A Marblehead Voice For Student Media Literacy Education

MARBLEHEAD, MA — A bitterly contested election, a worldwide plague, and the effects of that yearlong plague driving students across the country to spend much more time alone on their computers and far less time surrounded by people with different opinions combined to make a growing concern a critical one for media literacy advocates over the past year.

For Marblehead’s Louise Weber, who watched her own children get bombarded with online opinions, advertisements and targeted content as they grew up in the uncharted age of smartphones and tablets, it has made her work as research manager for the national nonprofit Media Literacy Now as vital as ever.

"We feel that media literacy is literacy and that young people need to know how to decode information they receive in all forms," Weber told Patch. "All children need to be able to interpret, understand and analyze what they see and hear. They need to learn to think about why they are seeing and hearing it so they can make informed decisions, and critically consume, and analyze all the media that is coming at them right now."

Media Literacy Now is a non-political organization that provides schools toolkits and curriculum for media literacy programs. As its research manager, Weber helps track legislative activity on media across the country for the organization's website.

Whether it's through biased news coverage, social media algorithms that funnel certain content to consumers or simply product placement, Media Literacy Now is looking to give young people the tools to understand when they are being presented information objectively and when they are being sold a bill of goods.

"It's just as important as reading and writing," said Weber, a Marblehead native whose son went through Belmont schools and daughter went to middle and high school in Marblehead. "We give our children a device and we don't really give them any guidelines and rules for what they are seeing. We need to educate them on how to critically use these very pervasive and powerful forms of media.

"It's very concerning. This is the age of alternate facts. I think a lot of media purveyors would like you to believe their message is the only message you need to hear. But it's not."

Weber said she believes the seeds of the current media literacy crisis were sown in 1987 when the "fairness doctrine" — which forced media companies licensed through the Federal Communications Commission to present issues of compelling interest fairly and accurately — was abolished.

What followed was the rise of cable news networks that are more apt to tell their audience what they want to hear over what they need to know, as well as websites that profit from influencing everything from political beliefs to where to buy blue jeans and LEGOs. While targeted advertising to younger people has been around for decades – sugary cereal commercials during Saturday morning cartoons, for instance – it was a lot easier to monitor when there were four local FCC-licensed channels on television than now where there is an unlimited internet.

"It's teaching students how to be able to evaluate motivation," Weber said. "Why are you seeing this ad for whatever product it is? Why are you seeing it presented this way?

"It's about schools teaching students to ask questions and not be just blindly sitting there and accepting whatever is presented to them."

Find out more about Weber's work with Media Literacy Now here.

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.