Since media came to be there have been those who use it as a form of activism and as a tool for manipulation. Before media sharing, the sources for finding out information on topics that were not mainstream was quite difficult. If it wasn’t familial knowledge, in a book, or on tv or the radio you weren’t hearing about it. Many movements that could have potentially inspired another or made them feel seen, heard, and represented were lost to anyone who was not near enough to it to come into direct contact.
A vast array of media sources, particularly independent media sources, has allowed the range of information being shared on a global scale to increase by an innumerous amount. In countries that still live in a state of controlled media, social media, in particular, has been a catalyst for organizing when there is something deemed worthy of protesting. Although social media has aided in connecting and broadcasting lesser heard or recognized information, there are also aspects of social media sharing of activism and movements which have the potential to generate dangerous false information that birth unhealthy forms of radicalism and activism.
QAnon, Proud Boys, and Pro-Life, and Anti-Trans, just to name a few, label and market themselves as positive forces of do-gooding, when in fact they are arguably chauvinistic, bigoted, and hateful groups. From what I can tell, the Yes Men are a very much needed aid in having messages that promote unity, equity, and peace. They “support positive change around issues that matter, generally ones that don’t already get the attention they deserve,” Yes Men said. It seems that they do this in a way where the movements they support receive help getting recognized in mainstream media to the same scale that hate groups frequently get.
The Black Lives Matter movement is an excellent example of community coming together across the world to advocate for the just treatment of Black people. In the past, I cannot imagine the countless times that crimes were committed against Black people that went unpunished or even not known about because they happened without ever being brought to the attention to the mass public through media. The crimes against Black people that happen in this day and age get shared on a mass scale and from this sharing people assemble.
They assemble and they demand change, they bombard the social medias of government officials, they call and text them, they are not limited to only sending a letter. Offenders of Black people have been called out and persecuted because of the extent of these demands. The “impact of these platforms for holding powerful people accountable for their actions and giving a voice to underrepresented groups,” Pew Research said, is indispensable. If it was not for the movements grounds and the actions taken through forms of media against the offenders, it is unlikely that any of the police or well-off White people who committed the hateful acts would have received the justice they deserve for their injustices.
Young people growing up in today’s day and age live in a world already saturated with media. They are immersed in it before they ever get the chance to take a class on media literacy. They have parents who are likely just learning about this concept themselves and thus are in grave danger of succumbing to misinformation. It is not taught in public primary and secondary schools, and to take it in college they must choose to do so, as this essential skill is not yet a required course for general education.
The online educational sources for media literacy that could easily be accessed by young people still requires that they proactively choose to consume them. My hope is that young people will hear about the value from media sources they use, from people who have the knowledge and are using media in a positive way to educate others on the saliency of media literacy. Journalists play an essential role in ensuring the information they put out on media is straightforward and true. Journalists get paid by recognition, “but the danger in doing that is the temptation to gravitate toward whatever gets the most clicks which is why news organizations badly need to have leaders who appreciate that what’s popular isn’t always what’s most important,” John Oliver said.
https://www.pbs.org/education/blog/what-is-media-literacy-and-how-can-simple-shifts-center-it
Ruby Cayenne 