A growing number of American states are requiring schools to teach students "media literacy" skills. California is the latest state to pass such a requirement. Media literacy, also known as news literacy, is the ability to use critical thinking skills to recognize differences between real and "fake" news.
The new law requires California's Department of Education to provide materials related to media literacy on its website. Its goal is to give students a set of effective tools to "enable them to make informed decisions".
The media literacy efforts were based on a Stanford University study from 2016. It found that 80 percent of U.S. middle school students failed to recognize an advertisement that looked like a real news story. The researchers also found that high school students had trouble telling the difference between a real and a fake news website.
The study called for more efforts to help students recognize false information on the internet. It said that young people also need the skills to find out where news stories come from, and to be able to judge the trustworthiness of sources and writers.
Carolyn Edy is a professor of communication at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. She said she has seen a clear change in her students' abilities to judge news sources. Edy said that when students used to read printed newspapers, it was easier for them to recognize fact from opinion. Now, it's necessary to teach students how to fully examine websites.
One of Edy's goals is to teach students how to research the news organizations responsible for the stories they are reading. One way to do this is for students to ask a series of questions. One example is, "What is the overall mission of the organization?"
Edy said young people also need to judge whether news organizations identify any possible conflicts of interest. Another question to ask is, "What do they do when they get a story wrong?" Responsible and trustworthy news organizations issue corrections if something is falsely reported, she said.
Edy added that one good thing to come out of the rise of misinformation and fake news is that it has made many people seek out good reporting.