Media Literacy Must Be Taught

Media Literacy Must Be Taught According to Statista 78 percent of U.S. Americans have some sort of social media site. This is 1.96 billion people using social media, and it is expected to grow to 2.5 billion by 2018. Technology is our future and the younger generation will be running that future. This is why media literacy is an important topic to teach to these middle and high school students. It is crucial to teach students how to detect fake news, identify real or fake pictures and sources, and how to find unbiased sites. The statistics show that this generation is growing up with new and high technology, so teaching them media literacy is crucial to keep fake news from spreading and with technology it is easy to spread things fast.

Media bias is a major problem, especially in politics. If teenagers see one side of the story on the internet it will affect their outlook on certain issues. For example, if someone sees something bias about a politician and they do not know it is biased it could affect the way they vote in the election. In an article from The Washington Times stated that “media bias has actually been the norm in American history. For instance, the American Revolution was sparked by an intensely biased or partisan media.” Media bias has undoubtedly been around for a very long time, and it will unlikely end anytime soon because everyone has their own opinion. If the world knows where media bias is, and where it comes from, it can help the future be subject to their own opinion so it will not be based off of something bias that they read. As a young person, it is easy to believe bias opinions, especially when it is targeted to the younger generations. The middle and high school generation are open minded and have not yet formed their own opinion on politics because they have been subjected to their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and media’s opinions on politics, but some are not really sure why they like that person or why they would vote for them. That is why it is crucial to teach young students media bias so they do not grow up having a biased opinion. But not all media bias is on social media, it is everywhere. Billboards, newspapers, television, schools, at home, and more. The article also stated that “many towns had a Republican newspaper and a Democratic newspaper.” Some will say that media bias will always be around which is completely true, it will always be around. But it's spreading can be minimized by teaching students what to look