We first heard about “fake news” during the 2017 Presidential election. Now, the term is being using widely by journalists and politicians alike. This fall, the Reed College of Media is offering a new course in media literacy that tackles the phenomenon of fake news head on.
The new curriculum is designed to help students become savvier media consumers by teaching them how to access and critically analyze and evaluate news and information across media platforms.
College of Media Teaching Assistant Professor Bob Britten developed the course in response to the changing media landscape, in which news consumers are bombarded with media messages through traditional media sources and their social channels. Students in the class will learn how to distinguish real news from fabricated information, how to identify reporters’ biases and how to recognize the various ways race, class, gender and sexual orientation are represented in the media. Students will also learn to develop their own individual framework to gauge credibility.