Social justice resources, events, opportunities, and more!

Monthly Update | June 2020

A Message to Our Community

NAMLE’s staff and board have been deep in reflection and conversation about all that has happened since George Floyd’s murder. This moment has hopefully at last shaken the nation into action against 400 years of injustice imposed on Black people in America. The issues of race, social justice, equity, and inclusion are central to media literacy education and have always been. But to break the deep-seated systemic racism in our nation, we realize that the media literacy education community must redouble our efforts. We have been listening, learning, and working on a new action plan that underscores our commitments to social justice. We are dedicated to action that moves us towards lasting positive change. You will hear from us soon about our commitments moving forward.

In solidarity,

Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, Executive Director, and the NAMLE Team

Race, Equity, and Social Justice

News & Resources

You Are Probably Spreading Misinformation.

Here’s How to Stop.

As misinformation about the death of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests grows, the Washington Post published this article about the inadvertent spreading of misinformation and tips for analyzing content on social media before sharing it. [ read more ]

The Headlines That Are Covering Up Police Violence

This article from The Atlantic discusses how the choices made by media outlets and journalists when covering activism and protests can influence public support or rejection of policies that might solve social ills such as racism and police brutality. [ read more ]

Talking About Race Web Portal

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture launched “Talking About Race,” a new online portal designed to help individuals, families, and communities talk about racism, racial identity, and the way these forces shape every aspect of society, from the economy and politics to the broader American culture. The online portal provides digital tools, online exercises, video instructions, scholarly articles and more than 100 multimedia resources tailored for educators, parents, and caregivers to talk about race with children. [ learn more ]

Taking Action in Your Classroom

EquityEdu, an educational nonprofit, offers advice and resources about how educators can incorporate active listening, critical thinking, and media literacy lessons in their classrooms when talking about race. [ learn more ]

A Guide to Equity and Antiracism for Educators

Edutopia, an arm of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, offers reading materials, videos, and lesson plans that teachers can use to self-educate about equity issues in the classroom and teach about antiracism to students in a socially conscious way. [ learn more ]

Teach the History of Policing

In this resource from the Zinn Education Project, teachers can use books, articles, and films to teach middle- and high-school students about the origins and practices of policing in the United States and how we arrived at the current political moment. [ learn more ]

Teaching with Current Events in Your Classroom

This resource from Facing History and Ourselves gives teachers a step-by-step guide to begin conversations with their students about George Floyd’s death and the events that surround it. Such conversations can be difficult for teachers to facilitate, and distance learning can present challenges to teaching sensitive material. This guide offers strategies and other resources for teachers to give their students the space to process tough topics around current events. [ learn more ]

Teaching Ideas and Resources to Help Students Make Sense of the George Floyd Protests

The New York Times has gathered student-friendly articles, op-eds, videos, photos, graphs, and podcasts related to the George Floyd protests that teachers can use in the classroom or students can explore on their own. Each section is written directly to teenagers and topics include understanding systemic racism, the history of policing in the United States, the right to protest, and misinformation and disinformation. [ learn more ]

COVID-19 News & Resources

The epic battle against coronavirus misinformation and conspiracy theories

This article from Nature discusses how researchers are studying effective strategies to “flatten the curve” of the infodemic. By studying the sources and spread of false information about COVID-19, researchers hope to understand where such information comes from, how it grows, and how to elevate facts over falsehood.

[ read more ]

Think Like a Fact Checker Online Module

"Think Like a Fact Checker" is a student-centered, self-paced interactive module for K-12 students that utilizes research-based fact-checking skills to teach essential news and media literacy with real COVID-19 news and misinformation. Created by NAMLE member Teresa Diaz and her colleagues, this free resource is for librarians and other educators to use with their students during distance learning. [ learn more ]

Find the Facts Online Module

"CTRL-F: Find the Facts" is a project of CIVIX, a Canadian nonprofit, to get students in grades 7-12 to think critically about information, develop habits of source evaluation, and build awareness of the role of journalism in democracy. The three-part learning module uses the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study to help teach students verification skills they can use to determine the reliability of sources and evaluate the accuracy of news and information. The module is free and open to educators around the world. [ learn more ]

General News & Resources

Who should judge what's true? Tackling social media's global impact.

As media consumers try to determine which sources and information to trust online, this article from Christian Science Monitor argues that it's up to the individual news consumers to be information gatekeepers. [ read more ]

News Literacy Must Include Social Emotional Learning

In this article for School Library Journal, authors Jennifer LaGarde and Darren Hudgins argue that social emotional learning strategies, like understanding how news can create an emotional response, should be included in news literacy lessons in classrooms. [ read more ]

What Is Pride Month, and How Can We Talk About It With Our Kids?

Pride is the celebration of the LGBTQ community and the LGBTQ rights movements. Check out some PBS LearningMedia Resources designed for students in grades 9-12 that can help educators and parents talk with their children about the history of Pride, how to be an ally, and what it means to be part of the LGBTQ community. [ learn more ]

Journal: Ecomedia Literacy Special Issue

NAMLE members Antonio Lopez, Jeff Share, and Theresa Redmond co-edited a special co-published ecomedia literacy issue for the Journal of Sustainability Education and the Journal of Media Literacy . The issue focuses on media literacy from an ecological perspective, reframing the metaphors used about media experiences and humans’ relationship to the earth. [ learn more ]

Research: How Games Can Teach Youth to Spot Misinformation

In Misinformation Review , NAMLE Board Member Ioana Literat and her colleagues from Teachers College at Columbia University discuss the efficacy of LAMBOOZLED! , a card game they designed to teach middle and high school students strategies for identifying misinformation. The essay discusses how they designed, implemented, and evaluated the game to test its potential to enhance news literacy skills in educational settings. [ learn more ]

M-Passioned: Meet Our Members

Gus Andrews

Author

“My latest work is Keep Calm and Log On: Your Handbook For Surviving The Digital Revolution . Basically, the book brings what I’ve learned studying media literacy and the history of communications together with what we know in the digital security community. My goal is to empower a general audience to take charge of their digital and media lives; it’s essentially a self-help book. It combines media literacy strategies with mindfulness techniques to help the reader understand how both new and traditional media have an impact on our emotions, stress levels, and trust.” [ read more ]

Webinar: Media Literacy in Early Childhood Report

June 16 @ 1 p.m. ET

Join the Technology in Early Childhood Center at Erikson Institute for an informational webinar on the newly released Media Literacy in Early Childhood Report . NAMLE contributed to the report, which looked at what media literacy education for young children means, what media literacy experiences in both informal and formal early childhood settings should look like, and how to empower parents and other adults as media literacy role models and mentors. This free webinar for early childhood practitioners will provide examples of how to use the findings in libraries, museums, and schools. [ register here ]

Media Ecology Conference

June 17-20

The Convention of the Media Ecology Association will be held virtually from June 17-20, 2020. This year’s theme, “Communication Choices and Challenges,” was designed to highlight the decisions that are made when communicating information or expressing opinions. Sessions include media ecology pedagogy in higher education, mobilizing new media for social justice, and fake news and misinformation. Registration costs up to $50. [ learn more ]

UNESCO Media Literacy Webinars

June 18 & June 25 @ 10 a.m. ET

The UNESCO-led Global Alliance for Partnerships on Media and Information Literacy is hosting free webinars on media and information literacy topics from experts around the world. The June 18 webinar will focus on media and information literacy and quality journalism and the June 25 webinar will discuss media and information literacy for indigenous people. Both webinars will be streamed live on their Facebook page.

[ learn more ]

Fact-Checking Virtual Conference

June 22-26

Global Fact 7, a free, week-long global fact-checking conference organized by the International Fact-Checking Network, will feature more than 150 speakers from more than 40 different countries discussing the current state and the future of fact-checking, including health misinformation, new research, and fact-checking programs in other countries. [ learn more ]

Opportunities

Online Course: Trust 101 for Educators

The Trusting News Project has designed a free, online two-week course that will give educators research-backed strategies for teaching about trust and transparency in journalism. Participants will get a better understanding of what leads to mistrust in media, teaching materials and case studies to use in classes or workshops, and a customized action plan to help students be proactive in explaining journalism’s mission and processes. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis beginning June 29. [ learn more ]

CFS: Media Literacy Award

The National Council of Teachers of English is accepting submissions for the NCTE Media Literacy Award from members who have developed innovative approaches for integrating media analysis and composition into their instruction. The award will be presented to an individual, team, or department that has implemented and refined exemplary media literacy practices in their school environment. Application deadline: June 30. [ learn more ]

CFS: Corona Multimedia Showcase

The Corona Multimedia Showcase, hosted by Action for Media Education, provides a platform for children, youth, and families to create and display media projects in a variety of formats that reflect their lives during the time of COVID-19. This showcase is intended to provide children, ages 3 to 19, and their families around the world with the opportunity to act upon their right of free expression. Submission deadline: July 10. [ learn more ]

CFP: Journal of Computational Social Science

The Journal of Computational Social Science is preparing a special issue titled, "Misinformation, Manipulation and Abuse on Social Media in the Era of COVID-19." This issue will look at models, methods, empirical findings and intervention strategies to investigate and tackle the abuse of social media related to infodemics, misinformation, automation, online harassment, false information, and conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 outbreak. Submission deadline: July 15. [ learn more ]