Preservice Social Studies Teachers' News Consumption Habits and Conceptions of News and News Media Literacy

• In Event: New Directions in Education for Civic Life: Research With Students and Teachers

Abstract

The media landscape is evolving, with a vast array of news outlets with which to engage and greater opportunities for exposure to misinformation (Kahne & Bowyer, 2017). This complicates the ways in which audiences assess the meaning and boundaries of news (Edgerly & Vraga, 2020). Young adults also have different news consumption habits than earlier generations, as social media and other online sources have become more preferred (Antunovic et al., 2018). Previous research exploring preservice social studies teachers’ understandings of news media has demonstrated they have misunderstandings of media, viewing it as a single entity, and have misconceptions of bias (Garrett et al., 2020). This has created new challenges for the preparation of current preservice teachers who may have unique understandings of what it means to be news conscious and will be soon making pedagogical decisions around incorporating news media into their teaching (Schmeichel et al., 2018). This qualitative study examines news consumption habits of preservice social studies teachers and how these influence pedagogical ideas for news media literacy. This study incorporated semi-structured interviews, a focus group interview, and news consumption logs kept by participants over the course of two weeks.

Although habits varied, participants demonstrated similar conceptualizations of news, conflating it with or simplifying to current events; restricting their categorization to only traditional news sources; and basing their sensemaking on how people react to news media. They also noted the importance of identifying bias, determining credibility, and engaging with multiple sources as important skills for students; however, these were not practices in which they engage habitually nor ones they fully understood, as they expressed misconceptions about bias and reliability of news sources and a desire to provide a “both sides” approach to coverage. All participants believed news media had a place in social studies education, because of its importance for democracy and developing an informed citizenry. However, they did not feel adequately prepared to tackle news media literacy, their practical pedagogical ideas were limited, and they viewed such lessons as only appropriate when they could dedicate brief inclusion and connect to their existing curriculum.

References

Antunovic, D., Parsons, P., & Cooke, T. R. (2018). 'Checking' and googling: Stages of news consumption among young adults. Journalism, 19(5), 632-648

Edgerly, S. (2017a). Making sense and drawing lines: Young adults and the mixing of news and entertainment. Journalism Studies, 18(8), 1052-1069.

Garrett, H. J., Schmeichel, M., McAnulty, J., & Janis, S. (2020). Teaching and learning news media in politically unsettled times. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 16(1), 44-61.

Kahne, J., & Bowyer, B. (2017). Educating for democracy in a partisan age: Confronting the challenges of motivated reasoning and misinformation. American Educational Research Journal, 54(1), 3-34.

Schmeichel, M., Garrett, J., Ranschaert, R., McAnulty, J., Thompson, S., Janis, S., ... & Bivens, B. (2018). The complexity of learning to teach news media in Social Studies education. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 10(2), 86-103.

Author

• Jessica Zaker, Indiana University