It is the year 2030. The web’s capabilities for quick, easy, and widely accessible online publishing had led to the proliferation of fake news and misinformation, and increasingly vocal support for unrestricted freedom of speech. Legislation requiring educators to present opposing viewpoints on all issues started with Texas’s House Bill 3979, designed and passed with the intention of limiting how race-related subjects were taught in classrooms. Similar laws were adopted across the United States and then in Canada’s right-leaning, conservative provinces. Lawmakers argued that opposing viewpoints on all issues, including debated and controversial issues, were required to be presented “without giving deference to any one perspective” (Relating to the Social Studies Curriculum in Public Schools, 2021).
Canadian and American K-12 teachers faced two options. They could avoid discussion of any issue considered to be debatable or controversial in their lessons and classroom resources. Or, they could teach opposing viewpoints behind atrocities such as slavery, colonialism, and the Holocaust. Educators feared the consequences of giving further voice to those preaching racism, discrimination, and hatred, but in an economy ravaged by the impact of COVID-19, disciplinary action or even job loss were real threats to those who did not have the financial freedom to speak up (Lopez, 2021). Teachers, schools, and districts faced immense pressure from parents seemingly polarized on all issues. Compounding the problem was the continued spread of misinformation on social media platforms.
What led to this dire situation? With the advent of the internet at the close of the 20th century and increasingly accessible information online, there was a rush of optimism and the utopian sense of hope that this technology would usher in a new era of widespread access to information and education, thus reducing inequalities present in society. Those who were excited about the web’s capabilities highlighted its potential to provide tools for learners who struggle, give marginalized groups a platform for communication, increase access for audiences worldwide, and promote democratic movements (Gainer, 2012). People, particularly younger people, were spending increasingly more time interacting in digital spaces both in their personal lives and at school. Teachers had learned how to use digital tools due to the pandemic-related shifts to online learning, and continued to integrate these tools when they returned to classrooms for in-person learning (Simmons, 2021). However, although internet technologies were predicted to “increase exposure to political difference because they would tend to overcome social and geographical boundaries” (Spohr, 2017, p. 152), this reality failed to materialize.
As Golden (2017) pointed out, “Two decades later, broad discourses on digital media, new literacies, and issues of equity are largely free of such hopes” (p. 373). Why had the narrative shifted from an optimistic outlook to one of doom? Research in the early decades of the 21st century resulted in enlightening conclusions. A closer look at the powerful forces behind many web-based tools and social media platforms made it clear that the internet was not a neutral, objective place of passive participation, but was indeed a living, thriving organism driven by social values (Weller, 2020). Garcia and de Roock (2021) contended that online (digital) and offline (analog) worlds were inseparable, and argued that politics and the political process were very much active participants in digital spaces. They further asserted that “not only have contemporary digital culture corralled society onto limited, privately–controlled platforms, but these spaces are also ripe for extracting capital–monetary, social, cultural–from this large user base” (p. 188). Mihailidis (2018) substantiated this by noting that few companies monopolized not only the media content that was consumed, but also controlled online media access and traffic, and as a result, “people are increasing[ly] subjected to algorithmic advertising, personalized information, and targeted content that is designed for the extraction of data and for their continued sharing” (p. 157).
Unknowingly (or not?), humanity entered into a post-truth era in which data-driven, factual information was less valuable than information targeted towards emotions and/or personal beliefs (Oxford English dictionary, 2020). Spohr (2017) investigated the relationship between ideological polarization and information consumption on social media sites, and identified how citizens were increasingly exposed to information only within the boundaries of what matched their previous consumption patterns. First, algorithms dictated the information available to the user and placed them in bubbles of like-minded thought. The psychological phenomenon of selective filtering led to confirmation bias, in which existing beliefs were confirmed, often unconsciously. Additionally, the volume of information available online led to the news-finds-me perception, in which the individual no longer had a need to intentionally seek information due to constant exposure to algorithmic-driven news-related content online. Significant time spent online resulted in widespread immersion in an inescapable algorithm-affirming vortex that eroded the capability of critical thought.
For years, Jenkins (2009) and other scholars in the field of learning and technology highlighted the importance of teaching media literacies. Educators, and especially those with a digitally-focused teaching philosophy, recognized the necessity of integrating media literacies in all curricular areas in order to prepare students to be informed and vocal citizens. However, the media literacies of the past were no longer as effective because they failed “to take into consideration the cultural context of information consumption … created over the last thirty years” (boyd, 2017 para. 1) and/or, existed on the fringes of formal education (Mihailidis, 2018).
The stark reality was that culture was being created in social media spaces, not only in North America, but all over the globe. And so, humanity found itself at a critical juncture. To maintain the status quo was to descend even deeper into the abyss of digital capitalism and the war between individualism and the collective good, with the corporate-backed far-right winning. Or, humanity could fight the status quo and take advantage of the potential to educate the masses through the public education system. By teaching critical media literacies, education systems could produce an informed public capable of critical thinking in both the digital and analog worlds.
Garcia & de Roock (2021) argue that literacies are “situated in complex civic contexts that are mediated in both online and offline environments” (p. 187) and that literacy should be redefined as a “social and communicative act” (p. 188). Reframing the narrative around this definition of literacy highlights the civic component of literate acts and the necessity for new approaches to literacy education. Alvermann (2017) advocates for a critical inquiry approach, in which instruction attempts to disrupt myths and distortions by accounting for the political, economic, and social intersections behind information available on social media sites. Mihailidis (2018) argues in favour of prioritizing civic intentionality through agency, caring, critical consciousness, persistence, and emancipation. Doing so would result in “civic renewal” (p. 159) and allow for meaningful engagement in terms of activism, social justice, and bringing communities together in positive ways. Garcias and de Roock (2021) champion for implementation of pedagogies that work towards an abolitionist lens by empowering students to “critically interrogate civic platforms: classroom, political sphere, and digital platforms” (p. 196) and make “explicit connections to social movements beyond electoral politics and volunteerism” (p. 196).
While these approaches are varied, what they all hold in common is the need to reframe the narrative to refocus literacy education as civic action. By examining power relationships, both in digital and analog environments, and encouraging civic action and critical thinking, educators can cultivate a generation of students with the skills necessary to wage war against the dangerous move into a post-truth era and prevent the further disintegration of the fragile collective and moral structures of contemporary society.
References
Alvermann, D. E. (2017). Social media texts and critical inquiry in a post-factual era. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 61(3), 335–338. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.694
boyd, d. (2017, January 5). Did media literacy backfire?. Data Points: Data & Society. https://points.datasociety.net/did-media-literacy-backfire-7418c084d88d
Gainer, J. (2012). Critical thinking: Foundational for digital literacies and democracy. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(1), 14–17. https://doi.org/10.1002/JAAL.00096
Garcia, A., & de Roock, R. S. (2021). Civic dimensions of critical digital literacies: towards an abolitionist lens. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 16(2), 187–201. https://doi.org/10.1080/1554480X.2021.1914058
Golden, N. A. (2017). Critical digital literacies across scales and beneath the screen. Educational Media International, 54(4), 373–387. https://doi.org/10.1080/09523987.2017.1391523
Jenkins, H. (2009). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. MIT Press.
Lopez, B. (2021, October 15). The law that prompted a school administrator to call for an “opposing” perspective on the Holocaust is causing confusion across Texas. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/10/15/Texas-critical-race-theory-law-confuses-educators/
Mihailidis, P. (2018). Civic media literacies: Re-imagining engagement for civic intentionality. Learning, Media and Technology, 43(2), 152–164. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2018.1428623
Oxford University Press. (2020, December)) Post-truth. Oxford English dictionary. Retrieved October 25, 2021, from https://www-oed-com.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/view/Entry/58609044?redirectedFrom=post-truth#eid
Relating to the Social Studies Curriculum in Public Schools, Texas H.B. 3979, 87th Leg. (2021). https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB3979/2021
Simmons, A. (2021, September 28). Tech-centric, but not remote: Teaching in the classroom this year. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/tech-centric-not-remote-teaching-classroom-year
Spohr, D. (2017). Fake news and ideological polarization. Business Information Review, 34(3), 150–160. https://doi.org/10.1177/0266382117722446
Weller, M. (2020). 25 Years of Ed Tech. Athabasca University Press.