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When it comes to news literacy, schools often emphasize fact-checking and hoax-spotting. But as I argue in my new book, schools must go deeper with how they teach the subject if they want to help students thrive in a democratic society. As a new poll shows that Americans struggle to know if the information they find online is true, news literacy remains essential in student education. Separating fact from fiction is a vital skill for civic engagement, but students can be good fact-checkers only if they have a broader understanding of how news and information are produced and consumed in the digital age. Here are five questions students should be taught to ask.

News Literacy and Democracy invites readers to go beyond surface-level fact checking and to examine the structures, institutions, practices, and routines that comprise news media systems.This introductory text underscores the importance of news literacy to democratic life and advances an argument that critical contexts regarding news media structures and institutions should be central to news literacy education. Under the larger umbrella of media literacy, a critical approach to news literacy seeks to examine the mediated construction of the social world and the processes and influences that allow some news messages to spread while others get left out. Drawing on research from a range of disciplines, including media studies, political economy, and social psychology, this book aims to inform and empower the citizens who rely on news media so they may more fully participate in democratic and civic life.The book is an essential read for undergraduate students of journalism and news literacy and will be of interest to scholars teaching and studying media literacy, political economy, media sociology, and political psychology.

The normative role of journalism in democracy is well established: democracy depends on news media to facilitate self-government. But theories of the press point to structural limitations that inhibit the democratic ideal. To examine this contradiction, this article offers a comparative analysis of online news coverage by CNN and BBC of Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations Security Council on 5 February 2003. Ethnographic content analysis is used to examine the coverage and to consider each outlet's broad institutional context. The article concludes that structural limitations are less of a hindrance at the BBC, which is better situated to enhance rational–critical dialogue and democratic self-governance through inclusion of a greater diversity of sources and a wider array of opinion.

Conspiracy theories flourish in the wide-open media of the digital age, spurring concerns about the role of misinformation in influencing public opinion and election outcomes. This study examines whether news media literacy predicts the likelihood of endorsing conspiracy theories and also considers the impact of literacy on partisanship. A survey of 397 adults found that greater knowledge about the news media predicted a lower likelihood of conspiracy theory endorsement, even for conspiracy theories that aligned with their political ideology.

Scholars and educators have long hoped that media education is positively related to pro-social goals such as political and civic engagement. With a focus on measuring news media literacy with emphasis on media knowledge, need for cognition and media locus of control, this study surveyed 537 college students and found positive relationships between news media literacy and two political engagement measures: current events knowledge and internal political efficacy. Findings show that news media literacy is not associated with political activity, although some dimensions of news media literacy are associated with lower levels of political trust. Results help to define significant components of news media literacy and suggest that these components help foster positive relationships with civic and political life.

Scholars and educators have long hoped that media education is positively related to pro-social goals such as political and civic engagement. With a focus on measuring news media literacy with emphasis on media knowledge, need for cognition and media locus of control, this study surveyed 537 college students and found positive relationships between news media literacy and two political engagement measures: current events knowledge and internal political efficacy. Findings show that news media literacy is not associated with political activity, although some dimensions of news media literacy are associated with lower levels of political trust. Results help to define significant components of news media literacy and suggest that these components help foster positive relationships with civic and political life.

Given growing interest in the potential importance of news literacy around the world, a theoretically grounded and empirically validated measure of news literacy is essential. Building on existing theory, we developed and validated a 15-item true/false measure of news literacy knowledge. This measure comprehensively operationalizes the five C's of news literacy—context, creation, content, circulation, and consumption—in a concise, adaptable, knowledge-based format. Using item response theory and differential item functioning analysis, we followed a three-survey process with representative U.S. samples, developing and assessing 80 true/false items in Study 1 ( N = 1,502) to reduce to 43 items in Study 2 ( N = 1,273). The final reduced set of 15 items was evaluated and validated in Study 3 ( N = 681) along with related measures of civics and current events knowledge, which were positively predicted by the news literacy knowledge measure. While this measure is designed and tested in the U.S. context, our process of operationalizing these complicated concepts and the novel true/false format facilitates its applicability to those interested in studying news literacy around the globe.