by Tracy Gallagher, Becky Walton, Jenny McCluskey, Jeanne Martin, and Jill Andreasen Collection Development, Youth Materials
Did you know? We started a library podcast and our first episode is now live. In it we talk about Media and Information Literacy for Young People because fake news is more than just an accusation tossed back and forth between political parties. In an era with a deluge of information and a myriad of ways to share it, it’s an all too real problem. We all need to understand the issue, but none of us more so than today’s kids who are actively forming their perspectives and opinions about the world.
Some of the fascinating pieces of information we found while researching the topic included how long this has been going on (the 1890s were rife with journalistic misinformation due to rival media titans William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer) and that Stanford’s History Education Group found that middle school, high school, and college students have very poor information literacy skills when it comes to social media. The study assessed what they call “civic online reasoning” – the “ability to judge the credibility of information that floods young people’s smartphones, tablets and computers.” Researchers described their findings in one word: bleak.
A recent survey published by Common Sense Media also helps inform the facts on this issue: “News and America’s Kids: How Young People Perceive and are Impacted by the News” whose stated goal “was to provide a comprehensive picture of how children experience the news: where they get it, how news makes them feel, and how they perceive it.” The results are very telling:
- Kids feel neglected and misrepresented by the media
- 74% feel the media should show/interview more people their age, rather than grown-ups talking about them
- 69% think news media has no idea what kids experience
- Kids see racial and gender bias in news reports in the media.
- They still get most of the news that they feel is trustworthy from family, teachers, and other adults.
- But interestingly, they prefer social media—Facebook and YouTube are the most popular news outlets among respondents.
- Fake news fools kids just like adults: 44% feel they can tell when a story is fake, yet 31% say they shared a story online that they later learned to be wrong.
Being fooled by fake news is a factor in how skeptical kids are of online sources: only 1 in 4 think posts or articles are “very accurate.”
For those of you who are Ingram customers, Ingram’s librarians have created an ipage list of the below titles for suggested further reading aimed at both kids and their educators who are committed to modeling and molding good citizenship in the young people with whom they interact. To find this list on ipage: Browse / High Interest Categories / Youth Thematic Resources / Media Literacy. Contact your Ingram sales rep if you need help locating it.
(Please note that the below title links go to Ingram’s online selection and ordering tool, ipage®, where you can get more information about the title. If you don’t have an ipage account, please contact us.)
But I Read it on the Internet! by Toni Buzzeo. Upstart Books, 2013. 9781602130623
Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive (and Survive) in Their Digital World by Devorah Heitner. Routledge, 2016. 9781629561455
Information Literacy in the Digital Age by Laura Perdew. Essential Library (Abdo), 2016. 9781680782851
Information Now: A Graphic Guide to Student Research by Matt Upson, C. Michael Hall, and Kevin Cannon. University of Chicago Press, 2015. 9780226095691
Smart Internet Surfing: Evaluating Websites and Advertising by Mary Lindeen. Lerner, 2016. 9781467794923
Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age: Scientific Habits of Mind by David J. Helfand. Columbia University Press, 2016. 9780231168724
Teaching Information Literacy Reframed: 50+ Framework-Based Exercises for Creating Information-Literate Learners by Joanna M Burkhardt. Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2016. 9780838913970
Using Pop Culture to Teach Information Literacy: Methods to Engage a New Generationby Linda D. Behen. Libraries Unlimited, 2006. 9781591583011
If you’re an Ingram customer, click here for the full list. (Depending on your browser, you may need to log into ipage first, then click the link.)
Join Ingram's Collection Development Team as they explore trending topics, discuss industry news, and share their expertise on how to build the perfect collections for your community in their new podcast, Two Librarians & A Microphone.