By Renee Hobbs
Media Literacy IN ACTION
Questioning the Media
CHAPTER 4
How do people get the news?
Learning Outcomes
1. Understand how people access news and journalism today
2. Identify the many different forms of news and journalism that
consumers use
3. Appreciate the professional journalistic practices involved in
reporting news about war, crime, and conflict
4. Consider how framing shapes news coverage and current events in certain predictable ways to make information more salient to audiences
5. Reflect on how economic pressures affect news values and increase news partisanship
Fierce competition in the news industry has had unexpected consequences for American society
I'M AN ORIGINAL CATCHPHRASE
CREATE TO LEARN
Analyze & Comment
on a News Story
Message: What is the content and main ideas of the
information being expressed?
Rationale: Why did you select this example? What makes it
interesting to you?
News Values: Why was it published? Which news values are most relevant to this particular story?
Audience and Context: Who is the target audience? What kind of prior knowledge is needed to make sense of this news story?
Construction Techniques: How are language, images, and sound used to construct this news story? How are metaphors, symbols, and rhetorical strategies used to attract audience attention and activate emotional responses?
Context: Where, when, and how have people encountered this message? How might this affect its interpretation?
Credibility: What type of news media message is this, and what distinctive features are used in the story to communicate credibility?
Omissions: What questions do you have after reading and analyzing this story?
Judgment: How does the information in this story make sense to you? What do you see as the strengths and limitations of this story?
COMPOSE AN ESSAY
Collaborate on a written essay about your ideas, answering each of the questions in a paragraph. Use evidence from the news story you selected to support your reasoning process.
Share your work online using the hashtag #MLAction.
Work with a partner and find a recent news story that interests you both. As you review the work you have selected, discuss some of the following questions with a partner and take notes of key ideas that emerge:
FLIPGRID
INQUIRY
WHAT ARE MOST IMPORTANT CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM?
Review the Top 10 Press Pressures and, after reading this chapter, respond to the question:
In your opinion, which of the challenges on this list are most important? Which of the challenges on this list are least important?
What other challenges not shown on this list seem important to you?
Make an informal extemporaneous response by using the Flipgrid Inquiry. When you share your views, offer description and examples, and using reasoning and evidence to support your top 3 choices.
WHAT ARE the most important
3
challenges?
INTELLECTUAL GRANDPARENT:
WALTER LIPPMANN
"When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic, and the relative into an absolute."
--Walter Lippmann, 1955
Learn more about how Walter Lippmann influenced a generation of media literacy educators, researchers & activists
VIDEO
Could Your Citizenship Be Taken Away? | AJ+
