Where do you get most of your news?
For many people, especially in younger generations, the answer to that question has increasingly shifted to social platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Julie Smith, a media literacy expert and a professor in the communications department at Webster University, talked with KMOX for Media Literacy Week about how our news sources affect our views and the quality of information we receive.
What is media literacy?
"It's a set of skills that people can use to analyze and evaluate the 11 to 12 hours a day of electronic media messages that we consume. So it's not anti-media, it's not media bashing, we're merely encouraging people to ask questions, because if we spend this much time with the media, we should be talking about it more, right? So we encourage people to ask questions: Who's the sender of the message? What's their motive or intent? How was the message designed to get my attention? Who's the target market? Who profits from this? And what information is left out? Just basic questions. A food critic doesn't hate food, right? They analyze how it's created, and who made it and how it's presented."
Where are people getting their news from these days?
"Pew Research Center came up with a study in September that said 70% of Americans use Facebook for news. And I'm using air quotes. 31% use it regularly for news, view it as their news source. There's no editing, there's no gatekeeping. And there's no accountability or responsibility if misleading information is shared on that platform. And we tend to communicate and congregate with people online who are in our own little echo chamber. So the chance that false information can go viral is really really huge. And I thought this was really interesting. Even a higher number of people use YouTube for news — 82% of Americans — 33% Use TikTok for news."
What tools can we use to make sure news on social media is credible?
"The first clue usually is if it gives you a really strong emotional response. And that doesn't mean if it makes you sad or angry, it can make you confused or excited. If it gives you a really, really strong emotional response, that message was probably created to do just that. You also want to look at the sender of the message — did they put their name on it? Does that person actually exist? Are other outlets talking about this story? We call that lateral reading. So if you just see something on a meme or something on a Facebook post, and it seems like a pretty big story, but no other outlets are talking about it, that's another red flag."
What complaints do people have about news media?
"The main complaints about the news is that it's sensationalized. Because there's so much information out there, you have to kind of cut through the clutter to get people's attention. So one of the criticisms is that some news outlets tend to make stories make mountains out of molehills, just to try to keep people interested. Another complaint that people have is that news outlets aren't transparent. They don't really talk in detail about where the stories come from, or how they choose to cover certain stories. There's also no context. And I blame television news for a lot of this because the overemphasis on the visual will be shown really dramatic photos or videos without any historical context. So like, we know that there's problems in the Middle East, but do we really? Has anyone ever sat down and explained to us that it started thousands of years ago? So there's a lot of historical context that we don't hear."
Copyright 2023 KMOX (Audacy). All Rights Reserved.
Follow KMOX | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Listen on the free Audacy app.
Tell your smart speaker to play K M O X.
