Media Literacy Can't Save Us

A video on the role media literacy plays in a very unhealthy media environment, featuring @zoe_bee!

Many believe media literacy can save us from misinformation. However, what do we do when the internet (and other media) spread misinformation faster than we could ever hope to educate people against it? When is media literacy education the right approach, and when do we need to turn to media ecology?

Here's a link to Zoe's video on this topic where you can hear more from both of us!

Follow the link below and select your local station to donate to public media!

Sources
---------------

Books -
Adorno and Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment
Chomsky and Herman, Manufacturing Consent
Giblin and Doctorow, Chokepoint Capitalism
Lippmann, Public Opinion

Articles -
Bulger and Davison, The Promises, Challenges, and Futures of Media Literacy
Cohen, Exploring Echo-Systems: How Algorithms Shape Immersive Media Environments
Craft, Ashley, and Maksl, News media literacy and conspiracy theory endorsement
Hobbs and Jensen, The Past, Present, and Future of Media Literacy Education
Kahne and Bowyer, Educating for Democracy in a Partisan Age: Confronting the Challenges of Motivated Reasoning and Misinformation
Mason, Krutka, and Stoddard, Media Literacy, Democracy, and the Challenge of Fake News
Samuel, To Fix Fake News, Look to Yellow Journalism
Strate, Studying Media AS Media: McLuhan and the Media Ecology Approach
Tufekci, We Should Try to Prevent Another Alex Jones

Tucker -

Other Links -

[zoe_bee]

Incredible that between the two of us, we've saved media literacy 😌

[garrettkuracka]

Friendly reminder for whenever Michael Cohen comes up - after he became one of the hundreds of people who left Trump’s administration/personal team and publicly denounced him, he decided to write a book about Trump. The DOJ tried to make him sign a new gag order that specifically prevented him for publishing or promoting his book, and when he questioned it, the Feds literally showed up at his door, arrested him, and threw him in prison. It was such an egregious 1st amendment violation that a federal judge literally ordered his immediate release by writ of Habeas Corpus, something almost unheard of on the federal level.

Just remember that any time a Trump supporter talks about “free speech” and how “the left” wants to get rid of the 1A or whatever. It is LITERALLY a matter of court record that Trump committed the most egregious 1st amendment violation to an individual citizen in presidential history, and it’s not close. The only reason Cohen couldn’t sue Trump afterwards and garnered much bigger headlines, is that the court ruled that his immediate release from federal prison was enough compensation. It’s not that Trump wouldn’t have been liable, he absolutely would’ve, that’s not even disputed by the judge.

[brutusmagnuson]

When people say “we can’t legally take Tucker Carlson seriously, ” this is what we mean.

[FrontKnux]

We’re actually cooked as a nation. We have like an entire half of the population that live in a completely different reality and because there’s only two sides they get to pretend like their opinions are equally valid. It’s actually insane.

[anomieminalminds]

The way the concepts of 'media literacy', 'critical thinking', and 'nuance' are now starting to be misused to describe any conclusion anyone else gets to that is different from the accuser's has been so incredibly frustrating to witness.

Somehow going towards "common sense" territory lol.

[limitisillusion]

Media literacy only works if people prioritize their desire to learn above their desire to belong to a group within a group vs group paradigm. So when you attempt to teach media literacy, you are up against all the forces in media that seek to divide people into groups. Nearly all people have the capacity to think critically enough to develop media literacy, and people often display that critical thinking capacity daily in other walks of life outside socioeconomic and sociopolitical media. The tough part is getting people to prioritize that critical thinking capacity above the economic or political tribe they identify with. Identity is a key factor here. People identify with ideas and groups. If someone feels attached to a group, the criticism of that group or their ideology is perceived as an attack on the person too. A lack of media literacy is fundamentally an issue of ego, and that's difficult to uproot because ego exists for a reason. Defense of ego is a fear response, so you have to make people less fearful. The best way I know to reduce fear in a conversation is to avoid criticism and refuse to take a side. The moment you present yourself as the opposition, fear closes down the malleability of the mind. A desire to learn and reduce fear in a conversation presents itself as the Socratic Method. A desire to win a conversation presents itself as debate, which can even lead to anger and ad hominems because people are attacking each other's identity.

[Carolina-h]

I think the reason people turn to media literacy as the problem is because it’s the only one that holds the individual responsible. It’s easier to blame other people when you’re constantly being pitted against each other instead of the millions of problems in every system in this country. Systems that refuse to be fixed by the only ones benefiting from them.

[Jcewazhere]

It's like mushroom picking. Doesn't matter if you can ID all the bad types of shrooms that'll end you if there's nothing but bad shrooms growing.
Need to make sure the good shrooms exist. Need to feed the good sources of news, not just the ones you agree with, nor the ones that only cover the topics you care about, the ones that are generally factual and less click-baity.

[Khint]

The thing about that story with Larry is... you can't CONVINCE someone to trust what they distrust. It's impossible, straight up. If one is rooted in their beliefs, NOTHING short of a sudden epiphany will get them out of the mire they found themselves in. When truth becomes something you aren't able to assess correctly due to your fear of being misled, nothing will save you.

The true death of intelligence is when you can't accept the knowledge other provide to you, even if they present you with compelling proof. One can't learn what they think they already know.

[gapsule]

Jordan Peterson: everything is climate

Zoe Bee: everything is media

[DancerVeiled]

I've constantly been bombarded with people I know taking the stance that "Everything is made up, nothing is true, therefore the media I prefer to believe is correct is the true one because it's no more or less provable than anyone else's." Leading to this kind of... vibes-based reporting. "Yeah, [XYZ Group] totally did that, because of course they would, that sounds like a thing that would happen." When the values of those groups are, themselves, strawmen imagined in that person's head.

I hate it so much.

[davidthefrank]

I'm a media scholar and I like this essay. It gives a good background on two areas in media studies using language geared toward overly online people. I might share with my students. Subscribed!

[Eszter]

I've recently read Manufacturing Consent in another language and the translator's note stated that the book is not a significant work in the field which I didn't want to believe. The content of the book seemed relevant and I heard it mentioned again and again in video essays, podcasts, lectures.
It might not have been a very prominent work when it was translated 20 years (or so) ago but boy, is it prominent now!

[DeathsInBottles]

Media studies professor and first time watcher. Subbed at the 15:00 minute mark. This is great!

[voidstuffs]

Comment for the algorithm and blood for the blood God

[AbeFroman-sk]

I think a voluntary ethics code for content creators and independent media is an awesome idea. Look at how powerful the creative commons was at shaping the conversation around copyright. You should reach out to Doctorow and see if he's interested

[KnowPiracy-zuil]

I remember an incident when I was a child where I bought these toy dragons that came in eggs, but the dragon came apart at their limbs right and the eggs only fit the disassembled dragons. The Ads made me think that the fully assembled dragon fit in the egg and I was so distraught, crying and making a scene, when I couldn't fit the assembled dragons in the eggs. The idea that people would just lie to me or misrepresent themselves to me was so upsetting that I still remember it almost twenty years later.

Idk if that's was the initial trigger or not, but as an adult I'm really quite hostile towards ads, propaganda, misrepresentations, and all other acts against Truth. Interestingly, this hostility and suspicion towards obvious mistruths doesn't fully protect me because, well, if you know it's probably bs of-course you're not going to believe it.

[DeagleGuero]

"has any of this ever happened before?"

"in 1922..."

me: oh shit...

[jamesgphillips]

I think this is an important topic. I feel like the media literacy line is a very "bootstrap" approach to the issue ignoring any chance of regulatory or structural reform

[fnanyl]

yup another example of how rich people can get away with anything, another banger by my boy