LibGuides: About The Library: Information and Media Literacy

Information and Media Literacy

Use the tabs below to learn more about the importance of information and media literacy.

Information & Digital Literacy

We are all constantly consuming, sifting through, and searching for information online. How do you know what is true, accurate and reliable?

Make sure you watch all 4 videos in the playlist below.

Additional Videos

The videos below are additional tools you can use to think about the reliability of the information, content, and resources you are using.

Introduction to Information Literacy
Information Literacy is a crucial skill in obtaining knowledge. In this episode, learn how to find credible sources on the internet, read and evaluate a topic critically, and notate your sources. Ethical issues are also addressed. (Films on Demand)
Four Ways to Tell If Something is True Online
Here are four steps you can take to determine whether a post or a story is true or not true. (Media Smarts)
Fact Checking Tools
From Newswise, a news literacy program to provide school-aged Canadians an understanding of the role of journalism in a healthy democracy and the tools to find and filter information online. Useful for all ages.

Social Media Misrepresentations

Social media is used for many different useful, creative, and informative purposes. Unfortunately, there are some people who use social media to intentionally mislead others.

Crash Course In Media Literacy

This video series from CrashCourse covers how to navigate the information and media we are constantly surrounded by.

Introduction to Media Literacy
First thing’s first: what is media literacy? In our first episode, Jay breaks this question down and explains how we’re going to use it to explore our media saturated world.
History of Media Literacy, pt. 1
In order to understand the history of media literacy we have to go all the way back to straight up literacy. In the first half of our look at the history of media literacy, Jay takes us all the way back to Ancient Greece and forward through the printing press, newspapers, and Yellow Journalism.
History of Media Literacy, pt. 2
Jay continues our journey through the history of media literacy with the arrival of movies, television, and the other screens that now permeate our lives – along with some of the different approaches to media literacy that these inventions brought with them.
Media and the Mind
You are constantly surrounded by media, so the question is: how does your brain handle all of that? The unfortunate answer is that our brains have a lot of processes that not super helpful for media literacy, but hopefully with a little self-awareness, we can work around that.
Media & Money
Media isn’t just movies and newspapers and TV shows, it’s also a part of society that involves a lot of money. And all that money has implications for the media that gets created. Media is created by people -- a range of people, making a range of decisions, and earning a range of different paychecks to do it. Those decisions matter and understanding how money affects those decisions is an essential component of media literacy.
Influence and Persuasion
We’ve mentioned already that there’s a lot of money in media and a huge chunk of that money is spent on trying to get you to do something – buy something, vote a certain way, change a behavior. How does advertising work? And what’s the difference between advertising, public relations, and propaganda? We’re going to talk about all that and more today.
Online Advertising
You're being watched. That sounded more sinister than I intended, but online, it's true. Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, Netflix... the list goes on and on. They're watching what you do, what you shop for, what you watch... all of it. And have you actually read the Terms of Service? In this episode of Crash Course Media Literacy, Jay talks about how Online Advertising works and why companies want to know everything you're looking at.
Media Ownership
We’ve talked about how broad a concept “the media” really is – and given that, it can be hard to keep track of all the different forces that constitute “the media.” It can be tough, but it’s not impossible. Today we’re talking about how all those big players fit together and why all those mergers and acquisitions matter to being a media literate citizen.
Media Policy & You
Copyright and other media regulations have always been a bit tricky, but the internet made all of that infinitely more complicated. But what does all of that mean for you, the consumer?
The Dark(er) Side of Media
Propaganda! Misinformation! Disinformation! Today we’re talking about the dark – or, shall we say, darkER – side of media. Understanding these media bogeymen is essential to being a more media literate citizen.
Media Skills
Now that you have a solid understanding of the media landscape, it’s time to equip you with the essential skills for navigating it.
Future Litercies
We’ve seen and discussed the ways in which the rapid pace of technological change has affected the media literacy landscape, and it’s clear that change isn’t slowing down. How will those changes affect the future of media literacy? How can we make the skills we’ve discussed over this course transferable to future media & technology?

Disinformation
We have an unprecedented amount of information available to us all the time. Unfortunatley there are some who wish to manipulate others by spreading and encouraging the use of false information.

An example of disinformation: Facebook notice that tricked many people into reposting it, with a funny explanation from College Humor:

Misinformation
What are the types of misinformation that can be used to spread false or misleading information?

Try the Fake Out Game and Website Evaluation tool to test your information and media literacy skills.

Fake Out Game

Think you can tell the difference between real and false information?
Try the Fake Out Game and see how you score!

Website Evaluation

Click on the worksheet below to work through the process of evaluating websites.