Media Literacy

In academic libraries we talk a lot about information literacy. It actually requires some skill to successfully and efficiently find, evaluate, and effectively use the information you find in the library and online. We create tutorials, guides, and present instruction sessions to help students and faculty alike get the most out of their research endeavors.

Beyond information literacy there are actually a number of other "literacy" that deal with specific resources or information strategies. They include research literacy, computer literacy, digital literacy, just to name a few. Calling something a "literacy" basically just puts emphasis on the fact that to truly master the skill you need to completely understand its various components. You need to understand how to "read" the information and symbols that you receive through that particular resource or strategy.

Media literacy is one of these skills that I think has become more important in our modern lives. We are constantly receiving input from mass media through our smart phones, TV, internet, advertisements, social media. The ability to understand these streams of information, and be able to put them into context, is an important skill for both students and the community at large.

Media literacy requires someone to understand how mass media works, and who the wizards are behind the curtains who are responsible for this information. How and why does one news program reporting differ from another? What signals are advertisers sending me through their print or TV ads? Why does so much of the news reporting of a tragedy end up being untrue?

Information literacy, media literacy, and all the other "literacies" are there to teach individuals how to be aware of and critical of the world around them. We can not afford to take information at face value. We can't assume that the media or information providers have our best interests in mind. We have to identify what their angles are. What do they have to gain by presenting me this information? This may seem a little cynical, but unfortunately this is the world that we live in.

For more complete presentation of information literacy check out the American College and Research Library's Information Literacy Competency Standards.

And, here is a deeper discussion (and more complete definition) from the Media Literacy Project.

How to tell if that image is a fake

(The picture is borrowed from Southern Fried Science)

Are these sharks for real? We've all seen images on the web that are suspicious to say the least, but sometimes it can be hard to check a picture's authenticity.

We've talked about evaluating websites a number of times on this blog, but evaluating images requires a few more specialized strategies. At the website Southern Fried Science, contributor David Shiffman gives an excellent checklist to follow when checking if a picture (like the one above) is fake.

• Look for other images of the event or location in the picture. (Often you will come across the un-doctored pictures that were used in the fake)
• Upload the image into Google image search. (Google image search allows you to upload the actual image into your search box - not just a text description. Very cool!).
• Check Snopes or another rumor/misinformation site. (Snopes is the go to site for internet hoaxes, rumors, or fakes)
• Always assume that the picture is a fake. (If the picture looks too good to be true, it probably is!)

As with anything on the internet, it is best to approach images with a healthy dose of skepticism. Like with websites, try to find where the image came from. Check whether you found it on a reputable site. And finally, ask yourself who might have put up the image, what there purpose was, and whether they might have any reason to fake or distort the imagine.

If you're not sure about a website or an image, you can always ask a librarian for help separating fact from fiction!

Random knowledge on the internet

The internet is curiosity's playground. You can typically find an answer no matter what you "What if?" or "I wonder?" may be.

The staff at PCWorld are apparently a curious bunch. They have put together a list of 18 sites "they] visit most to learn more about the world, and find answers to our most esoteric-and random-questions."

The sites include:

• Amazing Things in the World - a Facebook page that highlights amazing pictures of Earth's awesomeness
• Co.Exist - Presents articles on innovations and new ways to live in the world
• Film School Rejects - Focuses on the cinematic aspects of the film industry
• Google Street View Gallery - Pictures from Google Street View organized into galleries of the most breathtaking places.

You can see the rest of the 18 pages here. If you have any random or curiosity taming websites that you'd like to share, put them in the links below.

How to conduct quality research... from someone other than a librarian

Librarians talk about the benefits of good research strategies until we are blue in the face, but sometimes it takes someone else talking about research for patrons and information consumers to sit up and take notice. So, today I would like to point you to an article posted on Lifehacker a few weeks ago (we've been a bit busy here at the Mack). The article "How to Conduct Scientific Research On the Internet (Without Getting Duped)" doesn't present anything revolutionary, just sound research strategies that you should follow no matter what your researching on the web.

One of the first it mentions, and one of the most important, is to "recognize questionable sources of information." On the web it can be difficult to almost impossible to identify where information comes from, so reader beware! Citing a questionable source does nothing for your creditably or your grade.

The post also mentions good quality scholarly search engines (like Google Scholar or Scirus) that you can use instead of a standard Google search. Don't forget about our list of scholarly databases that are available through the library. These are free to use on and off campus for BC faculty, staff, and students. They contain information that you won't find on the web.

Finally, the post provides information on how to distinguish the good sources from the bad ones, and how to read and understand scholarly articles. In addition to these tips, you can find more on the library's tutorial page.

And if you're having trouble, the post recommends contacting your local library and libraries for research help! Very good advice indeed.

An example of copyright in the internet world

Copyright is a hard concept to wrap our heads around sometimes. If we can find an image or document on the web, and we have that handy cut/paste or "save as" option, why shouldn't we use it for ourselves? Ownership and copyright are, in their basic form, a way to ensure that the creator gets proper credit and compensation. But, what if you have no way to find out who the original creator was?

The video below is from John Green author of Fault in Our Stars, among other novels and endeavors. His story of trying to find the creator of a poster based on his novel is an excellent examples of the complexities of Copyright in our current world.

Advice on writing

Tim Radford, a science journalist, offered his best advice for journalist/writers in a list of 25 recommendations. It was called A Manifesto for the Simple Scribe - my 25 commandments for Journalists. Though many of those commandments were science or journalist specific, it doesn't mean that they can't be adapted to academic writing. The overall theme of his recommendations was know your audience, something that any kind of writer, at any stage of the game, can do well to remember.

Undergraduates for the most part are writing for their professors, so it good to realize that your subject is already going to be knowledgeable concerning a specific topic. Graduate students and even professors are also writing for a knowledgeable audience: other scholars and academics. But, what if a student is presenting a paper to their classmates, or a faculty member is putting together lecture notes? Then, their writing needs to reflect that. It's not that your audience in either instance is more or less intelligent than you, you just need to know what terminology, level of explanation, and structure is going to work best to achieve the aim of informing your readers.

Radford also recommends having a clear understanding and view of your topic before you write about it. This is of key importance to academic writing, and is the reason why research is so essential to the writing processes. You can't make your own assertions, and utilize supporting information unless you completely understand that information, and how it fits within the whole of knowledge about a specific topic. Since it is so important, research is not something that can be done just a few hours before a paper or presentation is due. You need to give yourself enough time to understand the nature of your topic and to successfully formulate your own ideas.

Below are just a few of his recommendations. To read the rest, click on the link in the first paragraph.

3. So the first sentence you write will be the most important sentence in your life, and so will the second, and the third. This is because, although you – an employee, an apostle or an apologist – may feel obliged to write, nobody has ever felt obliged to read.

 7. If in doubt, assume the reader knows nothing. However, never make the mistake of assuming that the reader is stupid. The classic error in journalism is to overestimate what the reader knows and underestimate the reader's intelligence.

 10. So here is a rule. A story will only ever say one big thing. If (for example, and you are feeling very brave) you have to deal with four strands of a tale, make the intertwining of those four strands the one big thing you have to say. You may put twiddly bits into your story, but only if you can do so without departing from the one linear narrative you have chosen.

Be kind to your reader

Citations are not meant to be evil. They are not a professor's dastardly plan to keep you from getting an A on the paper. Nor are they the product of an evil OCD genius and his pan for world domination. They do serve a real purpose, and are actually there to benefit mankind. The reason they exist is to help organize information, no small feat in this information overload in which we currently find ourselves.

Their standard format is there to benefit the reader of your paper - so that they can follow your breadcrumbs and learn more about your topic from the sources you have used. If they want to go back and read that excellent quote in it's original context, then your successful mastering of MLA (for example) will help them do just that.

In the APA Style blog post Asking the Right Question: How Can the Reader Find the Source? the author discusses citing some more obscure sources, like power point presentation or artwork. Since they are not a common source, you may not know how to best cite them, but the author reminds us that as long as a citation can lead the reader back to the original document, then we are on the right track.

This mindset is important not only for obscure sources. You should keep the reader in mind for every citation you create, and every piece of evidence you pull from an outside source. Will the reader be able to tell who this paraphrase comes from? Does the author and title in my parenthetical citation match the entry on my reference page? Did I remember to include the source I'm quoting from in the bibliography? Framing the citations in context of what will help your reader can help you catch those mistakes that cost your points when your paper is graded.

Plus, correct citations can assist you with your research process. If you find one article that is useful, and if the author has done a good job of citing, then you can use her reference list to find even more articles related to your project. She may not have pulled all the relevant parts of the articles into her own paper, so it's worth it to take a look at her sources too.

If you have questions about citing, or just want to make sure you formatted a citation correctly, you can ask one of the many capable tutors at our BC Writing Center, or you can check out the library's citation research guide.