What is News Literacy?: News literacy can be said to be a subset or an area of study that comes under the much broader field called the media literacy(Mihailidis, 2012). Media literacy has been defined as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and communicate media messages in a wide variety of forms(Aufderheide, 1993). It is an extended version of the Literacy programmes whose main objective was to teach reading and writing skills. It is also a systematic attempt to account for changing times where people are not encountered with just print messages but a wide variety of multimedia messages. Media literacy therefore particularly emphasizes the skills of analyzing, evaluating, and creating multimedia media messages that make use of the language(written, verbal & symbolic), moving images, music, graphics, sound effects, and other techniques. This includes images, movies, documentaries, animations, online games, ads, fiction, news and also messages circulated through social networking sites. News literacy holds on to the objectives of media literacy but concerns only with one form of media messages that is News.
Why News Literacy?: According to Ashley, Maksl, & Craft, 2013 at the center of media literacy is the notion that a gap exists between representation and reality in media messages. And they go on to say that as per many research studies this is especially true of news media messages. The reason for having News literacy as a separate area of study is that News, unlike other media content, is said to play an important role in informing self-governing citizens to help them participate in democratic processes. Hence Journalists who come up news media messages are expected to represent the reality as accurately as possible. Yet even the slightest of gap between the representation and reality of news media messages is observed to have significant implications on how people act based on those messages. But before we delve into the research studies of how news has influenced people’s behavior we will look into the origins of the gap between representation and reality of news media messages.
What causes the gap in the representation and reality of news media messages?: Monette, Sullivan, & DeJong, 2011 in their book ‘Applied Social Research: A Tool for the Human Services’ discuss about the five major sources of knowledge that the Humans depend upon for their action. The sources of knowledge mentioned by the authors are Tradition, Experience, Common Sense, Journalism and Science. Understanding the nature of these sources of knowledge will help us appreciate the origins of the gap in the representation and reality of news media messages. It will also help us see the relevance and significance for the need to understand teaching and learning of ‘News Literacy’.
According to authors ‘Traditional Knowledge’ is based on custom, habit and repetition. It is based on the belief in the holiness of the ancient wisdom and the ways of our forebears. For example take the traditional agricultural practices. People knew by tradition which crops to be grown in which seasons and how to grow them. Similarly people knew by tradition what to cook and how to cook. Authors observe that while tradition is an important source of knowledge it is also extremely resistant to change even when the new information surfaces or the new developments occur. Hence the traditional knowledge is said to weigh heavily towards what ought to be and not on an understanding of what it is.
With regard to ‘Experience’ as a source of knowledge authors describe it as the first hand, personal observation of events or people. Experiential knowledge as per them is based on the assumption that truth and understanding can be achieved through personal experience and that witnessing events will lead to an accurate comprehension of those events. Consider a police personnel interrogating a suspect in the crime. They most often rely on their past experience of interrogating suspects in similar cases. But it might make no sense to an outsider observing the interrogation practices employed by the police. Experiential knowledge although highly valued across societies; authors observe that it has severe limitations that can lead to erroneous conclusions. One such limitation is that people or events directly available for our observation might not be the accurate representatives of all the people or events about whom/which we wish to draw conclusion. Besides our mood, cultural background, vested interests all are said to play a significant role in influencing how we experience particular events.
Regarding ‘Common Sense’ as a source of knowledge authors consider it as a blending of knowledge accumulated from tradition and experience. Furthermore authors go on to say that people with common sense are presumed to be able to make sound decisions even though they lack any specialized training or knowledge. Popular quotes on various issues are fine examples of what authors call commonsensical knowledge. For example quotes such as “the purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one”, “child’s mind as a blank slate” are some examples of commonsensical knowledge. Common sense is said to often over simplify the knowledge. Common sense is also regarded as something that people either have or do not have. It is also considered as something that is not teachable. Common sense is said to fill oneself with a sense of knowing and discourages from critically assessing one's own understanding and seeking out new knowledge in a systematic and rigorous manner.
‘Journalism’ as a source of knowledge includes all the materials prepared by journalists for the newspapers, magazines, television or any other media. As per the authors with the explosion of news sources available on print, radio, television and the internet, people now have access to vast amounts of journalistic information. According to authors Journalism is grounded in observation like science to an extent. Journalists interview people and observe events and they write their reports based on those observations. Furthermore journalists are often in a position to provide evidence for what they report. But a key difference between journalists and scientists is said to be that journalists are often focused more on just the immediate facts while scientists hold that the facts don’t speak for themselves and hence the facts have to be interpreted against the theoretical understanding to reveal what the facts actually mean. Journalism is also prone to the limitations mentioned for the first three sources of knowledge that is Tradition, Experience and Common sense of both the journalists themselves and the people that the journalists interview. This gives rise to the gap in the representation and reality of the news media messages. On the other hand science through processes of scientific method and peer review tries to guard its accuracy of the investigation from the limitations of the knowledge sourced from Tradition, Experience or Common Sense.
Given these limitations of Journalism as a source of knowledge it might surprise us that we were until very recently expected to make sense of Journalistic materials without any systematic training or formal education. As compared to the relatively lesser degree of accuracy and reliability of Journalism in relation to science as a source of knowledge; it boasts lot more credibility and influence over the people. This level of influence and credibility might have largely come from the huge number of people that it reaches everyday.
Review of research studies on News media:
Quantification of misrepresentation in news media: A study by Frost, Frank, & Maibach, 1997 to quantify the representativeness with which the print news media depicted mortality showed that it significantly misrepresented the prevalence of leading causes of death and their risk factors. Researchers observe that this misrepresentation may contribute to the public's distorted perceptions of health threats. While deaths due to tobacco use (23%) and heart disease (33%) were underrepresented; deaths due to illicit use of drugs (1740%), motor vehicles (1280%), and toxic agents (1070%) were overrepresented. Percentages in the bracket represent the extent of underrepresentation or overrepresentation over the actual rate. To arrive at this conclusion researchers compared the proportion of mortality-related copy in samples of national print media with that of the proportion of actual deaths attributable to the leading causes of US mortality over a 1-year period.
On climate change: A qualitative study by Stoddart & Smith, 2016 examined the Canadian national news coverage on the impact of climate change in the Arctic region. The study employed the discourse network analysis and qualitative textual analysis of news articles published in the Globe, the Mail and National Post during the period of 2006 to 2010. The researchers concluded from their study that the climate change in the Arctic was often framed through the lens of Canadian national interests which downplayed the climate related social impacts that were already occurring at sub national political and geographical scales.
On conservation of endangered species: An investigation by Muter, Gore, Gledhill, Lamont, & Huveneers, 2013 on media's coverage of sharks that involved content analysis of 300 shark related articles published in 20 major Australian and U.S news papers from 2000 to 2010 showed that despite the evidence of many shark species being at the risk of extinction the media coverage emphasized the risks that sharks pose to people. They concluded from their study that media coverage mostly reflects popular social opinion while the evidence suggests the rarity of shark attacks.
On tobacco control: Long, Slater, & Lysengen, 2006 studied the news coverage of tobacco control issues in the United States in the year 2002 and 2003. The study covered daily newspapers, local and national TV newscast and national news magazines. They did the content analysis of news items by taking a nationally representative sample of 56 days of news stratified by day of the week and season of the year. Some noteworthy results of their study showed that government action on tobacco control and negative health effects of tobacco did not occur together in the stories thus undermining the government efforts. Although opinion news items favored the tobacco control policies, news stories featured were evenly split between positive and negative stories on tobacco use thus projecting conflicting views on tobacco use. Similarly in another study by Robinson, Coutinho, Bryden, & McKee, 2013 news coverage of novel tobacco products including e-cigarettes was framed with both positive and negative slants.
On civic engagement of adolescents: Researchers Erentaitė, Žukauskienė, Beyers, & Pilkauskaitė-Valickienė, 2012 explored whether discussions about the media, when positively linked to interest in the news media, were related to adolescents' current and future civic engagement. They studied a sample of 2638 adolescents with mean age of 17 years with a standard deviation of 1.2 years. These adolescents who participated in a school-based study on positive socialization, completed self-reports measuring interest in the news media and discussions about the media with parents and friends. Current civic engagement was measured by involvement in volunteering and civic commitments. Future civic engagement was measured by intentions to participate in civic activities in the future. Researchers concluded from the results that more interpersonal discussions about the media and higher interest in the news media both predicted higher civic engagement.
Role of peer discussion in constructive news consumption: Researchers Kleemans, Schlindwein, & Dohmen, 2017 examined whether applying insights from positive psychology to news production and peer discussion can reduce negative emotional responses and enhance positive emotional responses to negative news. They exposed preadolescents (n = 336; 9–13 years old; 48.5% female) to either constructive (solution-based news including positive emotions) or non constructive news. Subsequently, half of the children assigned to the constructive and the non constructive condition took part in a peer discussion. Their findings suggest that exposure to constructive news resulted in more positive emotional responses and less negative emotional responses as compared to non constructive news. Further discussing the news with peers led to more positive and less negative emotional responses among preadolescents who watched the non constructive newscast, and to more prosocial intentions among preadolescents who watched constructive news. Overall constructive news reporting and peer discussion is said to function as tools to make negative news less harmful for preadolescents.
The above studies clearly indicate the gap between the representation and the reality in the news media messages. We have already looked into some elements of the Human nature that contribute to it in the previous section. News media wields its influence on diverse issues like for which candidate or political party should people vote in the coming election? What should be the priority areas that the government should address? Which development pathways should a nation take? What sports or games will people choose to play? Whether people will vaccinate their children or not? Whether people will extend their support to others during distress or not? May be there is not a single issue concerning each of us that the news media does not touch upon. If people could have complete understanding of the conditions in which the news is produced and are better equipped to access, evaluate, analyze, and create news media messages then there is significant scope for plugging this gap between the representation of reality as in news media messages and the reality. News literacy which aims to achieve these objectives encompasses certain key concepts.
Key concepts in the News Literacy for developing concept inventories:
1. What is News?
News is said to be the information of some public interest that is shared and subject to a journalistic process of verification, and for which an independent individual or organization is directly accountable. The attributes of verification, independence and accountability all three must be present to classify any information as News. (“Key Concepts of News Literacy | Stony Brook Center for News Literacy,” n.d.)
- Verification here means the investigative process of finding and confirming facts.
- Independence means the required ideal relationship between the journalist or news source and the story: no financial, personal or intellectual stake in the outcome.
- Accountability is observed when journalists or news sources take responsibility for the veracity of what they’re reporting by attaching their names. For example a news organization that is accountable publishes corrections, mistakes if any.
2. Distinction of Journalistic information from other kinds of information such as Entertainment, Advertising, Publicity, Propaganda and Raw Information.(“The Course Pack for Fall 2017 | Stony Brook Center for News Literacy,” n.d.)
Any typical news media carries not just news, along with news it carries other kinds of information for revenue generation. It is this model of revenue generation that make news affordable to everyone. But it is common nowadays to see advertisements presented exactly in the form of news to draw readers/viewers attention. Same with regard to information meant for publicity, propaganda and entertainment. Journalistic information carries with it the weight of credibility. Other kinds of information have much to gain from posing themselves as Journalistic information.
3. Distinguishing reliable information from unreliable information. Or what makes an information reliable?
Reliable information is an actionable information that is sufficient for one to make a judgment, reach a conclusion or take an action and share with others responsibly.(Klurfeld & Schneider, 2014)
4. Evaluation of sources cited in the news media messages. (“Key Concepts of News Literacy | Stony Brook Center for News Literacy,” n.d.)
- Independent versus self interested source.
- Multiple sources versus single source.
- Sources that verify versus sources that assert.
- Authoritative/informed sources vs uninformed sources.
- Named sources vs anonymous sources.
5. Truth is provisional
Journalism is said to be a snapshot in time. Journalistic truth evolves as new evidence emerges. Access to journalistic truth demands following a news story over time. (“The Course Pack for Fall 2017 | Stony Brook Center for News Literacy,” n.d.)
6. Distinguishing Fact from Opinion
News often carries a combination of facts and opinions cited by various sources. Being unable to distinguish facts from opinions distorts what judgements we make of news information.
7. Hierarchy of Evidence
Direct Evidence that gives us a direct line to the story through the use of photos, video, audio, documents, physical evidence, eyewitnesses and journalist observations is said to be better than Indirect Evidence. Indirect Evidence includes the statements of spokesmen briefed by participants, hearsay evidence from people who talked to witnesses and inferential statements and models constructed by experts who did not witness events, but who reconstruct methodically. (“Key Concepts of News Literacy | Stony Brook Center for News Literacy,” n.d.)
8. Cognitive dissonance
It is said to be an excessive mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, typically a new fact that contradicts an already-held belief. Psychologists have documented that humans resolve the stress by resorting to a variety of coping mechanisms that prevent accurate perception and recall including:
- Selective Distortion and Retention - Remembering only those elements of a news report that affirm the individual’s beliefs, or only “hearing” or “seeing” elements of a report that affirm existing beliefs.
- Confirmation Bias - Seeking out information to confirm what we already believe.
- Source Misattribution - Attributing dubious information to a more credible source.
6. Essential statistics for making sense of news stories
Polls and surveys are most frequently featured in news stories. Essential statistical concepts include sampling techniques, margin of error for a given sample size, reliability and validity of poll questions, measures of central tendency etc
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