Academic Commons

The Methodology of Teaching News Literacy for Different Audiences in Russia

Charles B. Wang Center

This report will review the introduction and adaptation of a news literacy course to the educational and scientific program of the National Research University Higher School of Economics in 2013-2017 as well as additional short-term news literacy workshops for students and teachers from other universities and schools in Russia. It is clear that News Literacy teaching must be tailored to different audiences. This report describes schedules of courses and workshops, examples of cases, trainings, games, and practical tasks developed together with media department professors Anna Kachkayeva and Svetlana Shomova. The issue of news literacy kindled additional interest in the professional environment when in 2013 the Russian Ministry of Communications issued a decree "On criteria of media literacy and technique of estimation of media literacy among citizens” (http://minsvyaz.ru/ru/activity/directions/540/). However, having analysed the results of international conferences dedicated to media literacy and media education, one can say that even today many Russian scientists and educators do not see much of a difference between media education and the use of information technology, distance learning and media technology in the educational process. In many schools media education is understood as the creation of school media. It was decided in 2013 to introduce a News Literacy course (based on key concepts developed at Stony Brook University) to the schedule of media communications faculty of National Research University Higher School of Economics. Lecturers searched for the optimal method of introducing the course into the schedule, in a way that created harmonic cooperation and complementarity between News Literacy and other courses. One of the first decisions was to include the course in the program of research and development seminars (2nd bachelor degree course). The News Literacy course became a sort of a final phase in the discussion of “basic background of journalism”, where journalism theory, the social mission of the journalist, the social functions of journalism, and the values and ethics of the profession were up for debate with the students. (At present ethical issues became one of the topics within the framework of the discussion of news literacy problems). Presently the course is titled “Media Literacy”, and it is also included in the program of the 2nd bachelor degree course. The non-standard view for media-students when looking at news (a view from the perspective of the average consumer, rather than the producer's information content) allowed students to see the complexity of the problems of the modern information field, qualitatively change the perception of the news as a tool of mass communication as a whole, and realize its manipulative possibilities. In addition, the introduction of the News Literacy course into the two-year university-wide media history and theory course became a one-of-a-kind experiment. News Literacy lectures titled: “News Literacy: news as an object of manipulation” are given in the beginning of the course. In 2015-2016 over 250 students from non-journalism majors preferred this course to others suggested. The topic of social networks and news literacy is the point of real interest. According to the study on the Russian media landscape (Levada-Center / Yuri Levada Analytical Center, 2016), Russian people began to have less confidence in traditional mass media as a whole, while the credibility of the internet grows on the contrary. At the same time, the number of supporters of internet censorship also dwindled. Thirty-nine percent of Russians trust the information obtained from the internet, and 39% of Russians believe that the internet can drive traditional mass media out in the future. This report is also based on integrated data of the four-year (continuing) complex study of the media literacy level of students of National Research University Higher School of Economics, conducted with Anna Kachkaeva and Svetlana Shomova*. The first year of the study made it possible to identify certain trends which appear after the students complete the news literacy course. They become much more negatively disposed to all information. They often turn away from all sources instead of checking and applying critical thinking. And now one of the main questions is the following: how to achieve a balance? It is also very important to mention that students “acquire immunity”. They start realizing how serious the News Literacy issue is and how great are the responsibilities they are going to shoulder if they wish to become journalists. * The following parameters and methodology was used: the questionnaire was given before and after the News Literacy Course in both reference groups of students (the first year students, who just entered the university, who didn’t attend the Course and those, who attended the Course). The students in both reference groups were given the same questions. Our hypothesis was: Before and after the course the level of critical thinking/ analyzing / deconstructing the news changes, also the tendency to build a more complicated reality increases. The method is survey and comparative analysis (groups before and after the course) with the use of mathematical methods. We compared the difference (between groups) from the statistical point of view (figured out if there was statistically significant difference; how the results differ before and after the course). The detection of the significant difference is defined with the Fisher criterion (two tailed fisher's exact test). The questions were divided into several categories: the use of media gadgets; variety of information channels/ sources; trusting different information sources. Questions about social mission and functions of journalism and its professional ethics were included in the additional block.

https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/cnlglobalconference/cnl2017/one/9