Sylvia Hanes

Today, news travels through anything from newspapers to social media. While this variety can be helpful in distributing information, all sources have their limitations. It’s important to check your facts and ensure your source is reliable, whether it’s an article, post, video or graphic. Although the information may be accurate, it can be skewed or editorialized depending on the bias of the provider. Critical media literacy strategies can help us better understand the data we’re consuming.

• Context: To fully understand a situation, we must first look at where it originated and how it’s evolved. Without this history, we lose crucial background information about how the issue has come to be, as well as a clear view of each perspective on the topic.

• Intended audience: Each piece of content is targeted at a different group of people, which can affect its tone and the strategies it uses to convey its message. These techniques can alter the way one receives the presented information, depending on who the content is aimed at.

• Author’s point of view: The identity of the creator will affect their perspective on what is portrayed in the media. Readers should keep this in mind, and any of the creator’s personal biases should be separated from the facts presented.

• Purpose: It is also important to note what the author is trying to achieve by sharing this information. Is their goal to inform? Persuade? Accuse? This will determine the language used in conveying the information, as different wording has different connotations.