Take an informal poll and ask  people what they consider the most challenging issues they have to deal with. You will likely hear economic concerns, such as inflation, high food prices, the cost of housing, or the lack of affordable child care.

Narrow the question and ask what they consider the biggest threats to democracy. You might hear about the war in Ukraine, the fracturing of our society by online extremists, attempts to restrict voting rights or income inequality.

What you are unlikely to hear mentioned is arguably one of the greatest threats to democracy lurking under the public’s radar: the spread of dangerous disinformation in print, cable television, and the internet. It masquerades as legitimate news, taking in all but the most skeptical and impacting decisions that have the power to rearrange society.

As a country, we have so far been unable to address such “fake news” effectively. Consider this: those who we will need to rely on in the coming critical years to sort out facts from propaganda are K-12 students, and while they can’t vote until they are 18, they are in the firing line of a torrent of disinformation.

The antidote to this poison is critical thinking skills that will enable them to navigate our challenging information landscape. These skills are not easily acquired: A 2016 Stanford University study revealed that 82 percent of middle school students had difficulty distinguishing between sponsored content and objective news articles. That is perhaps why Howard Schneider, executive director of Stony Brook University’s Center for News Literacy, offered this sobering analysis: “We’re in the midst of the most profound information revolution in 100 years. Our children are growing up in a different world, and they are not prepared for the consequences this change is presenting.”

The wide availability of digital technology has ushered in the change. A survey by the respected Pew Center found that more than one-third of parents with children under 12 allowed them to begin using smartphones before the age of 5. They freely access popular sites like TikTok and YouTube, which are known to contain disinformation.

What is media literacy?

It is clear that our children need the tools to discern what is factual and what isn’t, and unless they have those tools, they are vulnerable. Fortunately, educators have recognized this. The field of media literacy – the ability to access, analyze, and evaluate media in various forms–has become a necessary pillar of the curriculum. It teaches students to analyze the information they receive, distinguish between propaganda and authentic reports, and question, rather than blindly accept.

A call to build media literacy nationwide has resulted in legislation in nearly every state that either recommends or requires such instruction to be incorporated into classes that students must take to graduate. New Jersey was the first to mandate that schools teach media literacy at every grade level from kindergarten to 12th grade. A number of nonprofit organizations, many of which provide classroom materials free for any school that requests them, recommend that lessons start early.

California’s response

The requirement to teach media literacy beginning in the early grades is very much on the legislative agenda in Sacramento. In 2018, the California legislature passed a bill introduced by Senator Bill Dodd that mandated the Department of Education include media literacy resources on its website. Originally the Dodd Bill mandated a media literacy curriculum. The bill that eventually passed requires the department website to list instructional material and resources for analyzing and evaluating media and to offer professional development programs for teachers. It stopped short of requiring that media literacy be included in the curriculum. 

Five years later, a new bill has been introduced by Assemblyman Marc Berman that would ensure that all K-12 students are “prepared with media literacy skills necessary to safely, responsibly, and critically consume and use social media and other forms of media and information.” It requires that media literacy be integrated into the core subjects that students learn in kindergarten through twelfth grade, modified for age appropriateness, making it similar to New Jersey’s requirement. Berman contends that “as children spend more time online and are exposed to more information at younger ages, it is critically important that they receive instruction in media literacy throughout their education.” The bill would provide money for this integration as the math, science, English, and history-social science frameworks are revised on the normal eight-year cycle. Media literacy content would first be integrated next year into English/language arts, then into math, science, and then into history-social science curriculum frameworks when they are next revised. While it has a way to go before it becomes law, mandatory integrating media literacy into the California curriculum will be a major step forward.

The current status of media literacy in Monterey County schools

Deneen Guss, our country Superintendent of Schools, has assured me that media literacy is being taught throughout the system. The details as to grades and subject grades are left to individual school district superintendents. The Monterey Peninsula Unified School District did not make a representative available for an interview. Still, Ralph Pourras, Superintendent of the Pacific Grove school district, was expansive in his description of how media literacy is being taught in PG schools. His efforts on this topic go back nearly a decade. “We worked with the California Library Association in those days so that the system’s history teachers could work with librarians who had earned a certificate on the subject. It wasn’t a discrete class but was embedded into the curriculum. That has been the case for the last ten years.” Superintendent Pourras said that while the topic is mostly taught in high school, largely in the junior and senior years, it is occasionally introduced in the fifth and sixth grades. So while it seems that the discretion to teach the subject and in what grades is currently left to the individual school district, that would change with the passage of the Berman bill.

Evaluating the effectiveness of teaching media literacy

One of the challenges in teaching media literacy is how to evaluate its effectiveness. There are no firm criteria for objective evaluation, which usually involves reading assignments since critical thinking skills are essential to both reading and quality writing. Some teachers also examine writing samples three or four times during the academic year to see how well students have used words and images which convey particular attitudes or opinions. In both cases, teachers call attention to instances of bias, unsupported references, persuasion, and propaganda in pictures and text that appear in “news” items.

One notable creative way of developing and evaluating student skills at spotting disinformation has been employed by the University of Washington, which invites local high school students to participate in “Misinfo Day,” during which they are presented with news items they have to assess for disinformation content. They exercise the skills they have learned and are taught new skills, such as how to detect images of people generated by artificial intelligence, yet another significant challenge thrown at consumers of information.

The essential skill of questioning sources

Media literacy offers a toolkit that students can use whenever they see information online. The essential skills involve asking questions rather than simply accepting the information and practicing “lateral reading,” a process used by fact-checkers, in which multiple sources of information are researched on the internet to determine if what has been presented is objective. Studies have shown that lateral reading greatly increases the ability to judge the objectivity of digital content.

One of the most important lessons in media literacy is to question sources. This is not to induce a permanent distrust but to encourage awareness of potential bias.

The role of parents

Parents play an essential role in teaching media literacy. Engage with your kids on what content they are consuming. Ask your kids to look for facts to support headlines. Talk to them about whether what they are reading comes from a respected source. Are both sides of the issue presented? Encourage them to ask a lot of questions. Ask them to be skeptical while still being engaged. The National Association of Media Literacy and many other advocacy organizations offer excellent guides for parents. The bonus is that it gives parents yet another way to communicate with their kids at a time when communication is so important.

In the end, media literacy and good citizenship are strongly intertwined. Our education system has gotten that message. Our legislators have gotten that message. Defeating disinformation is a necessity if democracy is to survive.

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Susan Meister is a journalist, columnist, and community activist living in Pebble Beach. Susan’s writing has been recognized with awards for service writing and news feature writing from the Parenting Media Association.