Teaching and learning news media in politically unsettled times

ABSTRACT

Our research explores and elaborates the ways pre-service teachers come to know and begin conceptualizing ways of teaching about news media. We report on what we interpret as their understandings and, perhaps more importantly, their misunderstandings of media literacy as they relate to their emerging ideas about what it means to teach others about crucial social and political issues of our time. The students with whom the authors worked demonstrated problematic misperceptions and misunderstandings about important media concepts and topics. These pre-service teachers misunderstood the ways in which news media is different from other media genres. Additionally, they often indicated that avoiding bias on an issue required the consideration of two competing and equally worthy sides, even in the cases of extremely biased or false stories. We discuss the implications of these misunderstandings as simultaneously raising the stakes for teacher educators as well as calling attention to the limits of teacher education in relation to future teachers’ knowledge of (in this case) news media.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher education
• social studies education
• media literacy
• complexity theory

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

H. James Garrett

H. James Garrett is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Theory and Practice at the University of Georgia. His research explores the emotional and affective dimensions of teaching and learning about complicated social and historical events. His book, Learning to Be in the World with Others: Difficult Knowledge and Social Studies Education, was published by Peter Lang in 2017.

Mardi Schmeichel

Mardi Schmeichel is an Associate Professor of Educational Theory and Practice and affiliate faculty in Women’s Studies and Qualitative Research at the University of Georgia. She researches news media literacy in social studies education, social media practices, and neoliberalism.

Joseph McAnulty

Joseph McAnulty is a doctoral student of Educational Theory & Practice at the University of Georgia. His research interests include political socialization, social media, news media literacy, and social studies teacher education.

Sonia Janis

Sonia Janis is a Clinical Associate Professor of Social Studies Education at the University of Georgia, where she teaches pre-service and in-service social studies teachers. Her areas of research include critical mixed race studies and clinical practices in teacher education. To enhance the experiences of the pre- and in-service social studies teachers in her local community, she serves as a Professor-in-Residence with the Clarke County School District.