Abstract

Political media in the 2020s will be vastly different than what’s been standard in the last two decades prior. The proliferation of the Internet and the rapid advancements in information communication technology (ICTs) have increased the speed, reach, and intensity of the political message that’s being communicated. Improving the political media literacy of the nation’s youth is a small but critical step in combating misinformation and manipulative communication tactics over the next decade.

The program proposal begins by reviewing important historical context, examining the political media's current state in the United States and trends going into the next decade, and outlines journalistic best practices to highlight the need and urgency to improve political media literacy in the nation’s youth. The proposal concludes by presenting a plan for a public service campaign focused on educating high school students on political media with the goals of helping students understand why media literacy is essential, how to identify types of political media in commonly used social media platforms, how to identify manipulative tactics, and how to critically review the content and resist being manipulated. The program will create a Media Literacy training website that contains a short video and photographic examples of recent political media, e-learning modules, and interactive quizzes. The plan also details a low-cost awareness campaign that takes advantage of social media and guerilla marketing tactics to spread awareness of the website. 

History of the Political Media & Where We Are Going

The political media in the United States has historically served three distinct functions – by providing a forum for candidates and political parties to debate their qualifications for office, contributing to informed citizenship by providing a variety of perspectives, and serving as a watchdog, scrutinizing the actions of government officials on behalf of citizens (Iyengar, 25.) In the era of public broadcasting and radio, the political media served those functions respectably. However, with the rise of television came the commercialization of broadcast media. Media entities in the United States are almost entirely privately owned and operated and less regulated than in other countries (Iyengar, 31.) Thus, economic pressures have constrained the range of perspectives represented in news programs (Iyengar, 31.)

Commercialization has also impacted the type of content that the media chooses to air. Over the past few decades, the American public has seen an increase in sitcoms, reality shows, celebrity news, and other types of entertainment-related content. In response to the popularity of such programs, the political news media has been forced to adapt their content to be more interesting and entertaining. Iyengar argues that coverage of sensationalized events is more profitable than substance (Iyengar, 69.) This has contributed to a shift in journalistic norms as well. The two dominant values in professional journalism are objectivity and autonomy. This has led to the rise of interpretive forms of coverage instead of descriptive reporting (Iyengar, 76.) This style of reporting amplifies the journalist's voice and increases their reliance on sensational stories and critique because that is what sells.  Suppose the news was presented in broadcast media alone. In that case, the effects of the state of the media outlined above might have been somewhat normalized and mitigated; however, recent trends suggest that sensationalism, manipulative interpretations, and misinformation is getting worse, amplified with the rise of the Internet and social media.

The proliferation of the Internet and the rise of usage of apps like TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter have increased the reach of politicians, activists, fringe content personalities, and, unfortunately, manipulative communication tactics. In the past, ordinary citizens had some autonomy in choosing what political media or news they wanted to consume; the consumer simply needed to change the channel and be presented with a different point of view. Algorithm-driven content, however, makes that harder to do. Algorithms utilize machine learning to understand the type of content the user would most likely engage with or specific individuals the user would most likely want to connect with. As a result, social media feeds become more curated, increasing the likelihood of creating echo chambers. Online social networks are politically homogeneous, and users are usually exposed to news and commentary consistent with their partisan leanings (Iyengar, 152.) One of the most significant threats that can occur because of this is the rise of misinformation. In the 2016 United States Presidential Election, foreign powers weaponized social media to interfere with the democratic process. In 2021, misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccine effectiveness is rampant, contributing to a rising rate of vaccine hesitation and anti-science bias. The unregulated and uncontrolled nature of social media makes it possible for people to encounter misleading and inaccurate information (Iyengar, 152.) Consistent with the rise of soft programming and soft news, content that contains misinformation is deemed more attractive simply because of sensationalism and deviating from the official record. 

Engagement with this type of content is what feeds algorithms to learn more about the user. Thus, algorithms can then contribute to the frequency of misinformation consumed and, consequently, the intensity of the effects of that misinformation. 

Political Media Literacy Training in High School Students

With political media content fast becoming a large portion of the content being consumed in the United States, young people must be taught the necessary skills to become informed citizens to participate in the American democratic process. This program proposal requests public funding for creating an interactive Media Literacy Training website and a budget for a marketing campaign focused on raising awareness of the website in the top 25 largest public-school districts by enrollment.

A login will be required to access the contents of the website. To enter, visitors will need to enter contact information and the school, school district, and student id number. This information will be utilized to track the completion rates of the program and related metadata.

The website will have three overarching sections with detailed sub-sections. The first section – Political Media Literacy Program – will contain general information about the political media literacy training program. Subsections will include About Us, Contact Us, and Program Goals. The About Us page will have descriptive information about the National Commission for Media Literacy, including a history of the commission, recognizable contributions to the public, and the commission's mission. The Contact Us page will contain contact information so that visitors have references should they require additional details. The page will include administrator email addresses and office phone numbers, and the physical location and mailing address for the Center of Media Literacy. The Program Goals section will outline the goals of the Political Media Literacy Training program. Upon completion of the training e-learning program, students will be able to

·      Understand why political media literacy is important

·      Identify common types of political media in 2021

·      Identify and deconstruct media effects, specifically

o   Agenda Setting

o   Priming

o   Framing

·      Understand how to resist manipulative communication techniques 

The second section of the website – Introduction – will contain various forms of multimedia categorized into three categories. The first category will educate the viewer on types of political media focused on explaining broadcast media, print media, and social media. It will contain short videos that describe each of the items mentioned above – their history, purpose, and examples. The second category of multimedia will have videos and photographs of actual political media through the years. Examples will include political ads & flyers, debates, influential figures in politics and political news, and news segments focused on politics. The third and final category will contain multimedia from current political media. Examples will include modern ads & flyers and less formal types such as those present in social media – memes, TikTok, influencer content, and internet podcasts/radio.

The third section of the website will contain the e-learning modules. The curriculum will incorporate a pre-test module, a module on political media types, a module on media effects, and a final test. The pre-test module will contain the same questions as the final test. Students will be unable to access the remaining modules without completing the pre-test. The pre-test will establish a baseline score for each student.

The media types and media effects e-learning will contain short answers, multiple-choice, and true/false questions interwoven through a gamified interactive lesson. The media types lesson will focus on Broadcast Media, Print Media, and Social Media. The lesson will expand upon the short lesson in the political media subsection of the Introduction and can be completed in one hour. The media effects lesson will be more immersive. In this lesson, students will learn how the public’s perception of the problems facing the nation is determined heavily by what issues are prominent in the political media in a phenomenon known as Agenda Setting and how to learn about other topics that are important to them, even those that don’t receive attention in the media. Students will also understand that the perceived importance of specific issues is not the only item that media influences, but also the criteria the public uses to evaluate particular issues and candidates in what is known as Priming. To counter the effects of Priming, students will learn to identify their own set of criteria to evaluate issues to incorporate those into the criteria that the media focuses on for a holistic evaluation. Finally, students will learn about how the media highlights some aspects of an event or issue and ignores others and how that can influence how the public evaluates that issue in what is known as Framing. Students will learn how to think critically about how a particular event is being presented – who/what is the source, how do they lean politically, how does the theme of their message support their political slant, but most importantly, what is the opposing view. This module can be completed in about 2 hours.

After completing the two learning modules, the students will have finished about 3 hours’ worth of content, focused on improving their basic knowledge of political media and common concepts within that scope. To complete the program, the student will need to complete the final test. The final examination will have the same questions as the pre-test. The program's goal will be to increase the student's scores from the pre-test to the final test.

Awareness Campaign

The Media Literacy Training Website will be communicated to high school students in the Top 25 Public School Districts by Enrollment. Focusing on these critical districts will ensure enough participation for researchers to study whether the program has had a meaningful effect on the soon-to-be-voter population's knowledge of political media. The training program will be optional, and the goal will be to reach a completion rate of 70%.

Students will be incentivized to complete the training program using social media. Completing the program will result in the awarding of a digital badge of completion. The badge can be used on students’ Facebook profiles and other social media profiles. Students can take selfies with the hashtag #DontBeDuped for a chance to win various incentives such as movie tickets, restaurant gift cards, and school supplies. These incentives serve two purposes; the first purpose is to drive the completion of the training program; the second purpose is to raise awareness of the program using social media. As students post pictures and use the Digital badge, their classmates will also want to participate. The official social media accounts for the National Commission of Media Literacy will also participate in the campaign by sharing student posts.

Upon receiving funding for this program, the development of the website and training mentioned above will require six months of design and implementation. The goal will be to launch the website and social media awareness campaign in the Spring of 2022.

Political Media Literacy Program Proposal