Cultural Marxism in the Digital Era

An illustration of Max Horkheimer (top left), Theodore Adorno (bottom left), Walter Benjamin (bottom middle), Erich Fromm (top middle), Herbert Marcuse (bottom right), and Karl Marx (far right), courtesy of Reason Magazine. Many right-wing thinkers (Jordan Peterson), politicians (Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz), and institutions (Foundation for Economic Education and the Heritage Foundation–a foundation to …

Harms of Conspiracy Theories

Photo by: Getty Images Are conspiracy theories harmful to the makeup of media literacy? Conspiracy theories can manipulate information to grow a following on a topic or have people question the actual reality of a situation. There are possibilities that conspiracy theories are true, but there is a lot of speculation about spreading ideas around. …

How to Define Fake News, Identify it, and Analyze its Proliferation

Fake News is a controversial term familiar to most Americans, but what exactly does it refer to? Image source: Stanford University News The term "fake news" is a widespread and politically charged buzzword, with its meaning often unclear. Most would probably be most familiar with the words "fake news" from the 2016 U.S. election, where …

The Unvaccinated V.S the Vaccinated: New York’s concentration camps

Image from Instagram In December of 2021, I opened my Instagram account to friends sharing the possibility of New York opening a concentration camp for the unvaccinated. A few friends sent me the post and for a quick second, the information presented looked real. The post included bills and signatures but there were a few …

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

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

The Primal Appeal of Conspiracy Theories

"Conspiracy Nut" by Paradigm is licensed under CC BY 2.0 There's a little conspiracy theorist inside all of us. To best it requires we be critical of both the media we consume, and our own biases. One thing humans are uniquely good at is crafting stories out of disparate threads. One form of those yarns is the conspiracy theory: …

Media Literacy in Relation to Conspiracies: The Royal Family

By definition, media literacy encompasses the practices that allow people to access, critically evaluate, and create or manipulate media. Ever since the first smartphone came out in the early 2000s, we've had the world at our fingertips and the capability of the internet and news everywhere we go. However, with the internet and knowledge comes …

If we were Media Literate, Would the Earth be Flat?

Have you ever wondered why the most unbelievable conspiracy theories tend to have the largest followings? Conventional wisdom would have you think that the more outlandish the conspiracy theory is the less traction and follower commitment it would receive, but when one thinks of the size of the flat earth movement, this notion seems to …