The Commission on Fake News and the Teaching of Critical Literacy Skills recently published a report on Fake news and critical literacy. LSE PhD researcher Gianfranco Polizzi summarises the key findings of the report and sets out his recommendations in response.
If on the one hand it is difficult to define fake news – as to whether it implies, for instance, false information that is deliberate or not – on the other hand, this term is commonly understood as synonymous with misinformation. In an age which is highly mediated by digital technologies, the rate at which misinformation can spread is unprecedented. As a result, there are growing concerns about the implications of misinformation. Most problematically, the condition upon which our democracies rely – a citizenry making informed decisions – is undermined.
After conducting research and gathering evidence from experts, the Commission on Fake News and the Teaching of Critical Literacy Skills (run by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Literacy, the National Literacy Trust and other partners) has recently published a report on children’s media use, fake news and the teaching of critical literacy in schools in the United Kingdom. Critical literacy is often understood as the ability to evaluate information by questioning its trustworthiness, which is how it was approached empirically by the Commission. As acknowledged in their report, however, critical literacy in the digital age should also entail awareness of how and why information is created, disseminated and consumed in the digital environment. Given the internet’s potential to facilitate, for instance, both freedom of expression and data surveillance, critical digital literacy can also be approached as incorporating reflexivity about “the internet’s […] democratising potential and its structural constraints”.
New findings
The Commission surveyed 388 primary school students, 1832 secondary school students and 414 teachers in the UK, ran focus groups with students and teachers, and took various other forms of evidence. The Commission concluded that:
- only 2% of children have the critical literacy skills to discern truth from fake news.
- roughly 60% of students (3 in 5 children) who had heard of fake news said it made them trust the news less.
- while primary and secondary students mostly access and trust the news on TV and radio, nearly half of older children access the news online (43.8% from websites and 49.5% from Snapchat). A quarter of children trust websites and social media.
- half of children are worried about whether they can identify fake news.
- only 6% of students (4.8% of primary students and 7.9% of secondary students) speak to teachers about fake news.
As for teachers:
- 61% are concerned about fake news affecting children’s well-being. The focus groups revealed that teachers are worried about fake news creating anxiety among students.
- half (54%) think the national curriculum does not equip students well enough to spot fake news.
- 35% think critical literacy is taught in ways that are not transferable to the outside world.
New questions
While these findings emphasise how urgently children need to acquire critical literacy skills in the digital age, they do not imply that the fake news phenomenon is exclusively related to children, nor that critical literacy is the only solution. The Commission has acknowledged in its report that adults also need critical literacy. Although the education system plays a crucial role in promoting critical literacy, it cannot reach adults. On the other hand, the family is a key way to reach children.
Additionally, the media industry has a role to play. During the launch of the report, Facebook was described as 1) tweaking its algorithms to spot and remove misinformation; and 2) designing tools enabling users to judge content credibility. For instance, the giant corporation is adding a button to news articles, one that allows users to access background information on publishers. However meritorious, whether these measures are sufficient remains to be seen.
Alarmingly, the findings of the Commission resonate with Ofcom’s 2017 conclusion that one out of four children in Britain believe that a website can be trusted if listed by a search engine. While they potentially fuel public anxiety, we should ask first, and find answers to, a few questions:
- While only 2% of children can spot fake news, what is the percentage of teachers who can identify misinformation?
- To what extent do roughly 60% of children trust less the news because of having heard of fake news? In Western societies, citizens’ trust is often undermined by alienation from politics, institutions and the media. Is children’s (dis)trust a reflection of parents’ (dis)trust expressed within family settings? Research suggests that attitudes towards trust tend to be transmitted from parents to children.
- 61% of teachers are worried that the fake news phenomenon is affecting children’s well-being, but is that really so or is that what teachers think? There is a risk of encouraging an overly protectionist approach to children’s internet use, one that minimises their online risks as well as opportunities for learning and socialising. Research shows that with more online risks come inevitably more opportunities and vice versa.
- While half of teachers think the national curriculum needs to be revised, the question is how critical literacy should be taught through a revised national curriculum. Do we need a more student-centred approach to teaching, one that privileges critical thinking over a teacher-centred approach based on knowledge transmission? If we do, a revised curriculum is not enough, as it is also a matter of pedagogy, teaching style and assessment formats. Relatedly, is critical thinking enough? And should this be encouraged across different disciplines? As information is highly digitally mediated, we need to teach students about the broader digital environment. However, the computing curriculum is overly focused on practical skills. As an optional subject, media studies – which has the potential to teach students such skills – is “taken by only a handful of students”.
- Only 6% of students speak to teachers about fake news, while 35% of teachers think critical literacy is not taught in schools in ways that are transferable to the real world. Aren’t librarians those who can best fill these gaps? Wouldn’t it be better for students to know that they can discuss fake news with information experts, considering that teachers might lack that expertise? If so, it is problematic that libraries are in decline in the UK, because of decreasing staffing and budgets, with thousands “actually or virtually unused”. Furthermore, “there is no statutory requirement for schools in England to have a school library”.
Recommendations
What stands out from brainstorming new questions in response to this report is that:
- A more comprehensive approach to critical literacy is needed when both researching and teaching it. In the digital age, critical literacy needs to entail awareness of the broader digital environment.
- To boost critical literacy, the national curriculum needs to be revised. Media studies should be promoted more robustly, while computing should be not only about practical skills but also critical reflexivity about the digital landscape. In parallel, we need a more student-centred approach encouraging critical thinking over knowledge transmission.
- Libraries inside and outside schools need to be incentivised to support librarians as information advisers.
We also need:
- to avoid translating alarming findings into a protectionist approach that minimises children’s exposure to both online risks and opportunities.
- more research into teachers’ ability to identify misinformation, keeping in mind that critical literacy goes beyond children.
- to reflect on whether the steps being taken by social media companies against misinformation are sufficient.
- to reflect on children’s distrust in the news as potentially stemming from family settings and adults’ distrust in politics, institutions and the media.
We should not be discouraged if providing answers leads to new questions. It is only by doing so that we can better understand how to tackle fake news and promote critical literacy.
This article gives the views of the author and does not represent the position of the LSE Media Policy Project blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Do we not also require media legibility, ie hyperlinks to full source documents included in articles.
Fake news is s misconception of facts due to outright false information or biases from all parties involved. As an educator, I know that in order for students to become critical thinkers and to discern fact from fiction they can only do so with the help and support of their families, teachers and community.
As a teacher of Pre-Kindergarten students, I have never stopped and pondered the effects of fake news as it relates to their daily life. I just assumed (and we all know what they say about assuming) both the parents and the teachers would work together to inform the students that what they saw on tv or their tablets is not true and why it is not true.
How can educators and parents teach learners how to discern fact from fiction? How do we teach students to become critical thinkers by researching multiple literacy articles? What websites and news channels can they truly believe without bias being implied throughout? This year has been a great year to discuss fact from fiction- with the Presidential election. Not only during the election do we hear bias from news channels but we also have family biases that play a role as well. Students of a higher age should be taught to research both arguments on their own to help discern fact vs. fiction/opinion. Text consumption vs. text production are useful tools in understanding both sides. We read and interpret only what is put out in the media; however, we must teach students to look into information from both sides in order to determine what view they wish to believe. As the article “The Importance of Critical Literacy” discusses that once a photographer submits a picture, how the picture is portrayed is no longer in their hands. Once, that photo is submitted the photographer no longer owns how that photo is used to create a bias among viewers. In the case of my young learners, they can view images and discern meaning from expressions, colors, etc. however; they do not have the full background story on what is actually happening in the picture. In my opinion, in the case of my young learners this is how fake news is developed. Only seeing what the media is portraying without having the background knowledge as to what is actually being shown.
The biggest recommendation is how the schools can be updated so that fake, bias news is not continuously being taught. The curriculum needs to be revised. We know that times have changed over the years but the curriculum has remained the same. When teaching history, students have learned through their own families the sufferings and mistrials they have faced. Does our curriculum share all sides of the story or just the bias that is portrayed? We as educators know we have to teach a certain set of standards but how is the lesson being taught meaningful if it is not current? I wish I had the answer to this question. Even though I know my students better than the people creating the curriculum, no one is asking my opinion as to how or if the curriculum will be effective and meaningful to each individual student. School libraries need to implement books that are meaningful to all cultures. Librarians also need to be taught how to teach students how to properly research information on their own to discern fact from fiction.
I would love to find a way to reach my students at such a young age how to research on their own. The students I teach are at an impressionable age and knowing that they are not yet able to research on their own, I can do my best not to implement my bias or “fake” information into my daily lessons. If students come to me with questions, I can also be prepared to research and discuss with them all sides of the information so that they are able to reach a conclusion on their own.
I agree that fake news is problematic because we do want to make informed decisions and that idea is undermined by the increasing prevalence of fake news. Misinformation spreads so rapidly now on the internet and children and adults alike are not critically examining the information to find the truth. In this digital age that we live in, people should know how and why information is created, disseminated, and consumed as Polizzi suggests.
As a result of the rapid spreading of fake news, it is even more important that children develop critical literacy skills. Teachers can help with this endeavor by having the important discussions in the classroom. As Elizabeth Dutro (2017) said, “[L]iteracies and life experiences are not separable things.” Conversations about what is going on in the world and in the lives of students should be happening and teachers and families should be providing students with the tools to equip them to think critically about the information they hear, see, and read. Teachers can foster critical thinking by allowing the students to do quick writes each week. Then the teachers can use this information to delve into topics that reoccur in the students’ writings. We want to give all students, regardless of race, gender, nationality, or class, equal access to critical literacy as Janks (2012) suggests in her article, “The Importance of Critical Literacy”. The world is changing rapidly and so we need to equip our young people with the tools to think critically about what they read on the internet and be able to discern what is truth and what is fake. Being critically informed is a powerful tool to have. Students also need to be taught how to recognize that not everything they read is meant for everyone. They have the ability to challenge and change the discourse and evaluate it against their beliefs.
Fake news is very problematic these days with people of all ages having difficulty deciphering what is the actual truth. As Vasquez stated in, “Critical Literacy as a Way of Being and Doing”, everything written is skewed towards one opinion and it is up to the individual to use the critical literacy lens to sift through a text to discover whether or not what they’re reading is the actual truth. It’s so interesting for me because growing up I never had any reason to question the nightly news. There were news anchors that we trusted and on the surface it seemed that there was no bias in their reporting. However, it would be interesting to go back and look at newscasts from my youth and compare the news stories to actual world events. Would the words of the anchors drip with lies and falsehoods, or might they actually have been telling the whole story from an unbiased viewpoint? The world was so different then. CNN was just starting and my first memory of a breaking news story was the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle. As a child, I didn’t think to question whether or not the reporting was true because if it was on the news then it must be true. However, now that I have children of my own, I question everything that I read because I don’t want to pass on false information. I want my kids to have a well rounded education and for them to think critically about the world around them and not to just accept what Facebook or Twitter or even NBC tells them. Our world has infinitely changed since my childhood in the 80s. With the onslaught of digital and social media and having constant updates about everything from what a celebrity is wearing to whether the Ukraine will be invaded, the amount of information floods our newsfeeds. We must pay attention and cut through the rhetoric to investigate the information that we consume. All the data is a blessing and a curse, as we have so much knowledge at our fingertips, but we must ensure that knowledge is indeed factual.
Before learning about critical literacies in my college course, I always thought that it referred to literacies about racial and other social issues and justices. I never realized that it was a way of teaching students to think critically as they read in order to analyze what they’re reading. Students can practice these skills by reading information from multiple sources and discussing and analyzing what they have read. I’m not surprised by the findings of the study that only 2 percent of the students have the skills to discern the truth from fake news. This is why it is important to teach students from an early age the skills needed to identify fake news when they are reading. “Vasquez (2001, 2010, 2014b) further notes that as a way of being, critical literacies ought to be “constructed organically, using the inquiry questions of learners, beginning on the first day of school with the youngest learners” (Vasquez, 2017a, para. 6).” Another interesting point that I found in this blog is that 60 percent of students trusted news less after hearing of fake news. This is not surprising either. When someone realizes that the media can push certain agendas and news without telling both sides of a story, the reader can become less trusting from certain news outlets. I think that you brought up a great point when you asked the question “If only 2 percent of students can recognize fake news, what is the percentage of teachers that can recognize misinformation?” I think it is very important for educators to stay as informed as they can, reading critically and analyzing what is read so we can stay as up to date as possible and make sure we realize misinformation when we see it. I think by doing this, we can be better prepared when teaching our students how to do this as well.
It is alarming to see such a small percentage (2% to be exact) of students in the study that have the necessary skills to comb through information and think critically about it. A few things from the findings and suggestions that really stick out to me: 1. We cannot rely on Facebook or any other social media site to do the work of thinking critically for us. 2. Students need to learn how to choose reputable sources for their research, whether that is a school-based project or their own interest in the news. 3. A focus on the Media in regards to discerning truth from fake news needs to become part of the curriculum.
The author mentions that at the time of the study, Facebook was changing its algorithms to spot fake news. There has been a lot of opinions and talk about the role of social media giants like Facebook controlling what people see and becoming the gatekeepers of truth. I think that teaching kids critical thinking in regards to the social media they consume starts with teaching them that they cannot rely on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, or any other social media-based news site to do the work for them. Not even if they claim to be filtering out fake news. News on social media can spread like wildfire, and it is often because it evokes strong emotions. We tend to agree or disagree with it based on our emotions. We (schools, teachers, parents, librarians, etc) need to do our own work by practicing what we want our students to do. To take a step back, think critically, and find reputable sources in order to form opinions.
This leads directly to my second takeaway. Students need to learn how to properly find sources and how to evaluate them. They often chose the first website that pops up (don’t we all sometimes?) and if it sounds good enough, they’ll go with it. Finding good sources is difficult. It takes time. And it requires a lot of effort. All things we tend to shy away from, especially in our technology-saturated world. We want quick answers at the tap of a finger. Students, teachers, and parents can all benefit from workshops and projects that teach the steps of finding sources (beyond just a Google search) and how to evaluate their validity. It is more than just taking a day’s mini-lesson to show students how to look up “penguins” for their science research project. This will take time, it will elicit lots of groans, and will be challenging for everyone. But it is not something we can afford to skip. Students need to know how to think critically about the information they find. There is too much information at their fingertips and they are at a loss for what to do with it. Our job as adults is to navigate these waters with them.
Thirdly, there needs to be a focus on discerning truth from fake news in social media and news sites. Just because a news agency is reporting on it does not mean that their sources are reputable or their information is true. Often times news and information spreads because it evokes strong emotions. We must teach our students how to take a step back and look for the facts. Middle and high schools often offer a Media Class, as the article discussed, but only a few students may participate. It might be time to consider making a Media-based class part of the curriculum for all students. In the elementary realm, not all students may be on social media but they are not too young to begin having those conversations. Kids pick up on what their families listen to, watch, and say. They need tools to discern fact from fiction before they are bombarded with all that social media wants to say to them and have them believe.
Too much is at stake to just hope our students know how to think critically about the media. We cannot expect a few quick lessons to do the job. This work takes planning and time, and we must do our own work of being critical consumers of the news first. If our democracy is based on citizens who make informed decisions, we must prepare our students to do the hard work of filtering through the noise to find the truth.