As the election approaches, URI professor says media literacy is crucial

Sweetman, a PBS KIDS consultant, recently appeared on “Generation emerging” on Rhode Island PBS, discussing the 10th yearbook Media Literacy Week that was celebrated nationally from October 21 to 25.

She said she urges young people to ask themselves some basic questions about the media they consume. For example, she suggested asking: who is the creator of the media? What is the purpose of that medium? Who is represented in the media and who is missing?

Sweetman said her students are “very passionate” about the upcoming election, and she said it is important for them to understand that messages are delivered for many reasons.

“They’re not always brought over just to tell the truth,” she said. “They can start to become critical thinkers, critical media consumers. And that actually goes back to that research and asking questions about it.

Sweetman said she encourages students to visit the website allsides.com to see how major news stories are presented in media outlets deemed to be on the left, right or center of the political spectrum.

“You read those titles and they seem like five different stories, even though it’s the same subject,” she said. “It’s really interesting to see, even as a grown adult who’s been navigating media for a while.”

These types of side-by-side comparisons can reveal the biases that shape reporting, but it also helps students understand perspectives beyond their own, Sweetman said. “So reading all five news articles on the same topic gives you different perspectives to which you can apply your own values and your own belief system and decide where you stand and what is meaningful in your life,” she said.

Sweetman said she relied on the Encyclopedia Britannica growing up and never questioned that information. Today, students access a wide variety of information on their smartphones, and they get about 90 percent of their information from YouTube, she said.

But students are also aware of the potential for misinformation and disinformation, and they are well informed about the visual media they see, including deepfakes, Sweetman said.

A 2019 study published in the journal Science Advances found that people aged 65 and older are almost four times as likely to share fake news on social media than younger people and were responsible for spreading far more misinformation during the 2016 presidential campaign.

“We didn’t grow up with as much visual data as our young people, and they are slightly better at reading and interpreting visual data than older generations,” says Sweetman. “And so there is a lot we can learn from them.”

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Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @FitzProv.