rogow , author, Media Literacy for Young Children: Teaching Beyond the Screen Time Debates

Uche Amaechi , Lecturer on Education, HGSE

Key Takeaways:

It is never too soon and never too late to empower students to think critically and creatively, not cynically, about generative AI and all media. An inquiry mindset is a good entry point.
Teach students the habit of asking inquiry-based critical thinking questions and remind them that all media are created and what is included and excluded influences the messages that are conveyed.
Don’t give AI too much power. Everyone, including educators, should actively question the role they want new technologies to have in our lives, including our schools, colleges, and universities.

Additional Resources:

The State of Media Literacy Education in the U.S.
AI Literacy Lessons for Grades 6-12 - CommonSense.org
Resources - DemocracyReadyNY
Media Literacy Handouts - Project Look Sharp
Media Literacy Education Musings - Faith Rogow
Media Literacy for Young Children: Teaching Beyond the Screen Time Debates
AI Guide - The AI Pedagogy Project
Assignments - The AI Pedagogy Project
Gram and Gran Save the Summer - A Whimsical Adventure in Media Literacy
From Digital Native to Digital Expert - Usable Knowledge

Education Now

A webinar and newsletter series to shape new approaches to challenges in education

Sal Khan on Innovations in the Classroom

Embracing Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom

Generative AI tools can reflect our failure of imagination and that is when the real learning starts

Get on Board with AI

Anant Agarwal discusses how and why educators need to embrace AI

Critical Thinking and Media Literacy in an Age of Misinformation

Terry Gilmour

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Version history, version notes, author’s competing interest statement.

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Strengthen Media Literacy to Win the Fight Against Misinformation

If the world is going to stop deliberate or unintentional misinformation and its insidious effects, we need to radically expand and accelerate our counterattacks, particularly human-centered solutions focused on improving people's media and information literacy.

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By Kristin M. Lord & Katya Vogt Mar. 18, 2021

Illustration of tiny people and huge laptop computer with cracked planet Earth globe, journalist with mic on screen.

The deliberate or unintentional spread of misinformation, despite capturing widespread public attention, remains as rampant as ever, showing up recently in the form of false claims about COVID-19 vaccines , the Capitol riot , and many other topics . This “ infodemic ” is polarizing politics , endangering communities , weakening institutions , and leaving people unsure what to believe or whom to trust . It threatens the foundations of democratic governance , social cohesion , national security , and public health .

Misinformation is a long-term problem that demands long-term, sustainable solutions as well as short-term interventions. We've seen a number of quicker, technological fixes that improve the social media platforms that supply information. Companies like Facebook and Twitter, for example, have adjusted their algorithms or called out problematic content . We've also seen slower, human-centered approaches that make people smarter about the media they demand to access online. Evidence-driven educational programs, for instance, have made people better at discerning the reliability of information sources, distinguishing facts from opinions, resisting emotional manipulation, and being good digital citizens.

It hasn't been enough. If we're to stop misinformation and its insidious effects, we need to radically expand and accelerate our counterattacks. It will take all sectors of society: business, nonprofits, advocacy organizations, philanthropists, researchers, governments, and more. We also need to balance our efforts. For too long, too many resources and debates have focused on changing the technology, not educating people. This emphasis on the supply side of the problem without a similar investment in the demand side may be a less effective use of time and energy.

While technology-centered, self-policing solutions—filtering software, artificial intelligence, modified algorithms, and content labeling—do have the ability to make changes quickly and at scale, they face significant ethical, financial, logistical, and legal constraints.

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For one, social media business models thrive on engagement, which incentivizes emotionally charged and freely flowing content. Tech leaders like Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, hesitate taking action over concerns about free speech and have tried to avoid political debates until pressed . When they do take action, they face scrutiny for an inconsistent approach. Additionally, research shows that some of the most commonly employed methods for combatting misinformation on social media—such as banners that display fact-checks—have little impact on people’s likelihood to believe deliberately misleading news, and some even backfire. And because people often have a deeply held desire to share what they know with others—particularly information that seems threatening or exciting —tech companies can only go so far to regulate content. There is also the challenge of volume. Tech platforms struggle to keep pace with the many forms and producers of disinformation. Stopping them resembles a high-stakes, never-ending game of Whac-A-Mole.

Given these challenges, we need to invest more into human-centered solutions focused on improving people's media and information literacy. They not only demonstrate a much deeper and longer-lasting impact, but also may be easier and cheaper to implement than commonly believed.

Research from the RAND Corporation and others shows media and information literacy improves critical thinking , awareness of media bias , and the desire to consume quality news —all of which help beat back misinformation. Even brief exposure to some training can improve competencies in media literacy, including a better understanding of news credibility or a more robust ability to evaluate biases . Media literacy has a stronger impact than political knowledge on the ability to evaluate the accuracy of political messages, regardless of political opinion. Digital media literacy reduced the perceived accuracy of false news, and training remains effective when delivered in different ways and by different groups .

Media literacy training has lasting impact. A year and a half after adults went through a program from IREX (a nonprofit where the authors work), they continued to be 25 percent more likely to check multiple news sources and 13 percent more likely to discern between disinformation and a piece of objective reporting. In Jordan and Serbia, participants in IREX's training also improved their media literacy skills up to 97 percent .

Media literacy programs can also be affordably and extensively delivered through schools. Finland and Sweden incorporated media literacy into their education systems decades ago with positive results, and Ukraine is beginning to do the same . In Britain, youth who had training in schools showed an improvement in media literacy skills .

Critics may say that improving people's media literacy and other human-centered solutions are resource-intensive and will not address the problem quickly enough or at sufficient scale. These are real challenges, but the long-term efficacy of such programs is exactly what is needed in the never-ending battle with misinformation. We need to invest more in them while continuing to pursue technology solutions, or we may never create and sustain the accurately informed citizenry that healthy democracies demand.

The effort will require all sectors of societies across the globe collaborating to fully understand and solve the problem. We need nonprofits and advocacy organizations to raise the alarm with the people they serve. We need philanthropists to step up with funding to scale solutions. We need more researchers to provide evidence-based answers to the full scope of the problem and the efficacy of fixes. We need governments to integrate media literacy standards into schools and incentivize training. We need tech companies to do more than tweak their platforms—they need to invest in educating the people who use them, too.

The tools to blunt the power of misinformation are in our hands, but we have to work smarter and faster or risk losing an ever-intensifying fight. Much learning, coalition-building, scaling, and communication remains to be done to " emerge from information bankruptcy ." Solutions are complex but within our reach. And the consequences of inaction are dire: the increasingly severe and invasive destabilization of our societies and daily lives as lies trample the truth.

Support SSIR ’s coverage of cross-sector solutions to global challenges. Help us further the reach of innovative ideas. Donate today .

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The Teacher’s Guide to Media Literacy Critical Thinking in a Multimedia World

Cyndy Scheibe - Ithaca College, USA
Faith Rogow - Insighters Educational Consulting
Description

Use media literacy to reach all students!

The Teacher's Guide to Media Literacy starts by asking, "What does it mean to be literate in today's world, and how can those literacy skills be developed?" The authors answer those questions by providing concrete, innovative ways to integrate media literacy across the curriculum and teach students to be independent, skilled, and reflective thinkers. Through dozens of suggested activities, teaching strategies, and lessons, this book's unique vision allows schools to

Integrate media literacy into teaching at all grade levels and core content areas
Address key education standards
Teach 21st-century skills and higher-order critical thinking
Engage students by bridging schoolwork with their lives outside the classroom

In addition to dozens of activity ideas, the text and companion website include self-reflection exercises, voices from the field, a glossary of terms, and seven annotated, original, classroom-tested lesson plans that illustrate different approaches to media literacy in the classroom. In a time of hectic schedules and ever increasing expectations, the authors help teachers reframe their instruction to focus on the skills students need to succeed in the digital age.

See what’s new to this edition by selecting the Features tab on this page. Should you need additional information or have questions regarding the HEOA information provided for this title, including what is new to this edition, please email [email protected] . Please include your name, contact information, and the name of the title for which you would like more information. For information on the HEOA, please go to http://ed.gov/policy/highered/leg/hea08/index.html .

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“Well-articulated media literacy theories supported by a generous selection of practical student activities. For me, the book’s strongest attribute is the scaffolding that helps students arrive at their own conclusions through critical thinking.”

“Cyndy Scheibe and Faith Rogow, both experts in the field of media literacy education, have provided the quintessential road map for understanding media literacy and its place in 21 st -century classrooms. This extremely valuable text belongs on the bookshelf of every teacher’s professional collection.”

“Not only does this book provide a thorough and engaging backdrop for understanding media literacy; it also provides practical applications for the classroom. Filled with thoughtful tips and concrete examples, this is a book that teachers can use right off the shelf. I will definitely provide copies for my faculty and administrators.”

“ The Teacher’s Guide to Media Literacy is just the guide all educators would appreciate having in their personal library. Media literacy is a buzz phrase, however, this guide will turn your class abuzz with higher order questioning, inquiry and reflection discussions throughout all content areas.”

"I look forward to introducing this text to pre-service English and theatre educators. The balance of historical understandings, contemporary contexts, and useful examples will be a positive influence for beginning teachers who are practicing media literacy for the first time."

“Cyndy and Faith have provided many creative, inquiry-based lesson ideas students will love, and the kinds of activities in this book are more needed than ever--this book situates these tasks firmly in a truly broadened conception of what it means to be a literate person in the 21st century.”

"This is essential reading for teachers, but even more for those who set the education agenda in the United States. Scheibe and Rogow make it seem not only obvious but natural to include media literacy education at all levels of teaching and learning today."

"Scheibe and Rogow have developed an innovative approach to help teachers master the secrets of inquiry learning for media literacy education. They demonstrate how to support students’ deep reading with a variety of print and non-print texts. Educators using these techniques will see dramatic improvements in the quality of student critical thinking skills."

"A comprehensive overview of media literacy, from core principles to best practices. Scheibe and Rogow have done a masterful job articulating the multiple theories and aspects that constitute the media literacy field, further expanded the vocabulary, concepts, and approaches, and honed them to brilliant sharpness. This book should be USED by teachers everywhere."

"Scheibe and Rogow’s book arrives at a moment when technology and educational thinking have finally converged. It combines important theoretical concepts with practical lesson plans applying media literacy across the curriculum and should be read by everyone interested in improving our public schools."

Based on a 3-pronged approach to media literacy – inquiry-based, literacy-based, and curriculum driven.
Presents the theoretical basis behind media literacy education, including what is meant by "media" and "media literacy," the basic principles of media literacy education and its relationship to other educational approaches, and an analysis of the benefits and challenges in using media literacy in the classroom.
In addition to dozens of activity ideas, includes seven annotated, original, classroom-tested lesson plans that illustrate different approaches to media literacy in the classroom.
Suggestions for adapting lessons to match developmentally appropriate expections and assessing medial literacy skills and knowledge

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Media Literacy and Critical Thinking Online

This publication provides information for how individuals can be resilient to harmful or false narratives in the online space and effective when consuming and sharing information online. The resource provides definitions of the various types of misleading information, offers recommendations for approaching digital content, and lists further educational and programmatic resources.

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Enhancing Critical Thinking & Media Literacy

Welcome to Media Theory! This website is dedicated to exploring the intricate and ever-changing world of media studies, communication, linguistics, culture and sociology. Our aim is to provide a platform where students, educators, and teachers can come together to share ideas, learn from each other, and stay updated on the latest developments in these fields.

Critical Thinking

We aim to help you critically think by analysing media messages and then their potential effects on individuals and society. Hence, wanting you to identify biases and propaganda, and developing informed perspectives and solutions.

Media Literacy

We want you to be media literate by in fact showing you how media messages are created, distributed, and consumed. As a result, providing the skills necessary to evaluate media content critically and make your own educated decisions.

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We wish to also educate you to understand media by examining the role and impact it has on society. By looking at media theories, technologies, and cultural practices in an interdisciplinary approach, we are likewise able to explore a variety of media content.

Why Is Studying Media Important?

Studying media is crucial in today’s society because it allows individuals to understand how information is produced, consumed, and disseminated. Media is a powerful tool that influences public opinion, shapes cultural norms, and impacts political decisions. As such, media literacy is essential in today’s world, where we are constantly bombarded with a vast amount of information from various sources.

Studying media helps individuals develop critical thinking skills, enabling them to evaluate the credibility and biases of different sources. It also helps individuals understand the historical, social, and cultural contexts in which media is produced, consumed, and circulated. Ultimately, media literacy is essential for individuals to become active and informed citizens in a democratic society.

Media Theory | Importance of Studying Media

Media studies is a field that examines media’s role in society, culture, and politics while involving the critical analysis of various media content.

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Culture can be defined as shared beliefs, values, customs, and behaviours that characterise groups and also a way of life for that particular group.

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"Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They've long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear."

George Carlin

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PDF Media Literacy and Critical Thinking
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate information in a variety of forms and formats. More importantly, media literacy is an action whereby any person is involved in creating, engaging, or delivering information. Media literacy promotes critical thinking beyond the traditional
Critical Media Literacy in Teacher Education, Theory, and Practice
One of the more significant findings of the study is the number of respondents reporting they "noticed that using critical media literacy encourages critical thinking among students" (Question 9). Of the preservice respondents, 61% reported VF/F, and for the in-service teachers, the percentages jump to 81% who reported VF/F.
PDF It's Critical: The Role of Critical Thinking in Media and Information
Critical Thinking in Media and Information Literacy Introduction Critical thinking is considered to be one of the cornerstones of media and information literacy (MIL) (UNESCO, 2011; Potter, 2021). Likewise, it plays a central part in modern education (European Commission, 2016). However, what does critical thinking mean, and what does it
Media Literacy and Critical Thinking
Abstract. The chapter begins by exploring the ways in which media literacy and critical thinking have been conceptualized. It draws parallels between media literacy and critical thinking and ...
Media Literacy in the Modern Age
Media literacy is the ability to apply critical thinking skills to the messages, signs, and symbols transmitted through mass media . We live in a world that is saturated with media of all kinds, from newspapers to radio to television to the internet. Media literacy enables us to understand and evaluate all of the media messages we encounter on ...
Enhancing critical thinking skills and media literacy in initial
Studying critical thinking and media literacy via a psychological (behavioral-cognitive) approach finds a connection with the notion of self-nudging, that is the individuals' own set of metacognitive strategies to pursue personal targets (Hertwig and Grüne-Yanoff, 2017; Torma et al., 2018). With this framework, we propose indications of ...
Media Literacy and Critical Thinking: Fostering Informed Learners
Abstract. The contemporary media landscape, characterized by its abundance of information and diverse platforms, demands individuals who are not merely consumers but critical thinkers and informed ...
PDF Media Literacy Through Critical Thinking
Media Literacy Through Critical Thinking 3 Student Workbook Introduction Extended Overview of Information Found in Media Literacy through Critical Thinking Taking a second look Often we miss things the first time we hear or look at media. Taking a second look requires us to find things in the media text that may have escaped our attention the ...
PDF Media Literacy Through Critical Thinking
studying the media. In Media Literacy Through Critical Thinking, the first of the four key concepts above has been split into two separate parts: ß All media are carefully wrapped packages ß Media construct versions of reality In Media Literacy Through Critical Thinking, the third key concept—Media are interpreted through
Media literacy and critical thinking
Abstract. The ability to develop a critical distance from the messages being conveyed through the channels of mass communication is of vital importance. However, the value of Media Literacy education extends beyond media analysis, furnishing critical thinking skills for people who are in danger of losing the ability to come to independent ...
Media Literacy and Critical Thinking: Is There a Connection?
A media literate person is expected to have the ability to "decode, evaluate, analyze and produce both print and electronic media" (Aufderheide, 2001, p. 79). Feuerstein (1999) writes "One purpose of (media literacy) M.L. programs is to promote the (critical thinking) C.T. of students towards media texts" (p. 45).
The Importance of Critical Thinking for News Media Literacy
Critical thinking is a key component of news media literacy, as it allows individuals to assess the accuracy and credibility of news sources, identify biases and misinformation, and make informed decisions. Critical thinking involves questioning assumptions, evaluating evidence, and considering multiple perspectives, which are all crucial skills for navigating our complex and constantly ...
Inspiring Critical Thinking Through Media Literacy
The video, "Creating critical thinkers through media literacy: Andrea Quijada," resonated with me as an educator. It discusses the critical thinking that can begin at a very young age, sharing some astounding statistics: Students interact with media 7.5 hours a day. Quijada shared some ideas how educators can make those 7.5 hours relative ...
The relationship between media literacy and critical thinking: a
Media Literacy Skills Scale, developed by Erişti and Erdem (2017), and UF/EMI Critical Thinking Disposition Scale, adapted to Turkish by Ertaş Kılıç and Şen (2014), were used to identify ...
Media Literacy Education and AI
Teach students the habit of asking inquiry-based critical thinking questions and remind them that all media are created and what is included and excluded influences the messages that are conveyed. Don't give AI too much power. Everyone, including educators, should actively question the role they want new technologies to have in our lives ...
Critical Thinking and Media Literacy in an Age of Misinformation
Critical thinking is gathering and analyzing information to make a rational judgement. To be a acritical thinker, we must understand our own biases, but be open to new ideas and perspectives. During the past few decades, the rise in social media has coincided with the spread of misinformation. As political science faculty, perhaps more than faculty in any other discipline, the responsibility ...
Strengthen Media Literacy to Win the Fight Against Misinformation
Finland and Sweden incorporated media literacy into their education systems decades ago with positive results, and Ukraine is beginning to do the same. In Britain, youth who had training in schools showed an improvement in media literacy skills. Critics may say that improving people's media literacy and other human-centered solutions are ...
The Teacher's Guide to Media Literacy
Through dozens of suggested activities, teaching strategies, and lessons, this book's unique vision allows schools to. Integrate media literacy into teaching at all grade levels and core content areas. Address key education standards. Teach 21st-century skills and higher-order critical thinking. Engage students by bridging schoolwork with their ...
Media Literacy and Critical Thinking Online
Media Literacy and Critical Thinking Online. This publication provides information for how individuals can be resilient to harmful or false narratives in the online space and effective when consuming and sharing information online. The resource provides definitions of the various types of misleading information, offers recommendations for ...
Media Theory
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Establishes the "Media Literacy and Critical Thinking Act"
The bill requires the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to establish a "Media Literacy and Critical Thinking" pilot program for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school years. Between five and seven diverse schools shall be selected by DESE to participate in the Pilot Program as specified in the bill.
Critical Thinking and Media Literacy in an Age of Misinformation
comprehensive media literacy and critical thinking in our instruction. The Importance of Critical Thinking: Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with the goal to ...

Article contents

Updated in this version

Introduction

Teacher Education

Teaching Teachers Critical Media Literacy

Table 1. Critical Media Literacy Framework

Voices From the Field

Teaching With Media

Teaching About Media

Evaluating Information and Advertising

Creating Different Types of Media

Increasing Engagement

Critical Media Literacy

Creating Counter Narratives and Supporting Students’ Voices

Politics of Representation

Making Critical Connections

Intent and Importance of Incorporating Critical Media Literacy

Acknowledgments

Further Reading

Media Literacy in the Modern Age

How to Practice Media Literacy

History of Media Literacy

Impact of Media Literacy

Enhancing critical thinking skills and media literacy in initial vocational education and training via self-nudging: The contribution of NERDVET project

Francesco Tommasi

Silvia Belotto

Introduction

Approaches to critical thinking and media literacy

Overview of reference definitions and current practices

The NERDVET approach

Self-nudging

Self-nudging for CT and ML in VET

Self-nudging techniques

Direct users and beneficiaries

Evaluating the NERDVET approach

Data availability statement

Conflict of interest

Publisher's note

Acknowledgments

The Importance of Critical Thinking for News Media Literacy

News Media Literacy

Critical Thinking Skills for News Literacy

Evaluating Sources and Evidence

Analyzing Information

Identifying and Evaluating Biases

How Practicing News Literacy Develops Critical Thinking

How THINKING PRO Helps Students Build News Literacy

Media Literacy Education and AI

Key Takeaways:

Additional Resources:

Education Now

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Media Literacy and Critical Thinking Online

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Enhancing Critical Thinking & Media Literacy

Critical Thinking

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Understanding Media

Why Is Studying Media Important?

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