Students need media literacy to navigate misinformation

Katie Samol | The Chronicle

In the world of artificial intelligence (AI), computer-generated imagery (CGI) and deep fakes, seeing is not always believing. 

Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create and participate with media messages and the systems in which they exist. Being able to assess the influence of those messages on thoughts, feelings and behaviors, and create media thoughtfully and conscientiously is also a part of media literacy. In today’s world, Mason High School (MHS) students and teachers understand the importance of learning and applying this ability.

In Advanced Placement (AP) Government, among other classes, teachers are highlighting the importance of media literacy and teaching students how to become more aware of the media they are consuming. Teachers and students believe this is an important skill in the modern world. 

Students completed an assignment centered around media literacy and fake news in AP Government. Eliana Charpentier, a junior, saw the value in this exercise, particularly in regard to handling newer deceptive technology.

“Media literacy is very important,” Charpentier said. “There’s a lot of fake news online today, especially with AI. You see deep fakes all the time that are like, ‘Blah, blah, blah is president now’, when it’s obviously not real.”

A deep fake is an image, audio or video of a person in which their face or body has been digitally altered using (AI) so that they appear to be someone else, typically used maliciously or to spread false information. Deep fakes can be difficult to spot, since they were made to look real.

“It’s very important to be media literate, because you can’t participate in healthy democracy without knowing the political news and the social news accurately,” Charpentier said.

Maria Mueller, an AP Government teacher, believes that healthy democracy cannot be participated in unless healthy relationships with media are established. 

“Media literacy is understanding what you’re consuming,” Mueller said. “It’s understanding what [the content] is, but also understanding the resource that the content is coming from.”

Mueller explains that having a healthy relationship with media is like having a healthy relationship with food. She prioritizes consuming media that is not “junk” and consuming a diversified media diet.

“I try to convey the idea that we’re consuming media much like we consume food,” Mueller said. “[If] you put junk in, you have junk in your head, right? Just like if you eat only Twinkies, you’re going to have bad health. I try to make that parallel.”

On a question in a recent survey conducted by The Chronicle asking if an article seemed to politically lean left, neutral or right, 46.8 percent of surveyors believed the article was either neutral or right leaning when it was left leaning. In the same survey, 38.3% of surveyors believed a noncredible source had true information. These are mistakes that are, as the survey showed, made by many. To improve media literacy and reduce these mistakes, Mueller advises students to broaden the content they consume.

“I try to help [my students] understand that even though some people say ‘Nothing is a good source, everything’s biased,’ that just means that you need to look at more sources,” Mueller said.  “I have [my students] go places that they probably haven’t been before, like a website called AllSides.”

AllSides does not create news. The website takes preexisting news that is already published and provides links to articles covering the event that are right leaning, left leaning and more centrist. This provides readers with a broader variety of resources to consume, in order to give them a more well-rounded perspective on the topic. 

AllSides highlights the importance of giving the full story. This can be a missing piece in peoples’ media consumption that often leads to misinformation or confusion. With only a piece of the puzzle, or the event captured through one frame, unless the reader digs for more, the media can be misleading. Every article or Instagram post is written in a frame that affects how it is viewed.

“Media literacy is about understanding what you’re looking at in order to understand the frame that the information is coming in, because everyone has a perspective,” Mueller said. “Even though there’s plenty of news, media [and] journalists who try to be as objective as possible, we’re all human, we all see everything through a lens. So having awareness of the possible lenses [is important].”

Using reputable tools like AllSides makes staying informed easier. There is a lot of news available, and checking the credibility of every source is time consuming. Mueller believes this is one reason people make less of an effort to be media literate.

“I think what slows people down is having to invest time into examining all the resources,” Mueller said. “If there are those out there that have demonstrated a trustworthiness which I think AllSides has, then why not take advantage of that resource?”

Going along with using tools that already do this for consumers, fact checking is another important practice to maintain media literacy and avoid being fooled by fake media. There are tools to help make this easier as well

“We talk a lot about how you can become more media literate using things like fact checkers,” Charpentier said. “Snopes is one of them — there’s lots of different tips that you can look at to know whether news is fake or not.”

Using resources like AllSides and Snopes, a fact checking website, makes reading reputable sources easier and searching for reliable information faster. Checking the facts goes along with being skeptical. As teenagers have always been told, everything that is seen online cannot be believed. An AI generated image or a deepfake like the example Charpentier gave of someone claiming inaccurate political news often claims victims. This leads Mueller and Charpentier to believe that remaining skeptical and aware of tricks in media is important for improved media literacy. Mueller also uses her class to make students aware of seemingly reputable sources that are not to be trusted.

“I give [my students] a list of resources that they may have heard of but that are actually really unreliable and invalid information resources,” Mueller said. “I give them those to see, ‘You may not have realized that you have been exposed to these things,’ so raising awareness becomes an important part of media literacy.”

After becoming more aware in Mueller’s class of these tips and information, Charpentier has been putting them into practice in her media consumption. It has changed the way she engages with media. Now, when she scrolls Instagram or stumbles upon an article, she asks herself questions.

“I’m like, ‘Is that actually real, or is that fake?’” Charpentier said. “[We saw] so many things in the media literacy worksheet of fake news, I didn’t realize that there was [that] much fake news.”

Charpentier said that in political events as large as the 2016 presidential election, fake news may have affected the outcome. She said that learning more about media literacy has changed the way that she interacts with social media.

“Now when I’m on Instagram [and] I’m looking at all these things, I’m like, ‘I don’t know if that’s actually real.’” Charpentier said. “A lot of times you’ll scroll through Instagram [and] you’ll be like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe that happened’. Now I’m a lot more skeptical.”