You are not immune: Why media literacy must have no exceptions

This piece by Jenna Denomme gives the topic of media literacy both the depth and breadth that it needs. Bottom line: nobody is immune to misinformation and media literacy is something that everyone needs to attain. It is not a partisan issue. I encourage everyone to follow Jenna’s Blog for updates. Her work is something to watch out for.

Jenna's Journal

Media literacy, taught properly, is for everyone – and it must not be applied unevenly

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I’m a child of liberals. For many years growing up, I watched Good Morning America every week morning, and NBC and CBS every night. My grandfather on my mom’s side, who had proposed Elizabeth Warren as a strong presidential candidate before even 2016, was always up to talk with me about politics. I remember late nights where he’d pick me up from chorus practice and, on the drive home, fill me in about the conflict in Ukraine. I’ve always trusted the opinions of him and my other well-educated family members on these topics.

I’m also a child of the Internet. While I would say I wasn’t active on any major social media sites until high school, YouTube is the big exception. And I remember that some of the binges I’d go on back in 2013…

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The Power of Grassroots: What led us here?

This piece by Will Coleman on grassroots organizing and community building is really quite inspiring. He expands on his original blog to discuss Bernie’s campaign, community effort to save a local museum in Winlock,Washington and a clean water and energy community initiative in New Jersey.

The Main Brain

_{Bernie Sanders at a rally in St. Paul, Minnesota, Photo by Lorie Shaull}

The rise of widely accessible social media platforms has afforded new and powerful tools for local civic engagement and organization, making it a key part of the last three presidential elections. Powerful local initiatives are called Grassroots movements or actions, and have become increasingly socially and politically relevant within the last eight years. Joe Biden’s record breaking election was driven in large part by efforts from local and national organizations to get people out to vote, working in communities across the country despite the prevalence of COVID-19. The work done to inform communities on voting can be attributed to local grassroots efforts, who gained international attention in some places by setting up stations to inform people on where and how to vote in their communities. Grassroots efforts also famously pushed Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign to the national…

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The New Forefront of Civic Education is… the Gaming Industry?

Abram’s piece on how the gaming industry has become a critical conduit to civic engagement is well worth reading in its expanded version. This piece , which extends the analysis of Abram’s original blog post, is from his E-portfolio.

Massachusetts By Maine

One of the many challenges impeding widespread media literacy is a lack of civil engagement. Without an understanding both of historical and contemporary civics issues and topics, conversations surrounding media literacy will be unproductive. Fortunately, I attended a college prep school from seventh grade until I graduated high school, and civic engagement was paramount to my education. From volunteering projects to dedicated classes, civic values were solidly instilled in me. Unfortunately, my experience is irregular. There is a crisis of civic understanding and engagement. This is a crisis that is actively being addressed, and the solutions are coming from atypical places.

One of those is the video game industry, as unlikely as it may initially sound. However, promoting civic engagement through gaming is both incredibly smart and incredibly vital. As the industry grows in scope, its tangential communities grow alongside it. This is a landscape full of content creators…

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From English to Computer Science in Under a Decade: The Rapidly Changing Education of Journalists

This piece from Delaney’s E-portfolio wonderfully expands on her first blog post for the semester. I highly recommend it to anyone preparing for a career in journalism 2.0.

Delaney Beaudoin

Protesters commenting on the relationship between fake news and real life occurrences. “People Rallying holding posters.” CC-BY. https://www.piqsels.com/en/public-domain-photo-sfrq

By: Delaney Beaudoin-  March 17, 2021

The most common rhetoric regarding the invasion of technology into the workforce traditionally focuses on the idea of job-stealing. Machines replacing working hands and transforming the once reliable industry of blue-collar work to a highly competitive sphere under which the rug is apt to be pulled out from underneath. Yet, another arguably more frightening phenomena often overlooked is that when technology does not steal one’s job, but instead rapidly shifts the environment. Ever progressing until the job in question has been altered into an almost unrecognizable entity, demanding a task foreign to even the most seasoned professional. Has the rapid progression of the internet and massive increase of digital content production usurped the role journalists once considered themselves experts in?

The unfortunate answer is yes. A…

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A Stubborn People: TV & Social Media in Greece

As seen by my other blog posts a really enjoy taking concepts we learn and discuss in class and applying them to Greek culture and how they influence the Greek population. The transition from news and media being primarily on social media now rather than TV is a concept that has exploded over the past …

Civic Engagement in a Silent Nation

In a previous blog I spoke of media and civic literacy in Greece as at times it is difficult for the average Greek citizen to gain access to the knowledge required to be media literate however I now wanted to shed light on civic engagement in Greece and how people are making their voices heard, …

From Print to Phone: The Evolution of Greek Media

In a previous blog of mine I began discussing the differences and importance of both television and social media as the impact Greek news and media but I now want to focus on the evolution of social media and news in Greece. As I mentioned in the previous blog Greek media and its evolution has …

Conservative influencers

  With more and more pressure building on social media sites to be more proactive in the “woke” movement it makes it harder and harder to allow free speech. Over the last 8 years I have slowly watched more and more right leaning social media influencers get banned for posting their political opinions. With the …

What Counts as Base Level Civic Knowledge

For a while I pondered how to start this blog, tried a few different openers but none of them seemed to flow as well as I liked. I spent some time looking and I found a definition of “civic education” which I believe to be a good starting point to understand this concept.  “In a …