Can we understand social media?
If you can’t understand the medium, you cannot understand the message. Marshall McLaughlin stated this. It truly surprises me that this statement was made in 1964 and is still so relevant today. This statement resonated with me as a sixth grade teacher. My students are on apps and websites that I am not familiar with. At the same time, as we do research for informative writing I want my students to understand the websites they are using in order to find reliable sources. I have discussions with my students about where they are receiving information from and how media can influence bias, but we do not do any formal investigation on the topic. I remember in my middle school years discussing reliability of sources and determining if what was on a website was accurate information. As a part of my math class we talk about bias and statistical questioning. Today, students are typing in questions into Google and taking whatever answer Google generates for them. We are getting a new writing curriculum next year, and if accuracy in resources is not part of that, I want to work with my team to create lessons as a part of our writing. This is definitely a life skill that will be necessary throughout their schooling.
Rheingold circle’s us back to understanding the medium of social media. In his article, he cites attention, participation, collaboration, network awareness, and critical consumption as the five social media literacies. Rheingold states Ultimately, the most important fluency is not in mastering a particular literacy but in being able to put all five of these literacies together into a way of being in digital culture. Rheingold feels that it is important to be purposeful in the use of media and being conscious of what is done online. This goes against the mindless scrolling we have all been guilty of, I’m sure. I think the attention and critical consumption pieces are particularly important when thinking about our students. In attention the attention piece are students absorbing what they are doing on social media and trying to gain something or are they just clicking through and liking anything that pops up. YouTube rabbit holes come to mind here. As they choose videos to watch and more is pushed out to them, are they aware of what they are watching and being fed? With critical consumption, students need to be able to discern what is reliable or trustworthy information. They need to understand when bias is involved or if someone is putting information out for good or negative reasons. With this piece our digital citizenship is crucial.
Rheingold and Today’s Technologies
Even though Rheingold’s initial article was written in 2010, I do still feel it is relevant today. In 2012 Nieman Lab wrote an article after interview Rheingold on his theories. In the article Reingold shares, the proliferation of media has not stopped — if anything it has gone into hyperdrive,” he said. “If you want to keep up with anything, it’s not about keeping up with technologies, it’s about keeping up with literacies. If you didn’t know this quote was said in 2012, you would think it could have been said yesterday. We need to understand how to discern text and focus on text regardless of the platform it is being presented on. It is important to focus on what we are consuming as well as the content our kids and students are consuming.
Rachael, I focused more on Renee Hobbs 5 competencies so it was interesting to compare to Rheingold's thoughts. "It is purposeful in the use of media and being conscious of what is being done online." This seems to blend more with how we analyze media literacy and blend with McLuhan's message that we need to read the message but also analyze the character behind the words.
ReplyDeleteFunny, reading about how both McLaughlin and Rheingold wrote pieces that are still relevant today makes me wonder both what type of media will be dominant 50 years from now and if what we are cautioning about today will still be a factor then!
ReplyDeleteRachael, I really connected with your comment about youtube rabbit holes. Last week, I was having trouble with my fridge and my brother came over with my niece and nephews to help me with it. While we were working on the fridge, we turned off the power to my tv so I set the kiddos up with my iPad. At one point while we were changing the outlet that my fridge plugs into, my brother was like, what are they watching??? And low and behold they were on youtube, not even youtube kids cause I don't have those settings on my iPad. So we had to pause for a minute on our project to make sure the children were not down the youtube rabbit hole. It was so easy to just park them in front of the iPad cause in that moment I really wasn't prepared for them to all be here. But then later I was talking with my sister-in-law and she said that sometimes youtube kids is a wild card, if you don't know much about the medium they're on then you don't know what they are being exposed to.
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