Media Literacy and Digital Law 9 other outlets picking up the story. Outlets that update their stories regu- larly, print their errors, and acknowledge that the story is “developing” can be trusted more than others. Why? The last W, “Why,” asks about the motivations of the mes- sage. But with websites and social media, sometimes this “Why” is even more difficult to follow. Domain names are not very regulated, and websites don’t always include an author or even a date posted. It can be unclear who or what funds a website or organization (Rogers- Whitehead, 2020). As we teach students how to evaluate information in the 21st century, a good start is by reevaluating how we teach them to evaluate. The rules of the game have shifted, and there are more players than ever in our media ecosystem. We are all those players as well—sharing our own content in our own smaller ecosystems. Teaching an updated 5Ws helps us, the play- ers, to better navigate the game. Media Literacy Programming in the Library Curtis Rogers is the director of communications with the Urban Library Council, and he feels the United States has experienced a “huge wakeup call” recently. “The events that happened in the Capitol at the beginning of the year have served as a wake-up call and a conversation starter to look at how massively powerful the information technologies we use are for in sus- taining or putting in danger our shared democracy. Libraries have always been engines of democracy.” Libraries are that third space, a place for all classes, abilities, races, and genders to converge together. They can also be that community gathering space for understanding, talking across dividing lines, and healing. But for that to happen, libraries need to have consensus and self-reflection on what their goals and practices are in media literacy. As described earlier, media literacy, like digital citizenship, is a broad term that encompasses multiple skills and overlapping standards. We already have our echo systems and opinions on what “news” is, and that can affect how we create programs around it. Many factors are involved in media literacy, and it can be easy to just focus on one element while leaving out the rest. Rogers calls for an “intentional focus of conversation” on the subject, but ac- knowledges not all libraries are on the same page. “A lot of time when there are news literacy and media literacy programs a lot of the conversations are on traditional news, but it’s not necessarily spreading the same way.” Librarians are working adults and most likely don’t have the same experi- ences online as younger people. They use different communication tools,
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