Educators prepare people for full participation in contemporary culture. The Media Education Lab is exploring the theme of propaganda because it is a ubiquitous feature of our daily lives. As citizens of a global media landscape, the ability to recognize and resist propaganda is important. In helping build people’s critical thinking and communication skills, we […]

There is no doubt that technological developments are rapidly changing the way we communicate and, therefore, the demands of what it means to be a literate person in the 21st century. The term Web 2.0, the theme of this issue of Language Arts, refers to changes that have come about because of technology that allow […]

The goal of news literacy is, broadly put, to teach people how to consume news critically so they know when information is trustworthy—and when it isn’t. But in this growing field, there is little consensus on what type of training works best or how to measure whether someone is “news literate.” This is due, in […]

News literacy as a field is officially about eight years old. For four of those eight years, it has been funded by the McCormick Foundation (which has also funded these stories), whose three-year, $6 million initiative, Why News Matters, is just past its halfway point. As Clark Bell, director of McCormick’s Journalism Program, writes in […]

In a World Bank study from 2005 called “Where is the Wealth of Nations?: Measuring Capital for the 21st Century,” economist determined that once all of the world’s natural resources and produced capital is taken into account, 80% of the wealth of rich countries and 60% of the wealth of poor countries is comprised of […]

Each year on 8 September, groups around the world gather together to celebrate “International Literacy Day”, which is meant to highlight the importance of reading, and of being able to read. In the words of UNESCO, the UN organization which sponsors International Literacy Day, “Literacy is one of the key elements needed to promote sustainable […]