MEDIA MENTORSHIP & THE COVID-19 DISINFODEMIC

Let me dispense with the pet peeves first. As media literacy educators well know, words matter. So let’s pay attention to the way we’re framing our current stories. It’s not “social” distancing, it’s “physical” distancing. There are lots of ways to stay socially connected even if we can’t touch.

And also, our world is filled with lots of infringements on liberty. Slavery, forced abortion, forced pregnancy, killing or shooting at journalists, jailing peaceful protestors for crimes committed by disruptors attempting to discredit their cause, banning teaching and materials that attempt to address racism, or having your place of worship shot up by white nationalists to name a few. Note that wearing a mask is not on the list. Wearing a mask is not an infringement of liberty. In fact, it’s the opposite. It provides a way for us to exercise some freedom of movement and interaction, even with a pandemic raging.

Now that that’s out of the way…

BECOMING MEDIA MENTORS

Child care providers are essential – not just “essential workers,” but essential to the well-being of families, children, and communities. In the current pandemic they have been asked to provide near miraculous levels of service without anything close to the amount of support they need or deserve. Despite the obstacles, many have stepped up with creativity and open hearts. I am amazed and inspired by their work. So it feels odd to suggest that in order to successfully navigate current circumstance they need to add another task to their already overwhelming list: becoming media mentors.

The Problem

As a society, we are asking child care providers – among the lowest paid, undervalued professionals in the nation – to carry the weight of life and death decisions. As they tackle the challenge of figuring out how to open their sites in ways that are safe for staff, children, and families, their informed judgment should be enough, but for many people, it’s not. Once policies are put into place, families and staff have to come on board as full partners or it won’t work. With so much misinformation circulating, and so many people resistant or confused about COVID-19, it’s an understatement to say that implementing effective mitigation measures is a challenge.

At the same time, child care professionals are incredibly busy. It isn’t reasonable to expect them to fact-check every new COVID claim uttered by a cable news pundit or posted on FB. Unfortunately, formerly trustworthy sources are now suspect.  CDC, which was once the gold standard of reliable scientific information, has been undermined by political operatives. So we can’t even advise people to rely on the government resources that we pay for with our tax dollars. It’s hard to find easy shortcuts.

Media literacy can’t solve all these issues, but if child care professionals can share it’s strategies with the families they serve, it can help. Towards that end, here are some resources:

FOR RELIABLE COVID INFO

The Federation of American Scientists “Ask A Scientist”  – my “go to” first stop

University of Washington Libraries has aggregated many vetted resources

For a humorous take, check out this graphic from Jordan Shlain, MD: Covid Risk Factor Chart

FOR YOUNG CHILDREN

Videos can help children understand. They also provide developmentally appropriate language that grown-ups can use. To practice media literacy, instead of just answering kids’ questions, look for the answers together. Here are some places to start:

Sesame Street Caring  – an especially helpful collection of videos for families that already trust Sesame Street to provide quality educational media for their children

Stanford Planet v. COVID race – a fun animation about wearing a mask

Colorín Colorado –  a site specializing in info for English Language Learners

To support hand washing with soap – an elementary teacher uses a demo illustrating the impact of soap on surface tension to provide young children with a strong visual image that helps them understand the importance of hand washing

UNDERSTANDING COVID MYTHS

National Geographic “Why misinformation about COVID-19’s origins keeps going viral” – How to sift through the muck by Monique Brouilette & Rebecca Renner

PRACTICE OPPORTUNITIES

University of Washington Spot the Deep Fake – a quick tutorial

Clemson University Spot the Troll  – in a guessing game format, gives detailed explanations of the clues you can use to discern legit and troll

Jonathan Jarry, McGill University’s Office for Science and Society “Moss Cures Cancer” video  –  Pause before you get to the “reveal” in the second half to see if people can spot the techniques being used to sell this false cure. Because no genuine journalism organizations would hire them, lots of conspiracy theorists sell dubious health supplements to provide income, so learning to spot the deception is important.

MEDIA LITERACY QUESTIONS

For questions appropriate for young children, see my blog post: Media Literacy Inquiry with Young Children 

For questions appropriate for staff, download the free pdf at Project Look Sharp

GENERAL FACT CHECKING

Snopes.com is typically my first “go to,” but for claims involving photographic or video “evidence,” check HoaxEye.com.

GENERAL NEWS LITERACY

For current examples accompanied by analysis, subscribe to the News Literacy Project’s free newsletter, The Sift.

For more resources, scroll to the bottom of my blog post: How to Adjust Your “Brights” to See Through the Fog of “Fake” News 

TALKING WITH COVID DENIERS

Infodemic Blog – Mike Caulfield at Washington State University has created this excellent resource on how to evaluate COVID-19 claims and how to talk with deniers.

Among other recommendations, he suggests doing what a news fact-checker would do. Look to see what other sources are saying on the same topic (lateral reading). In other words, rather than trying to disprove or affirm the claim itself, investigate the source to see if it’s trustworthy.

I’d add these strategies:

  1. Share information about media routinely. Make it a feature in your newsletter. Don’t tell people what to think, show them how to investigate. Point out specific flaws in news stories or social media posts (like overgeneralizations, e.g., one person made a mistaken claim about masks, so all claims must be false; or false equivalencies, e.g., 95% of scientists make a particular recommendation, but 5% don’t so we can’t really know because we weight both sides equally even though they aren’t equal). Be sure families understand concepts like “confirmation bias” (that we seek and believe things that affirm our existing beliefs and are more likely to dismiss things that challenge our current beliefs) and “band wagon” (making it seem like most people – or at least most “cool” people – think a particular way, so you should, too).
  1. Suggest media literacy analysis questions about sources and provide opportunities for discussion. For example: On a topic like COVID-19, why would we especially want to seek information from scientists? Are there any reasons not to trust information from scientists? How might we discern when/who to trust a scientist and when to avoid them? What would you want to know about a scientist to discern whether or not they are trustworthy on this topic? What sorts of lateral reading could you do to discover whether they have relevant experience to the questions you’re asking or what their peers think of their work/expertise?
  1. Remind families of their aspirations for their children and help them see the connection to logic and reasoning skills (e.g., you can’t be a doctor or lawyer or business executive without some serious science and math chops). Note that it will help their children succeed if their thinking skills are nurtured at home, as well as in your care.
  1. Share real-life examples about schools that re-opened and did or didn’t follow the protocols you’re using. What happened?

This list isn’t intended to be comprehensive. It suggests places to start for early childhood educators who only have time to look at a couple of resources. My apologies to the creators of many fine materials that have been left out.

As I write this, more than 200,000 Americans have died and nearly 7 million have tested positive for COVID-19, including half a million children. We don’t know what the long-term medical, economic, or social consequences will be for the people who recovered from their initial symptoms. Clearly this is serious and the grown-ups in the room can’t afford to cover their eyes like a toddler to make it all go away. Be a media mentor. Keep yourself and the people around you from getting infected – with the disease or with ignorance.

This post was created as a resource to supplement an Engagement Strategies Early Childhood Investigations webinar: “Engage Families and Staff about COVID-19 Protocols Using Using Media Literacy “ 

If you’re interested in media literacy education in early childhood, you might want to also take a look at the post MEDIA LITERACY AND OUTDOOR EDUCATION FOR YOUNG CHILDREN .

May be reprinted for educational, non-profit use with the credit: From the edublog “TUNE IN Next Time” by Faith Rogow, Ph.D., InsightersEducation.com 2020

When Did Names Lose Their Meaning?

I blame it on professional sports. I love it when team names are tied to their city’s identity, like the Pittsburgh Steelers or the Ottawa Senators. But when franchises are sold and moved without changing the team name, fans are often left with oxymoronic appellations like the Los Angeles Lakers (originally the Minnesota Lakers, Minnesota being the “land of a thousand lakes”). L.A. and lakes? Really? Or how about the Utah (nee New Orleans) Jazz?

The thing is, we depend on names to convey meaning, and the more they cease to do that, the more alienated we are from our surroundings and communities.

To be fair, the problem isn’t just sports teams. Businesses were once reliably named for company founders (think Sears or Nordstrom) or products (General Motors, International Business Machines, or American Tobacco). But in a world dominated by branding, it’s common for company names to be eminently brand-able nonsense words that convey no meaningful information whatsoever. Can you identify what companies like Altria, Syngenta, Xcerra, or Novartis do?

Even our civic space has succumbed. Street names once dependably identified residents or location, so River Road was the street that ran alongside the river and Smith Crossing took you over the creek to the Smith family farm. Today, real estate developers (often with no community ties) invent subdivision street names devoid of any real meaning. They attach idyllic-sounding suffixes like “dale,” “wood,” “brook,” or “field” to places that have no valleys, forests, small streams, or open landscapes, geology be damned. We end up with things like a neighborhood in the desert city of Las Vegas featuring streets designated as Ocean Terrace Way and Ocean Front Drive.  It’s branding run amuck.

ocean-drThere has always been reason to ask questions about things like street names. If you live in an older city, chances are that most street names honor the lives or interests of the wealthy white men who controlled the city’s development. That should prompt us to ask, “Whose history is omitted?” Such questions produce important insights and occasionally, really fun things, like the New York City subway map with the stops renamed for accomplished local women that is included writer/activist Rebecca Solnit’s atlas of NYC.

Now that names are more and more about branding, and more public venues (like stadiums) sell naming rights, asking questions about “authorship,” purposes, and effects is even more important. Next time you roam your community, tune in to the names on the streets, parks, buildings, businesses, schools, and stadiums. Who named them? Why did they choose that name? Do the names reflect anything authentic about your community’s history or character?  And what is the effect on the people who live there if they don’t?

Arguably one of the most interesting questions is asking whether or not a name is or has been contested? For example, just this month, UNESCO was widely criticized because, in an affront to  thousands of years of history, they passed a resolution that seemingly erased all Jewish ties to the religion’s holiest site, Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. How? By intentionally referring to the site using only the Muslim name, Al-Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif.

It’s not just a matter of language, e.g., using English versus Arabic. Names are used to either reveal or re-write history, reinforce or challenge cultural hegemony. Consider, for example, ongoing disputes over the way the U.S. Park Service identifies a popular Wyoming national monument. Maps and signs currently use “Devils Tower,” even though that name is widely recognized as a mistake made by a U.S. Army colonel in 1875 when his interpreter mistranslated what locals were saying. Attempts by the Sioux and other tribes to correct the error and communicate their sacred relationship to the striking rock formation have faced considerable resistance by local political leaders. Efforts to officially change the name to “Bear Lodge” have failed. The public explanation for rejecting the request is that officials don’t want to waste the time and money spent on a marketing campaign designed to attract tourists to Devils Tower. So branding trumps an opportunity for accuracy, and perhaps a modicum of reconciliation. Hmmm.

Media typically render naming disputes invisible. My own town – Ithaca, NY – is a case in point. In 2006, in response to an initiative by people pursuing social and racial justice, the city voted to add Martin Luther King, Jr. Street as second name to State Street. Yet, Google maps still labels the thoroughfare only as State Street. This is not an entirely outrageous choice. The road has been called State Street for more than a century, and out of habit, many locals still use only that designation. But the result of the choice is that newcomers would never know there is a street in Ithaca named after MLK.

When journalists cover stories involving disputed names, they face even more difficult choices about which terms to use. Should they stick with the status quo? Use multiple names even if it means unwieldy prose? Use a newer name even if it may not yet be in common use? More importantly, once writers have made their choice, do they ever acknowledge that they’ve chosen a side, or do they leave readers/listeners/viewers inadvertently ill-informed because the absence of explanation conveys the false impression that there is no controversy? I wonder what would happen if (at least in online sources) reporters helped the public tune in by hyperlinking disputed names to background on the controversy and the criteria they used to choose terms?

No matter what journalists choose to do, we can tune in to news coverage of communities or conflicts by asking, What role do names play and what do they tell us about purpose, identity, and power? Which names do journalists use and what do their choices tell us about their perspectives and policies? Because, as it turns out, in spite of pervasive branding, names still do have meaning.

May be reprinted for educational, non-profit use with the credit:  From the edublog “TUNE IN Next Time” by Faith Rogow, Ph.D., InsightersEducation.com 2016