Media Literacy & Critical Thinking
Types of Media and Media Access
Price, Tom. "Media Industry." CQ Researcher, 3 Jan. 2019. An overview of economic effects on the media such as media consolidation.
McCutcheon, Chuck. "Trust in Media." CQ Researcher, 9 June 2017, pp. 481-508. Recent assault on press credibility has resulted in a lack of trust in the media.
The Main Stream Media (MSM) tends to include large and established mass media outlets:
Broadcast News outlets: ABC, NBC, CBS
Cable News outlets: FOX, MSNBC, CNN
National Press: Washington Post, USA Today, & the New York Times
Many MSM outlets are owned by Big Media Families. Big Media refers to media consolidation. If a lot of the news is being paid by giant corporations, the message may not be objective. Look for infographics & lists of Who Owns Whom.
Independent Media (sometimes called Alternative Media) includes:
National: Democracy Now!
Smaller local & regional press that are not funded by corporations. The Alternative Press Center has a helpful directory of indy media that they index. We have the Alterative Press Index (find it under the Database list). If the article you find is not fulltext, try searching the internet. If it is not found, we can use Interlibrary Loan. For aggregated indy media try: UTNE or Alternet. You can also find ethnic presses in a database called Ethnic News Watch. The Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, funded generously by the Park Foundation, "is a center for the study of media outlets that create and distribute content outside traditional corporate systems." PCIM holds events, holds the Izzy Awards (after I.F. Stone) annually, & provides internships to students. Jeff Cohen was the founding director; Raza Rumi is the current director.
Filter Bubble
If you follow media outlets on Twitter, YouTube or Facebook, follow outlets providing opinions that do not match your own. If you only read news supporting opinions you already espouse, the media only reinforces that opinion. If you reply to an opinion you don't agree with, do so with respect and civility; it will encourage debate and the free exchange of idea. There is a book on the filter bubble:
- Pariser, Eli. The Filter Bubble : What the Internet Is Hiding from You . Penguin Press, 2011.
To find scholarly articles about it, search: "filter bubble" and limit to Peer Review. You can also watch Pariser's TED Talk on the subject.
Search Engines & Social Media
Don't just evaluate the media, evaluate the search engines and social media that serve them to you. Here are two interesting books:
- Noble, Safiya Umoja. Algorithms of Oppression : How Search Engines Reinforce Racism . New York University Press, 2018.
- Vaidhyanathan, Siva. Antisocial Media : How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy . Oxford University Press, 2018.
