Think before you share: building a civic media literacy framework for everyday contexts
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-03-2022-0030 |
| Published date | 08 July 2022 |
| Date | 08 July 2022 |
| Pages | 421-444 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library & information services |
| Author | Ellen Middaugh,Sherry Bell,Mariah Kornbluh |
Think before you share: building a
civic media literacy framework
for everyday contexts
Ellen Middaugh
Department of Child and Adolescent Development, San Jose State University,
San Jose, California, USA
Sherry Bell
Department of Psychological Brain Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas,
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, and
Mariah Kornbluh
Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA
Abstract
Purpose –In response to concerns aboutfake news (Allcott et al., 2019) and polarization (Wollebaek et al.,
2019), youth media literacy interventions have emerged to teach strategiesfor assessing credibility of online
news (McGrew et al., 2018) and producing media to mobilize others for civic goals (Kahne et al., 2016).
However, in light of evidence that practices learned in classroom contexts do not reliably translate to the
context of sharing socialmedia (Middaugh, 2018), this study aims to provide a betterunderstanding of youth
social mediapractices needed to design meaningfuland relevant educational experiences.
Design/methodology/approach –Semistructured interviews with a think-aloud component were
conducted with a diverse sample of 18 Californiayouth (15–24) to learn about factors that guide behavior as
they access,endorse, share, comment and produce civic media.
Findings –Findings suggest a shift toward reliance on incidental exposure and noninstitutional sources
when accessing information and a tendency toward endorsement and circulation of posts (vs producing
original posts) when engaging withcivic issues on social media. As participants engaged in these practices,
they not only applied judgments of credibility and civic impact but also concerned for personal relevance,
relationalconsiderations and fit with internet culture.
Originality/value –The authors recommend moving beyond models that reflect linear processes of
effortful search, credibility analysis and production. Instead, the authors propose a new dynamic model of
civic media literacy in which youth apply judgments of credibility, relational considerations, relevance to
lived experience, civic impact and fit with internet cultureas they receive, endorse, share, comment on and
produce mediain a nonlinear fashion.
Keywords Circulation, Social media, Youth, Civic engagement, Civic media literacy,
Critical media literacy
Paper type Research paper
This study was made possible through the generous funding provided by the Spencer Foundation.
The authors would also like to thank George Franco, Tricia Harrison, Kristen Huey and Kristina
Smith for their support with data collection, interview development and analytic note-taking that
provided a foundation for development of the coding scheme. Mark Felton also provided valuable
feedback on our conceptual framework of civic media literacy.
Building a
civic media
literacy
framework
421
Received2 March 2022
Revised7 June 2022
14June 2022
Accepted14 June 2022
Informationand Learning
Sciences
Vol.123 No. 7/8, 2022
pp. 421-444
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2398-5348
DOI 10.1108/ILS-03-2022-0030
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/2398-5348.htm
Introduction
Becoming an informed citizen is a key milestone in a young person’sdevelopment (Flanagan and
Levine, 2010). To understand and engage with civic issues in today’s digital age, navigating the
internet and social media are now necessary everyday tasks (Cohen and Kahne, 2012). Civic
media literacy (the ability to use media intentionally to achieve civic goals) has been identified as a
core competency within civics education (Kahne et al., 2016;Lan, 2013;Mihailidis, 2018). As every
generation recreates and reinforces democracy, youth today will need to combat the spread of
internet misinformation (Allcott et al.,2019), look beyond online echo-chambers and internet
outrage language (Middaugh, 2019;Wollebæk et al.,2019) and rebuild institutions that
systematically disadvantage our most vulnerable communities. As digital civic media scholars
point out, the civic education practices of the past are not enough to meet the challenges of our
current moment, (Middaugh, 2018;Mihailidis, 2018;Mirra and Garcia, 2021).
There has been emerging attention given to teaching youth to search for and assess the
credibility of online media (McGrew et al., 2018), as well as produce their own (Crampton
et al., 2018). Yet, there has been limited research surrounding the most common online form
of civic engagement in the digital age –the circulation of social media within online social
networks (Cohen and Kahne, 2012;Jenkins et al., 2016;Middaugh, 2018). The act of online
circulation itself is a rich avenue of developmental research. In the daily practice of
engagement with socialmedia, users typically scroll through feeds that includeposts from a
mixture of sources (personal, pop culture, news, etc.) in varied formats (video,text, images,
music, etc.) and can either endorse (like/heart), share (send to others or repost on their own
feed) or comment as they go. Endorsing and sharing are “light touch acts”that influence
what users see in their own feeds by providing information to feed into algorithms which
influences what they see next and what their followers will see. As such, these behaviors
may consist of an array of interacting cognitive, social-emotional and ecological factors
affecting one’s ability to assess the credibility and social impact of such media, as well as
identify the ethicalimplications for broader civic purposes.
The current study builds off prior scholarshipby attending to:
the ways in which young people engage with civic issues on social media in their
everyday lives;
the multiple aims that young people bring to their engagement with civic issues on
social media; and
the qualities of internet culture that may influence the way young people engage
with civic issues.
Background and literature review
Social media as a context for civic development
With the development of mobile devices, the role of digital technologies as mediators of
social relationships and public life has been recognized as an important context for civic
development (Jeong et al., 2012). Research on civic engagement in the digital age has
suggested an accompanying rise in participatory politics (Cohen and Kahne, 2012), which
consists of interactive peer-basedacts through which individuals and groups engage in and
work to shape, influence and interrogate public issues. As the internet has increased the
volume of available information, removed temporal and geographic barriers to interaction,
and software has emerged to facilitate production of multimedia content (Navarro and
Tudge, 2022), people can readily access information related to their interests through the
practices of investigation, to engage in dialogue with others and provide feedback to power
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