responsible media consumption essay

Media Consumption and Its Role in Society Essay

How media consumption shapes our personal lives in comparison to the 20 th century and the role of media in society.

There are numerous ways to transfer and obtain information that is currently known to humans. Nonetheless, it was not like this all the time. Even throughout the previous century, society was way more limited in terms of how they could obtain certain information or transfer it to someone else. While the quick pace of technological revolution shaped our perceptions regarding the ways of conveying all kinds of data, there is still the question of how effective were data transmitting practices back in the day and what are the differences that make the modern practices either good or bad. Therefore, the current paper will serve as a possibility to investigate the two outlooks on the processes of exchanging and obtaining information.

This is going to be done in the form of comparative analysis to ensure that both my and an older relative’s opinions regarding the use of mass media are included in the evaluation. Much attention will be given to the use of social media and mass media (newspapers, TV, radio, Facebook, etc.). The interview will be conducted in person. It is vital to mention that the comparison is based on the idea that the focus of research is on mass media consumption that took place when the older family member was younger. The analysis will include the most predominant mass media sources that were used, how frequently they were addressed, and what were the benefits and disadvantages of those information sources. This research paper is designed to investigate the question of inter-generational differences in media usage and consumption and allow the researcher either to prove or disprove the usefulness of numerous social and mass media information sources that are currently available to humans.

To start with, the relative mentioned that there was a limited number of information resources available to them at that time. Those sources included black and white TV (Cable Network of Egypt), several local newspapers (The Egyptian Gazette and Egypt Today), and a resident radio station (102.2 MHz Greater Cairo Radio). He said that it was rather interesting to see how there was no particular development of these sources and the majority of news tended to spread by word of mouth. Nonetheless, the relative also mentioned that the information presented in the local newspapers was always relevant and on point. One of the most important aspects regarding the times when my relative was younger was that there might be a situation where “each source could share their interpretation of the facts,” and the news would turn out to be different among all sources (relative’s name, personal communication, November 19, 2017).

It was also surprising to find out that my older relative did not watch TV a lot. Particularly, this might have happened because “there were only two channels that broadcasted in the area” and there was no reason to spend all the time watching the TV when all the latest news could be learned from the local newspapers (relative’s name, personal communication, November 19, 2017). One of the points that also surprised me as a member of the younger generation was the frequency of my relative checking the latest news – two-three times per day. Nevertheless, the relative stated that “it could have been worse not to have many sources of information at all” and I can agree with it (relative’s name, personal communication, November 19, 2017). Accordingly, he also added that the lack of information sources did not hurt his life at that time. Instead, “the balance between the real-life and subjective news” was identified as practically perfect (relative’s name, personal communication, November 19, 2017).

At the same time, it was rather exciting to see that my outlook regarding the use of social and mass media was different. From what I can tell, I do not watch TV at all, and I rarely consult our local newspapers. For the most part, this happens because I do not see these information sources as useful. Instead, I spend the majority of my time checking on my Facebook timeline and the Twitter feed to be aware of the latest news. The current technologies allow us to stay updated and learn about the latest events and incidents within a matter of seconds. The high-paced rhythm of my life also leaves an imprint on my interaction with different information sources. Another social media network that seriously contributes to my awareness regarding the latest news from around the world is Instagram.

In a graphic form, it presents all the data, and I am used to checking the app for the latest events and updates for at least ten times per day. The same goes for Twitter and Facebook because, in reality, different social networks cover different stories from all corners of the globe. For me, there is nothing more important than finding out the latest news using a huge variety of social media applications. I do not see any advantages in the use of mass media such as TV, newspapers, and radio. These three share the same information at the same time and do not provide the end-user with a possibility to learn different things within a matter of seconds. If I had to pick one, I would go with the radio because this information source reaches out to a rather large audience and broadcasts in real-time.

When it comes to the inter-generational differences between the perception of mass media and social media, there are not as many as one would assume. First of all, the older generation was exposed to the lack of choice as they had to stick to the information sources that they had (here, one should also consider the fact that all information providers shared the same data). On the other hand, the younger generation has all the possibilities to choose their preferred means of learning the latest news and disregard conventional methods such as the radio, TV, and newspapers. For the majority of the younger population, the use of these outdated means of obtaining the latest updates is confusing. Another key difference between the older and the younger perceptions is the idea that the modern population can live without newspapers, for example, while the older population could not (practically because they had no other options if they wanted to be aware of the state of affairs).

Even though the chances to be the first to obtain the latest information have increased lately, the chances to get caught up in a news hoax have done the same (Damasio, Henriques, Da Silva, Pacheco, & Brites, 2015). Therefore, I can claim that the information sources that were available to the older relative were more consistent even when being slightly misleading. In the case of the modern news, I refer to them much more frequently, but there is a higher chance that this news will not have any practical value. If we compare the levels of media consumption, we will see that the younger generation is more willing to spend their time looking for the latest news on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and numerous other social networks. The most interesting fact is that we gradually become attached to these applications and the overall point of checking social network updates so often is to support the habit and not learn something new (Damasio et al., 2015).

To conclude, it may be stated that how the younger generation deals with news sources completely differ from the practices of their older counterparts. It was found that the inter-generational differences in terms of interaction with mass media and social media exist and have to be perceived as one of the consequences of technological progress. The usefulness of the modern news sources cannot be evaluated merely based on the conducted interview. Nonetheless, it can be stated that the role of the networks as information providers has changed significantly and our attitudes toward the use of mass media and social media have transformed as well. Based on the obtained data, I can claim that there are several major differences in terms of dealing with information sources between the older and younger generations, but they are only subject to the fast pace of the technological revolution and not the individuals’ attitude toward certain data sources or social networks.

Damasio, M. J., Henriques, S., Da Silva, M. T., Pacheco, L., & Brites, M. J. (2015). Media audiences – between old broadcast media and new networked media: Materiality and media consumption practices. International Journal of Communication , 9 , 26.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2020, October 12). Media Consumption and Its Role in Society. https://ivypanda.com/essays/media-consumption-and-its-role-in-society/

"Media Consumption and Its Role in Society." IvyPanda , 12 Oct. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/media-consumption-and-its-role-in-society/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'Media Consumption and Its Role in Society'. 12 October.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Media Consumption and Its Role in Society." October 12, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/media-consumption-and-its-role-in-society/.

1. IvyPanda . "Media Consumption and Its Role in Society." October 12, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/media-consumption-and-its-role-in-society/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Media Consumption and Its Role in Society." October 12, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/media-consumption-and-its-role-in-society/.

• The Intergenerational Legacy of Trauma Generated in War-Zone Children
• Intergenerational Communication at Call Center Organization
• Intergenerational Trauma and Traumatic Memory
• Media Violence Laws and Their Effectiveness
• Mass Media and Its Political Influences
• Violence in Media and Real-Life Aggresive Behavior
• "Gun Violence and Media Effects" by Elson and Ferguson
• The Western Media Influence on UAE Millennials

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci

Medium Matters: A Decade of Media Consumption Predicts Positive and Negative Dimensions of Self-Perceptions of Aging

Jordan boeder.

1 School of Social Sciences, Policy and Evaluation, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California, USA

Dwight C K Tse

2 Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, CUHK, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong SAR, The People’s Republic of China

Veronica Fruiht

3 Department of Psychology, Dominican University of California, San Rafael, California, USA

Thomas Chan

4 Department of Psychology, Health Equity Research and Education Center, California State University, Northridge, Northridge, California, USA

Associated Data

Media consumption over time is suggested to be a significant contributor to how people develop their self-perceptions of aging (SPA); however, this association has only been investigated with cross-sectional methodologies. The current study used growth curve modeling to examine the influence of 10 years of television, newspaper, radio, and book consumption on positive and negative dimensions of SPA.

Growth curve modeling on 4 waves of data from the German Aging Survey ( N = 2,969), a population-based representative survey of adults aged 40–95, was used to examine the longitudinal associations between media consumption and SPA trajectories.

Across 10 years, more television intake ( B = −0.58, 95% CI [−0.94, −0.21]) was associated with lower perceptions of continuous growth. Inversely, greater book ( B = 0.10, 95% CI [0.06, 0.13]) and radio ( B = 0.52, 95% CI [0.29, 0.74]) consumption was significantly linked to higher perceptions of continuous growth. In parallel, more television ( B = 0.88, 95% CI [0.52, 1.25]) and newspaper consumption ( B = 0.46, 95% CI [0.04, 0.88]) was associated with higher perceptions of physical decline, while greater radio ( B = −0.40, 95% CI [−0.64, −0.16]) and book ( B = −0.05, 95% CI [−0.09, −0.00]) consumption was associated with lower perceptions of physical decline.

This study provides longitudinal evidence for the relationship between media consumption and SPA. However, not all types of media intake are negative as radio and book consumption were associated with better SPA across time. Age-group differences were investigated and are discussed in the Supplementary Materials .

Media consumption in the form of viewing television, reading books and newspapers, and listening to the radio takes up the majority leisure time in the United States and Europe ( Aliaga & Winquist, 2003 ; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018 ). Specifically, adults watch an average of 4.5 hr of television a day and viewership increases across the life span ( Grajczyk & Zöllner, 1998 )—becoming the most frequently cited activity for older adults ( Robinson et al., 2004 ). Increases in media consumption with age may pose a risk to the health of older adults that reside in primarily ageist societies as media plays a role in reflecting, shaping, and reinforcing social views and norms regarding the aging process and life during old age ( Harwood et al., 1994 ).

The potential risk of consuming ageist media is highlighted by stereotype embodiment theory (SET) which posits that the general aging stereotypes we hold true become self-stereotypes and eventually affect our thoughts and beliefs regarding our own aging process. Such thoughts and beliefs are known as self-perceptions of aging (SPA; Levy, 2009 ). Internalized positive and negative stereotypes become positive and negative SPA, respectively. Moreover, positive SPA includes perceptions of continuous growth and increased self-knowledge and control, and negative SPA includes perceptions of physical decline and social loss ( Steverink et al., 2001 ). Such perceptions have long-term effects on physiological and psychological functioning ( Levy, 2009 ), with those having more positive SPA living an average of 7.5 years longer than those with poorer SPA ( Levy et al., 2002 ). While there is a paucity of empirical research investigating how SPA develops, SET suggests that cultural immersion via media consumption is the primary factor leading to differences in positive and negative SPA among individuals in the same society ( Levy, 2009 ). This position is based on other tenets of SET which hold that most societies have more negative than positive aging stereotypes ( Boduroglu et al., 2006 ), and in turn, more cultural exposure leads to an increasingly disproportionate internalization of negative stereotypes that become negative SPA.

Cultivation theory provides theoretical support for the connection between media consumption and SPA as media is a socializing agent that shapes individuals’ beliefs and attitudes toward aging ( Gerbner et al., 2002 ). Other social psychologists suggest media reflects a culture’s values and standards, which communicate group status and expectations ( Haboush et al., 2012 )—thus, ageist cultures propagate negative expectations that act as self-fulfilling prophecies. Conversely, overly positive images can create ideals that are not possible to reach, ultimately hurting one’s self-perceptions ( Slevec & Tiggemann, 2011 ). An experimental study found that adults who identify as old performed worse on a memory performance tasks after viewing ageist commercials, supporting the possibility that media can prime individuals with a negative self-schema ( Westerhof et al., 2010 ).

Beyond media’s ability to transmit age-related stereotypes, two studies have explored the direct relationship between television consumption and views on aging, finding more television intake is related to worse attitudes toward older adults ( Donlon et al., 2005 ; Gerbner et al., 1980 ). While such findings provide some evidence for SET’s media hypothesis, prior studies have been cross-sectional, conducted with small samples, limited exclusively to television consumption, and focused on attitudes toward older adults instead of SPA. Thus, longitudinal research is needed to test SET’s assumption that more media consumption is related to more negative and less positive SPA.

As media rapidly changes to reflect cultural attitudes, there is conflicting evidence as to whether media is still ageist ( Loos & Ivan, 2018 ; Ylänne, 2015 ). Although early work utilizing content analyses revealed a high degree of ageism in television programming, longitudinal research has found older adults are increasingly portrayed in a positive light, often being shown as active, healthy, and independent ( Loos & Ivan, 2018 ). However, older adults in the media who do possess positive traits most often resemble the third age of life, creating a mostly unachievable representation of successful aging in late life ( Kessler et al., 2004 ). Moreover, older adults are still vastly underrepresented in proportion to their demographic standing in society ( Ylänne, 2015 ), tend to be in minor or peripherical roles, and possess fewer positive traits compared to younger groups ( Loos & Ivan, 2018 ). With television no longer viewed as being inherently ageist, there is a possibility that more consumption may no longer be associated with worse SPA over time.

Significantly less is known about the effects of print and audio media consumption on SPA development. Although not as widely consumed as television, listening to the radio and reading the newspaper and books take up roughly an hour of older adults’ daily activity ( Aliaga & Winquist, 2003 ; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018 ). Similar to television programming, print media is becoming less overtly ageist; however, older adults are still vastly underrepresented ( Loos & Ivan, 2018 ; Ylänne, 2015 ). Moreover, like television, ageism is perpetuated by newspapers and radio through advertisements that sell products to overcome “negative” conditions of old age ( Raman et al., 2008 ). Although research on the representation of older adults in books is scarce, studies have shown the rampant ageism in children’s literature as older adults tend to have negative attributes and often subsume the role of the villain ( McGuire, 2003 ).

While it is difficult to determine the extent to which various forms of media are ageist due to constant changes in media content, all forms of media have the potential to support positive SPA. For instance, books can offer factual insights about the world and allow for more complex character development than shorter forms of media. Therefore, it is possible that consuming more books may reduce negative SPA and increase positive SPA. Additionally, gaining perspectives on the world through consuming the news and staying in touch with cultural trends may allow all forms of media consumption to enhance dimensions of positive SPA. More research is needed to investigate whether various forms of media consumption differentially affect dimensions of positive and negative SPA across time.

The Current Study

This study uses longitudinal methods to examine the association between various forms of media (i.e., television viewing, book reading, newspaper reading, and radio listening) and changes in positive and negative SPA in adulthood. Specifically, the study focuses on perceptions of continuous growth and physical decline, as they are most commonly used to represent positive and negative SPA, respectively (for review, see Wurm et al., 2017 ). Due to conflicting evidence for the portrayal of older adults across media platforms, the present study examines the general research question of whether cumulative media consumption is related to changes in perceptions of continuous growth and physical decline across a decade.

Data and Sample

Data for this study come from the German Aging Survey (DEAS), an ongoing nationally representative, cohort-sequential survey of the German population aged 40 and older ( Klaus et al., 2017 ). The first DEAS survey wave took place in 1996, with further waves following in 2002, 2008, 2011, 2014, and 2017. New panels of individuals 40 years and older were added in 2002, 2008, and 2014. The current study includes data from individuals who completed the 2008 survey and at least two additional surveys in 2011, 2014, and 2017 ( N = 2,969). In general, ongoing participants tend to be younger, healthier, more educated, and have higher incomes and larger informal networks than respondents who drop out ( Klaus et al., 2017 ). Participant characteristics are in Table 1 .

Participant Characteristics at Baseline ( N = 2,969)

Notes : SD = standard deviation. These demographics represent each participant’s response during the 2008 wave. Newspaper consumption was rated on a Likert scale ranging from 1 ( daily ) to 6 ( never ). Scores were reverse-coded, so higher ratings reflect more consumption.

Media consumption

While prior work has measured television viewing exclusively as media use ( Donlon et al., 2005 ), the present study better aligns with recent time use surveys by measuring television, radio, newspaper, and book consumption ( U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018 ). Television consumption was measured with the item, “How many hours in total, on an average weekday, do you spend watching television?” Radio usage was assessed with a single item, “How many hours per day do you have the radio on, either as background (music) while doing other things or actually listening to the content of radio programs?” This question was slightly changed in 2014 to focus on radio listening during a typical weekday. Newspaper consumption was measured through a 6-point Likert question asking respondents “How often do you read the newspaper?” with options ranging from 1 ( daily ) to 6 ( never ). Scores were reverse-coded, so higher scores equate to more newspaper consumption. To assess book reading, participants were asked “How many books have you read in your spare time over the past 12 months?”

Perceptions of continuous growth

Perceptions of continuous growth were assessed with the 4-item Ongoing Development scale, a component of the Aging-related Cognitions scales ( Steverink et al., 2001 ). Participants rated their perceptions on a 4-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 ( definitely false ) to 4 ( definitely true ). A sample item is “Aging means to me that I continue to make plans.” Previous research has found the scale to be reliable ( Steverink et al., 2001 ; α = 0.78). The intraclass correlation (ICC) indicates that 54.11% of variance was between-person.

Perceptions of physical decline

Perceptions of physical decline were measured with the 4-item Aging-related Cognitions scale of Physical Loss ( Steverink et al., 2001 ). Participants were asked to rate their perceptions on aging with a 4-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 ( definitely false ) to 4 ( definitely true ) on items such as, “Aging means to me being less energetic and fit.” The scale has been found to be valid and reliable ( Steverink et al., 2001 ; α = 0.79). The ICC for the measure indicates that 56.92% of variance was between-person.

In addition to media consumption, longitudinal studies have emphasized the association between personal characteristics and SPA. For instance, being older, and having more functional limitations and depression are negatively related to SPA ( Sargent-Cox et al., 2012 ) as deteriorating health influences one’s ability to view aging positively. Furthermore, one’s gender, marital status, and income are all associated with SPA ( Kleinspehn-Ammerlahn et al., 2008 ; Kotter-Grühn et al., 2009 ), and can influence the impact of media intake. To account for these effects, age, sex, education, marital status, socioeconomic status, comorbidities, and depression were used as covariates. Educational attainment was assessed with the International Standard Classification of Education which distinguishes between low (incomplete vocational training), medium (complete vocational training and/or high school degree), and higher education (completion of any higher education). Socioeconomic status was measured by net monthly household income. Lastly, comorbidity was represented by total number of physical illnesses from a list of 11 chronic health conditions (e.g., cardiovascular diseases, arthritis; ranging from 0 to 11). The German version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale was used to assess depressive symptoms ( Hautzinger, 1988 ). Scores were summed and transformed so that they range from 0 to 45.

Data Analysis

To determine the association between various types of media usage and perceptions of continuous growth and physical decline across a decade of adulthood, two growth curve models were created using SPSS version 26. A maximum likelihood estimator was used to account for missingness. As suggested for longitudinal studies to have more interpretable fixed-effect coefficients, the dependent variables were transformed using the percentage of maximum possible (POMP) method, such that the lowest and highest scores are transformed to 0 and 100, respectively ( Moeller, 2015 ). In the conditional models, age, gender, education, and marital status were grand-mean-centered and modeled as time invariant covariates. The media consumption variables, income, depression, and number of physical illnesses were modeled as time-varying predictors. Random effects were modeled for all media consumption variables. All models utilized a variance components covariance matrix. Supplemental analyses were carried out to investigate whether the effect of media on SPA was the same across middle-aged (40–59 years of age) and older adults (60 years of age and older; see Supplementary Appendices A and B )

Unconditional growth curve models suggested time for both perceptions of aging should be represented linearly. Specifically, perceptions of continuous growth were found to start above the midpoint of the transformed scale ( B = 64.61, 95% CI [64.03, 65.19]) and decline at each wave ( B = −0.42, 95% CI [−0.66, −0.17]). In contrast, perceptions of physical decline started above the scale’s midpoint ( B = 57.84, 95% CI [57.21, 58.47]), but increased linearly at each wave ( B = 0.20, 95% CI [−0.02, 0.42]). Although the linear decline in perceptions of physical decline was small, the significant random effect of the slope suggests that there are notable between-person differences in intraindividual change over time (see Supplementary Appendix C ).

The results from each conditional analysis focus on the effect of the media consumption variables, while the estimates for all variables can be found in Table 2 . More television consumption was associated with decreases in perceptions of continuous growth ( B = −0.58, 95% CI [−0.94, −0.21]), while more radio ( B = 0.52, 95% CI [0.29, 0.74]) and book ( B = 0.10, 95% CI [0.06, 0.13]) consumption was related to increases in these perceptions at each wave. In contrast, newspaper consumption ( B = −0.13, 95% CI [−0.54, 0.29]) was not significantly related to perceptions of continuous growth across waves. These findings held for middle-aged adults. For older adults, the influence of newspaper consumption on perceptions of continuous growth was not significant; however, the effect was in the positive direction. Additionally, the influence of book consumption did not reach statistical significance for older adults (see Supplementary Appendices D – F ).

Fixed and Random Effects of Predictors on Self-Perceptions of Aging ( N = 2,969)

Notes : CI = confidence interval. Net monthly income was divided by 1,000 to create more equal variances among predictors.

*p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.

When modeling perceptions of physical decline as the dependent variable, increases in television ( B = 0.88, 95% CI [0.52, 1.25]) and newspaper ( B = 0.46, 95% CI [0.04, 0.88]) consumption were associated with more negative perceptions at each time point. In contrast, radio ( B = −0.40, 95% CI [−0.64, −0.16]) and book consumption were inversely related to perceptions of physical decline ( B = −0.05, 95% CI [−0.09, −0.00]; see Table 2 ). The direction of effects was the same across age groups; however, the effects of book and newspaper consumption on perceptions of physical decline did not reach statistical significance for middle-aged and older adults, respectively (see Supplementary Appendices D – F ).

The current study investigated SET’s assumption that more media consumption is responsible for worse SPA among individuals in the same culture ( Levy, 2009 ). In line with previous work investigating attitudes toward older adults, television consumption was related to worse SPA (i.e., lower perceptions of continuous growth and higher perceptions of physical decline) across a 10-year period ( Donlon et al., 2005 ; Gerbner et al., 1980 ). However, media consumption is not inherently harmful, as radio and book consumption were associated with more positive SPA over time. Additionally, results suggest that media’s longitudinal association with SPA is more complex than previously assumed since more newspaper consumption was related to increases in perceptions of physical decline, but unrelated to perceptions of continuous growth. Although it appears that cultural immersion is associated with differences in SPA across time, media consumption is not inherently harmful, just as it is not inherently ageist—especially as societies progress ( Loos & Ivan, 2018 ).

With worse SPA being related to an increased risk of mortality ( Levy et al., 2002 ), the negative impact of television consumption on SPA poses a health risk to the German people, as well as other nations where television is the most pervasive form of media intake ( Aliaga & Winquist, 2003 ). As television intake increases with age ( Robinson et al., 2004 ), there may be a cumulative negative effect on health and mortality risks. Our results provide some evidence that the content chosen by individuals promotes ageist stereotypes. However, research finds that television is becoming less ageist in Europe and United States ( Loos & Ivan, 2018 ; Ylänne, 2015 ), and that older adults prefer more informative television like watching news channels ( Robinson et al., 2004 ). Therefore, the harmful relationship between television consumption and SPA may be driven by ageist advertisements which are found across nations (e.g., China, Europe, India, and United States; Zhang et al., 2006 ).

Advertisements prompting comparisons to unrealistic aging expectations or priming negative age schemas ( Westerhof et al., 2010 ) may also engender the observed negative influence of newspaper consumption on perceptions of physical decline. While the content of newspapers has not been found to be ageist beyond underrepresentation, the same cannot be said for the advertisements in this medium ( Carrigan & Szmigin, 2000 ). The finding that newspapers were only related to perceptions of physical decline and not ongoing development may be explained by the extent to which newspaper advertisements promote stereotypes related to physical deterioration, the most prevalent domain of negative stereotypes associated with aging ( Hummert, 2011 ). Beyond solutions offered to allay ageist media content ( Loos & Ivan, 2018 ), policy makers in Germany and nations that have similar forms of ageist media content (e.g., China, India, and the United States) should limit ageist advertisements as a means of promoting public health.

Notably, not all forms of media consumption were related to worse SPA. Listening to the radio and reading books were beneficial forms of cultural immersion that allowed for more positive SPA over time. It is possible that books provide the pleasure of television and the information of newspapers without the advertising. Interestingly, while the radio does have advertisements, one study found that older adults are far less likely to recall age-related advertising on the radio (9%) compared to television (53%; Zhang et al., 2006 ). Again, while the radio is used for similar reasons as television and newspapers, the lack of influence by advertisements may allow the beneficial ties to culture provided by media consumption take hold without the promotion of ageist messages.

Limitations and Future Directions

Although the German Aging Survey allowed for a thorough investigation of the relationship between the quantity of media consumption and changes in SPA across 10 years, it was not possible to investigate the content of the media participants consumed. Future research should focus specifically on the interaction between media type and content in relation to SPA development. Relatedly, this study observed slight age-group differences in the effects of media on SPA. The direction of the effects was the same across age groups with the exception of the nonsignificant positive association between newspaper consumption and perceptions of continuous growth for older adults. Replication is needed to determine whether differences in significance levels were due to reductions in sample size or actual group differences. Overall, more research is needed to begin to disentangle these findings as not much is currently known about the factors that differentially affect younger and older adults’ internalization of age-related content, especially as it relates to various forms of media.

Even though this study revealed longitudinal associations between media intake and SPA, causality cannot be inferred from the findings due to the lack of experimental control needed to eliminate alternative causal hypotheses. Therefore, more longitudinal studies are needed to disentangle the direction of effects, and test whether worsening SPA may prompt more negative forms of media consumption. Moreover, with media content and interfaces constantly evolving (i.e., streaming services), more research is needed to see if the current findings hold for more recent media programming. With some paid streaming services not having advertisements it may be possible to test whether the harmful effects of television consumption on SPA are driven by advertisements. The current study is the first to explore the long-term link between media consumption and dimensions of positive and negative SPA. Based on the findings, it is clear that actions need to be taken to reduce ageism on television to enhance positive aging at the population level.

Supplementary Material

Gbaa229_suppl_supplemental_material, acknowledgments.

All data come from the German Aging Study. Due to contractual obligations, the data cannot be released by the authors. However, all syntax for analyses can be made available and will be sent upon request. The data from this study were not preregistered due to the data set being owned by the German Government. This study was not preregistered. However, all analytic materials will be sent upon request.

T. Chan is supported by NIH NIGMS BUILD (UL1GM118976 and RL5GM118975). The German Ageing Survey was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.

Conflict of Interest

None declared.

• Aliaga, C., & Winquist, K. (2003). Time use at different stages of life. Results from 13 European countries . Office for Official Publication of the European Communities, Eurostat. [ Google Scholar ]
• Boduroglu, A., Yoon, C., Luo, T., & Park, D. C. (2006). Age-related stereotypes: A comparison of American and Chinese cultures . Gerontology , 52 ( 5 ), 324–333. doi: 10.1159/000094614 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Carrigan, M., & Szmigin, I. (2000). Advertising in an ageing society . Ageing and Society , 20 ( 1 ), 217–233. doi: 10.1017/S0144686X99007709 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Donlon, M. M., Ashman, O., & Levy, B. R. (2005). Re-vision of older television characters: A stereotype-awareness intervention . Journal of Social Issues , 61 ( 2 ), 307–319. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.2005.00407.x [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Morgan, M., Signorielli, N., & Shanahan, J. (2002). Growing up with television: Cultivation processes . In Bryant J. & Zillman D. (Eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research (pp. 43–68). Lawrence Erlbaum. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gerbner, G., Gross, L., Signorielli, N., & Morgan, M. (1980). Aging with television: Images on television drama and conceptions of social reality . The Journal of Communication , 30 ( 1 ), 37–47. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1980.tb01766.x [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Grajczyk, A., & Zöllner, O. (1998). How older people watch television . Gerontology , 44 ( 3 ), 176–181. doi: 10.1159/000022005 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Haboush, A., Warren, C. S., & Benuto, L. (2012). Beauty, ethnicity, and age: Does internalization of mainstream media ideals influence attitudes towards older adults? Sex Roles , 66 , 668–676. doi: 10.1007/s11199-011-0102-6 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Harwood, J., Giles, H., & Bourhis, R. Y. (1994). The genesis of vitality theory: Historical patterns and discoursal dimensions . International Journal of the Sociology of Language , 108 , 167–206. doi: 10.1515/ijsl.1994.108.167 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hautzinger, M. (1988). The CES-D scale: A depression-rating scale for research in the general population . Diagnostica , 34 , 167–173. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hummert, M. L. (2011). Age stereotypes and aging . In Schaie K. W. & Willis S. L. (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging (7th ed., pp. 249–262). Elsevier Academic Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kessler, E. M., Rakoczy, K., & Staudinger, U. M. (2004). The portrayal of older people in prime time television series: The match with gerontological evidence . Ageing and Society , 24 ( 04 ), 531–552. doi: 10.1017/S0144686X04002338 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Klaus, D., Engstler, H., Mahne, K., Wolff, J. K., Simonson, J., Wurm, S., & Tesch-Römer, C. (2017). Cohort profile: The German Ageing Survey (DEAS) . International Journal of Epidemiology , 46 ( 4 ), 1105–1105g. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyw326 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kleinspehn-Ammerlahn, A., Kotter-Grühn, D., & Smith, J. (2008). Self-perceptions of aging: Do subjective age and satisfaction with aging change during old age? The Journals of gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences , 63 ( 6 ), P377–P385. doi: 10.1093/geronb/63.6.p377 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kotter-Grühn, D., Kleinspehn-Ammerlahn, A., Gerstorf, D., & Smith, J. (2009). Self-perceptions of aging predict mortality and change with approaching death: 16-Year longitudinal results from the Berlin Aging Study . Psychology and Aging , 24 ( 3 ), 654–667. doi: 10.1037/a0016510 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Levy, B. (2009). Stereotype embodiment: A psychosocial approach to aging . Current Directions in Psychological Science , 18 ( 6 ), 332–336. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01662.x [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Levy, B. R., Slade, M. D., & Kasl, S. V. (2002). Longitudinal benefit of positive self-perceptions of aging on functional health . The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences , 57 ( 5 ), P409–P417. doi: 10.1093/geronb/57.5.p409 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Loos, E., & Ivan, L. (2018). Visual ageism in the media . In Ayalon L. & Tesch-Römer C. (Eds.), Contemporary perspectives on ageism (pp. 163–176). Springer International. [ Google Scholar ]
• McGuire, S. L. (2003). Growing up and growing older books for young readers . Childhood Education , 79 ( 3 ), 145–151. doi: 10.1080/00094056.2003.10522214 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Moeller, J. (2015). A word on standardization in longitudinal studies: Don’t . Frontiers in Psychology , 6 , 1389. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01389 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Raman, P., Harwood, J., Weis, D., Anderson, J. & Miller, G. (2008). Portrayals of older adults in U.S. and Indian magazine advertisements: A cross-cultural comparison . Howard Journal of Communications , 19 ( 3 ), 221–240. doi: 10.1080/10646170802218214 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Robinson, J. D., Skill, T., & Turner, J. W. (2004). Media usage patterns and portrayals of seniors . In Nussbaum J. F. & Coupland J. (Eds.), Handbook of communication and aging research (2nd ed., pp. 423–450). Lawrence Erlbaum. [ Google Scholar ]
• Sargent-Cox, K. A., Anstey, K. J., & Luszcz, M. A. (2012). Change in health and self-perceptions of aging over 16 years: The role of psychological resources . Health Psychology , 31 ( 4 ), 423–432. doi: 10.1037/a0027464 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Slevec, J., & Tiggemann, M. (2011). Media exposure, body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating in middle-aged women: A test of the sociocultural model of disordered eating . Psychology of Women Quarterly , 35 ( 4 ), 617–627. doi: 10.1177/0361684311420249 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Steverink, N., Westerhof, G. J., Bode, C., & Dittmann-Kohli, F. (2001). The personal experience of aging, individual resources, and subjective well-being . The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences , 56 ( 6 ), P364–P373. doi: 10.1093/geronb/56.6.p364 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics . (2018). Time spent in leisure and sports activities for the civilian population by selected characteristics, averages per day, 2018 annual averages. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t11A.htm
• Westerhof, G. J., Harink, K., Van Selm, M., Strick, M., & Van Baaren, R. (2010). Filling a missing link: The influence of portrayals of older characters in television commercials on the memory performance of older adults . Ageing and Society , 30 ( 5 ), 897–912. doi: 10.1017/S0144686X10000152 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wurm, S., Diehl, M., Kornadt, A. E., Westerhof, G. J., & Wahl, H. W. (2017). How do views on aging affect health outcomes in adulthood and late life? Explanations for an established connection . Developmental Review , 46 , 27–43. doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2017.08.002 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ylänne, V. (2015). Representations of ageing in the media . In Twigg J. & Martin W. (Eds.), Routledge handbook of cultural gerontology (pp. 369–375). Routledge. [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhang, Y. B., Harwood, J., Williams, A., Ylänne-McEwen, V., Wadleigh, P. M., & Thimm, C. (2006). The portrayal of older adults in advertising: A cross-national review . Journal of Language and Social Psychology , 25 ( 3 ), 264–282. doi: 10.1177/0261927X06289479 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

How to Practice Responsible Media Consumption

I have never been one to read a lot of news. It wasn’t until this election cycle that I began to be intentional about keeping myself informed on current events. I downloaded the Apple News app and turned on notifications for The New York Times and CNN based on the issues I wanted to follow closely and started taking time to read what was going on each day.

My system for consuming media was working well for me until the election happened. Never have I had so many notifications on my phone from a single news source. It seemed like something major was happening every day, and it only became more frequent after the inauguration. I started to feel like I was no longer selectively consuming media. I was the one being consumed by the media, wading through so much information, trying to determine which stories were important and accurate and which were inflammatory and biased.

When I pull out my phone, I never know what I am going to see on social media or in my news app. The concept of “fake news” has practically become a joke in our country, but the reality isn’t all that funny. Internet memes are being used to argue convictions, and poor journalism and inaccurate reporting are believed as truth. It is reckless and naive to believe every piece of information that flashes before our eyes. As citizens, as members of a global community, and as people called to love our neighbors, we have an obligation to practice responsible media consumption. Here’s how:

Check the source

In general, it’s a good idea to be discerning of any commentary you read on current events. If something sounds off, follow your gut, and check out the source of the information. Is the news commentator linking back to a reputable source? Can you confirm what is being said with other publications or by seeking out the primary sources, including studies or government documents?

Check your bias

We all bring a level of bias into our experiences. How we were raised, including the faith we grew up in and the political leanings of our families make a difference in how we see and think about the world. Our formative experiences, such as how how those different from us were talked about and viewed in our homes, play a role in shaping our attitudes. It’s important to understand how your bias affects how you process what is going on around you. So, before you start reading up on current events, it’s a good idea to check in with yourself first. One resource for checking your bias is an implicit bias test developed by Harvard University that uses a series of pictures to determine if you have biases toward people you may not be aware of. Another resource, created by Allsides , a nonpartisan website that rates the bias of readers and publications, helps you rate your own bias on common issues by asking a series of questions about current hot topics being covered by the media.

Check the bias of the publication

Wouldn’t it be amazing if all of our news sources reported without bias? Unfortunately, that simply isn’t possible. If you rely on a favorite media source to stay up to date, it is important to be aware of any bias driving their reporting. Do they favor the right or fall left of center? This is especially important to know in light of your own bias, since reading only the news sources that share your worldview is a habit that will never challenge you to think outside of the box or to consider other opinions. I suggest using the Allsides bias rating system to find one or two publications that are rated as being in the center. As a general rule, I avoid any publications or news channels that are extremely biased in either direction.

It is also a good idea to be aware of how your bias determines what you read and to seek out one or two publications written from a different worldview. So if you tend to lean to the left, check in regularly with publications that are rated just right of center. If Facebook or Twitter are how you find and read most of your news, be aware of the echo-chamber effect of social media. If you find you agree with everyone you are friends with, or if you’re unfriending or unfollowing anyone who expresses an opinion that varies from yours, you are feeding your own bias. Exposing yourself to alternative viewpoints is a healthy way to consume media as it will encourage you to think more openly about complex political issues and current events.

Think twice before you share

Thanks to social media, any information can be shared in an instant. We have the tools to stay up to date at our fingertips, but we also have the opportunity to do damage with our words. A habit of slowing down before sharing news or commentary on current events is one we could all benefit from observing. Before you hit share on that fiery political op-ed you read over your lunch break, think twice about the message of the story and make sure the information being communicated is accurate. Practice responsible consumption and dissemination of the news.

Making Friends as an Adult? Here’s How To Open Up to a New Pal

I moved to Los Angeles from the Midwest during the early phase of the pandemic. Work was 100% remote, social distancing was still the norm,…

On Beating Imposter Syndrome

Here’s the ultimate #meta moment for you that’s sure to, if nothing else, improve morale about your own life: After I was assigned this article…

We want to know what you think!

Social Media

Social Media/Media Literacy: Responsible Use

Here are some ways you can support the youth in your life to engage in responsible social media use:.

• Help youth to build up empathy and perspective-taking skills both offline and online. This can empower them to practice good decision-making online, for example taking time to consider how something they post online might be hurtful, respectfully sharing a difference of opinion in a comment, etc.

Talk about safety and privacy online, and ways that youth can protect themselves

• Privacy, including their social media account settings, as well as their process for who gets access to their page/who doesn’t. Have conversations about what their process is for accepting/not accepting friend requests, etc. These explicit conversations can increase awareness about the importance of privacy, and also support/strengthen good decision-making.
• They can always block/unfriend, and also report, individuals who make you uncomfortable.  For example, individuals who make inappropriate sexual comments, are aggressive, or bullying them.
• Be mindful of what they share in terms of personal information (e.g., sensitive information that if on a piece of paper you lost offline you would be concerned about someone else finding). Also, excessively sharing things like location tags, especially for places like your house, places you frequent often, etc.)
• The permanence of a social media/internet record. While things can be deleted, once posted, there are ways for comments, images, etc. that we post to follow us in the long-term. Once posted, we have no control over where they may end up. For example, sexually explicit images/videos, harassing comments, compromising information about yourself or another person, etc., have consequences socially, legally, etc.
• Taking online relationships with individuals that they don’t know offline. While most youth are not interacting with individuals they don’t know offline (e.g., research suggests that most youth use social media to keep up with friendships/relationships that exist offline), sometimes, youth connect with peers on social media who share similar interests (e.g., gaming community, etc.). An adult needs to be involved if these relationships are taken offline to ensure safety.

Encourage balanced use of social media:

• Support practices of “unplugging”, “digital detox”,  or taking time away from social media where you don’t access any social media. For example evening hours/bedtime, as well as periodic “unplugging” for longer durations (e.g., weekends or a certain number of days).
• Help youth to have greater awareness and control of their social media consumption. For example, removing social media apps from your smartphone and only accessing them from a computer can help with regulating access because it’s often not as easily accessible as refreshing on your smartphone. There are also apps available that help with managing time limits regarding social media access.

Encourage youth to maintain offline relationships.

Support self-esteem nurtured through offline activities and interests., be aware of cyberbullying and some of the potential signs of who might be bullying or getting bullied online including sudden changes in their use of social media., encourage positive aspects of social media such as connecting with like-minded peers around a special/niche interest, open up conversations about challenges with use, cyberbullying, etc. that may be coming., what not to do.

• Follow youth online without their consent/knowledge. For instance, if youth has social media page/account that is public (i.e., doesn’t require a “request” before people can view content), don’t spend time on their page/account without letting them know. Doing so creates situations where you might learn something about them that they were not ready to share with you, or it creates a monitoring/prying/trust issue that may weaken your relationship.
• Agree to connect with youth via social media without consideration of what your page/account and activity on social media look like. While some social media allows for settings where you can filter your page out by group so that certain people only see certain content on your page or to share content with subsets of people, it’s important to consider what type of image you’re presenting online.
• Share pictures/videos, etc. of youth or other identifying content on your social media without getting their consent (along with parent/guardian).
• Model how not to get caught up in excessive social media use or constant checking when spending time with them.
• Dismiss or minimize concerns they raise about experiences on social media, no matter how benign the concerns may seem. Instances of cyberbullying may start off with something that appears minor before escalating.

Where to get help

The bigger picture.

24% of teens go online “almost constantly,” facilitated by the widespread availability of smartphones.

Aided by the convenience and constant access provided by mobile devices, especially smartphones, 92% of teens report going online daily — including 24% who say they go online “almost constantly,” according to a new study from Pew Research Center. More than half (56%) of teens — defined in this report as those ages 13 to 17 — go online several times a day, and 12% report once-a-day use. Just 6% of teens report going online weekly, and 2% go online less often.

Much of this frenzy of access is facilitated by mobile devices. Nearly three-quarters of teens have or have access to a smartphone and 30% have a basic phone, while just 12% of teens 13 to 17 say they have no cell phone of any type. African-American teens are the most likely of any group of teens to have a smartphone, with 85% having access to one, compared with 71% of both white and Hispanic teens. These phones and other mobile devices have become a primary driver of teen internet use: Fully 91% of teens go online from mobile devices at least occasionally. Among these “mobile teens,” 94% go online daily or more often. By comparison, teens who don’t access the internet via mobile devices tend to go online less frequently. Some 68% go online at least daily.

African-American and Hispanic youth report more frequent internet use than white teens. Among African-American teens, 34% report going online “almost constantly” as do 32% of Hispanic teens, while 19% of white teens go online that often.

From The Blog

The many benefits, comfort and ease, relationship maintenance, expanded timetable, the possible pitfalls, unrealistic expectations, inappropriate public persona.

• Undergraduate
• High School
• Architecture
• American History
• Asian History
• Antique Literature
• American Literature
• Asian Literature
• Classic English Literature
• World Literature
• Creative Writing
• Linguistics
• Criminal Justice
• Legal Issues
• Anthropology
• Archaeology
• Political Science
• World Affairs
• African-American Studies
• East European Studies
• Latin-American Studies
• Native-American Studies
• West European Studies
• Family and Consumer Science
• Social Issues
• Women and Gender Studies
• Social Work
• Natural Sciences
• Pharmacology
• Earth science
• Agriculture
• Agricultural Studies
• Computer Science
• IT Management
• Mathematics
• Investments
• Engineering and Technology
• Engineering
• Aeronautics
• Medicine and Health
• Alternative Medicine
• Communications and Media
• Advertising
• Communication Strategies
• Public Relations
• Educational Theories
• Teacher's Career
• Chicago/Turabian
• Company Analysis
• Education Theories
• Shakespeare
• Canadian Studies
• Food Safety
• Relation of Global Warming and Extreme Weather Condition
• Movie Review
• Admission Essay
• Annotated Bibliography
• Application Essay
• Article Critique
• Article Review
• Article Writing
• Book Review
• Business Plan
• Business Proposal
• Capstone Project
• Cover Letter
• Creative Essay
• Dissertation
• Dissertation - Abstract
• Dissertation - Conclusion
• Dissertation - Discussion
• Dissertation - Hypothesis
• Dissertation - Introduction
• Dissertation - Literature
• Dissertation - Methodology
• Dissertation - Results
• GCSE Coursework
• Grant Proposal
• Marketing Plan
• Multiple Choice Quiz
• Personal Statement
• Power Point Presentation
• Power Point Presentation With Speaker Notes
• Questionnaire
• Reaction Paper
• Research Paper
• Research Proposal
• SWOT analysis
• Thesis Paper
• Online Quiz
• Literature Review
• Movie Analysis
• Statistics problem
• Math Problem
• All papers examples
• How It Works
• Money Back Policy
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• We Are Hiring

Media Consumption, Essay Example

Pages: 1

Words: 266

Hire a Writer for Custom Essay

Use 10% Off Discount: "custom10" in 1 Click 👇

You are free to use it as an inspiration or a source for your own work.

Today’s media consumption structure is completely different from that of 30 years ago. While people historically mostly used printed written sources to obtain information, they now rely on electronic media and internet more. The current survey reviews the  media consumption patterns of 100 individuals aged between 18 and 45.

The main finding of the survey is that 45 percent of people used electronic media, such as television, 30 percent of people read news and articles in newspapers, and 25 percent of the respondents used blogs to obtain information.

The above finding shows that people rely on not only factual information sources, but blogs as well, expressing the writer’s opinion. Factual news are no longer the only source of information regarding current issues, and digital media consumption is increasing.

According to Meyer, households in the United States are now spending more time on digital services than they do watching television. As the author (Meyer) states: “digital devices are set to become the primary media source in the United States this year, surpassing television”. Many people use the internet to check news reports, blogs, and newspaper articles.   Time spent in front of the television has declined in past years, and more people are consuming news and programs on the go. The more interactive the source of information is the better users can be engaged with the content. Blogs, for example allow users to comment and share the article, but many news website offer the same option to help media consumers express their feelings.

Works Cited

Meyer, Thomas. “Media consumption: US households spending more time with digital devices than watching TV” Atelier.net. 2013. Web.

Stuck with your Essay?

Get in touch with one of our experts for instant help!

A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, Essay Example

The Malhama and Dajjal’s Day Like a Week, Essay Example

Time is precious

don’t waste it!

Plagiarism-free guarantee

Privacy guarantee

Secure checkout

Money back guarantee

Related Essay Samples & Examples

Voting as a civic responsibility, essay example.

Words: 287

Utilitarianism and Its Applications, Essay Example

Words: 356

The Age-Related Changes of the Older Person, Essay Example

Pages: 2

Words: 448

The Problems ESOL Teachers Face, Essay Example

Pages: 8

Words: 2293

Should English Be the Primary Language? Essay Example

Pages: 4

Words: 999

The Term “Social Construction of Reality”, Essay Example

Words: 371

• EssayBasics.com
• Pay For Essay
• Write My Essay
• Homework Writing Help
• Essay Editing Service
• Thesis Writing Help
• Write My College Essay
• Do My Essay
• Term Paper Writing Service
• Coursework Writing Service
• Write My Research Paper
• Assignment Writing Help
• Essay Writing Help
• Call Now! (USA) Login Order now
• EssayBasics.com Call Now! (USA) Order now
• Writing Guides

How Media Literacy Help With Responsible Media Consumption (Essay Sample) 2023

Table of Contents

How Media Literacy Help With Responsible Media Consumption

Media literacy is of great importance in the contemporary world, given the fact that the world is getting digitized and changes in the perceptions are inevitable. This trend, however, is bound to alter the consumption pattern of the media. This is so because of the analysis, evaluation and the different modes of communication that have been innovated in this 21st century. At one single exposure to the media content, one is supposed to be in a position to sieve the right content at the most opportune time because of the level of understanding involved, for decoding to take place. On the part of parental guidance, the respective parents in their families should be in position to advice their young ones on the contents that can be consumed in their respective households. This is not just limited to the television and radio program consumption, rather it focuses on a broader spectrum including the internet access and the type of movies one is supposed to watch, with special reference to the age factor. The internet is particularly littered with fake news and content that often misleads consumers. Media literacy can therefore be defined as those competencies that are acquired that allow individuals to do an analysis and evaluation of the communication from different genres, modes and formats.

Media ability analysis

The media literacy enable individuals to know the construction of the messages that are relayed via the media. With this knowledge, an individual is capable of understanding interpersonal communication in terms of their values, and to what extent media affects the belief systems of people and their behaviors too. Literacy of the media will enable one to get a true understanding of the legal aspects regarding its consumption and as such make credible conclusions on what to acquire or avoid during a purchase decision.

The creation of media products

For an individual to understand the real media tools that can be put to application, there is need for literacy on the product, for example, during advertising, there could be an option of radio, TV or printed media. Through media literacy, an investor is in a position to understand the reach of the respective media vehicle to relay the targeted message to the targeted audience. With the same breath, there will be a clear understanding of the setting in which the media implement could be used.

Importance in the academic setting

Numerous studies have indicated that media literacy has had a great impact in the motivation of students especially outside a class session to breakdown the boredom and create excitement. The excitement in all these, is as a result of the connection to the rest of the active world. The concept of the cultural triangle of music, fashion and sports brings fun to the younger generation and as such encourages learning once the boredom is eliminated.

As an Engager and motivator

In the case of the marginalized youth who look at themselves either as poverty stricken or of racial minority, the media makes them own up roles of the people in the media and in the end acquire happiness for example a youth can imagine himself being the footballer of the year which brings excitement.

Media literacy will bring about positivity, pleasure, creativity in its consumption. Critical thinking is also enhanced since the media landscape has rapidly changed in the recent past and is very dynamic in nature which includes, the digital and traditional platform notwithstanding theme parks, fashion and also fads and toys.

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

• Publications
• Our Methods
• Short Reads
• Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

• In Changing News Landscape, Even Television is Vulnerable
• About the Media Consumption Survey Data

Table of Contents

• Section 1: Watching, Reading and Listening to the News
• Section 2: Online and Digital News
• Section 3: News Attitudes and Habits
• Section 4: Demographics and Political Views of News Audiences

The media consumption report draws on a series of large national surveys conducted since 1994. The project was initiated by the Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press in 1994 and continued by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press since 1996. Over this period, 10 surveys have been conducted, yielding more than 30,000 interviews. All media consumption surveys have been conducted by telephone. Since 2006, cell phone interviewing has been included.

From 1994-2010, interviews were conducted in English only; Spanish language interviewing was added in 2012. Most questions in 2012 were asked of all respondents, but questions about regular media consumption were not asked of those interviewed in Spanish who said they did not consume any media in English.

Results for the 2012 media consumption survey are based on telephone interviews conducted May 9-June 3, 2012, among a national sample of 3,003 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia (1,801 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 1,202 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 591 who had no landline telephone). The survey was conducted by interviewers at Princeton Data Source under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

The following table shows the unweighted sample sizes and the error attributable to sampling that would be expected at the 95% level of confidence for different groups in the 2012 survey:

Sample sizes and sampling error for other subgroups are available upon request. In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.

Figures in this report may not add to 100% because of rounding. Whites and blacks are non-Hispanic; Hispanics may be of any race.

Survey Methodology in Detail

Sample design.

A combination of landline and cell phone random digit dial samples were used; both samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Landline and cell phone numbers were sampled to yield a ratio of approximately three completed landline interviews to two cell phone interviews.

The design of the landline sample ensures representation of both listed and unlisted numbers (including those not yet listed) by using random digit dialing. This method uses random generation of the last two digits of telephone numbers selected on the basis of the area code, telephone exchange, and bank number. A bank is defined as 100 contiguous telephone numbers, for example 800-555-1200 to 800-555-1299. The telephone exchanges are selected to be proportionally stratified by county and by telephone exchange within the county. That is, the number of telephone numbers randomly sampled from within a given county is proportional to that county’s share of telephone numbers in the U.S. Only banks of telephone numbers containing three or more listed residential numbers are selected.

The cell phone sample is drawn through systematic sampling from dedicated wireless banks of 100 contiguous numbers and shared service banks with no directory-listed landline numbers (to ensure that the cell phone sample does not include banks that are also included in the landline sample). The sample is designed to be representative both geographically and by large and small wireless carriers.

Both the landline and cell samples are released for interviewing in replicates, which are small random samples of each larger sample. Using replicates to control the release of telephone numbers ensures that the complete call procedures are followed for all numbers dialed. The use of replicates also improves the overall representativeness of the survey by helping to ensure that the regional distribution of numbers called is appropriate.

Respondent Selection

Respondents in the landline sample were selected by randomly asking for the youngest male or female, 18 years of age or older who is now at home (for half of the households interviewers ask to speak with the youngest male first and for the other half the youngest female). If there is no eligible person of the requested gender at home, interviewers ask to speak with the youngest adult of the opposite gender, who is now at home. This method of selecting respondents within each household improves participation among young people who are often more difficult to interview than older people because of their lifestyles, but this method is not a random sampling of members of the household.

Unlike a landline phone, a cell phone is assumed in Pew Research polls to be a personal device. Interviewers ask if the person who answers the cell phone is 18 years of age or older to determine if the person is eligible to complete the survey; interviewers also confirm that the person is not driving and is in a safe place. For those in the cell sample, no effort is made to give other household members a chance to be interviewed. Although some people share cell phones, it is still uncertain whether the benefits of sampling among the users of a shared cell phone outweigh the disadvantages.

Interviewing

Interviewing was conducted at Princeton Data Source under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. As many as seven attempts were made to complete an interview at every sampled landline and cell phone number. Calls were staggered over times of day and days of the week (including at least one daytime call) to maximize the chances of making contact with a potential respondent. Interviewing was also spread as evenly as possible across the field period. An effort was made to recontact most interview breakoffs and refusals to attempt to convert them to completed interviews. People reached on cell phones were offered $5 compensation for the minutes used to complete the survey on their cell phone.

Response rates for Pew Research polls typically range from 5% to 15%; these response rates are comparable to those for other major opinion polls. The response rate is the percentage of known or assumed residential households for which a completed interview was obtained. The response rate we report is the American Association for Public Opinion Research’s Response Rate 3 (RR3) as outlined in their Standard Definitions. Fortunately, low response rates are not necessarily an indication of nonresponse bias. In addition to the response rate, we sometimes report the contact rate, cooperation rate, or completion rate for a survey. The contact rate is the proportion of working numbers where a request for an interview was made. The cooperation rate is the proportion of contacted numbers where someone gave initial consent to be interviewed. The completion rate is the proportion of initially cooperating and eligible households where someone completed the interview.

First, people with landlines are weighted by household size to account for the fact that people in larger households have a lower probability of being selected. In addition, the combined landline and cell phone sample is weighted to adjust for the overlap of the landline and cell frames (since people with both a landline and cell phone have a greater probability of being included in the sample), including the size of the completed sample from each frame and the estimated ratio of the size of the landline frame to the cell phone frame.

The sample is then weighted to population parameters using an iterative technique that matches gender, age, education, race, Hispanic origin and nativity, region, population density and telephone status and usage. The population parameters for age, education, race/ethnicity, and region are from the Current Population Survey’s March 2011 Annual Social and Economic Supplement and the parameter for population density is from the Decennial Census. The parameter for telephone status and relative usage (of landline phone to cell phone for those with both) is based on extrapolations from the 2011 National Health Interview Survey. The specific weighting parameters are: gender by age, gender by education, age by education, race/ethnicity (including Hispanic origin and nativity), region, density and telephone status and usage; non-Hispanic whites are also balanced on age, education and region. The weighting procedure simultaneously balances the distributions of all weighting parameters at once. The final weights are trimmed to prevent individual cases from having too much influence on the final results.

Weighting cannot eliminate every source of nonresponse bias. Nonetheless, properly-conducted public opinion polls have a good record in achieving unbiased samples. In particular, election polling – where a comparison of the polls with the actual election results provides an opportunity to validate the survey results – has been very accurate over the years.

Sampling Error

Sampling error results from collecting data from some, rather than all, members of the population. The 2012 survey of 3,003 adults had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points with a 95% confidence interval. This means that in 95 out of every 100 samples of the same size and type, the results we obtain would vary by no more than plus or minus 2.1 percentage points from the result we would get if we could interview every member of the population. Thus, the chances are very high (95 out of 100) that any sample we draw will be within 2.1 points of the true population value. The margins of error reported and statistical tests of significance are adjusted to account for the survey’s design effect, a measure of how much efficiency is lost in the sample design and weighting procedures when compared with a simple random sample.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

Fresh data delivery Saturday mornings

Sign up for The Briefing

Weekly updates on the world of news & information

• Digital News Landscape
• News Media Trends
• News Platforms & Sources
• Social Media

Introducing the Pew-Knight Initiative

Many americans find value in getting news on social media, but concerns about inaccuracy have risen, news platform fact sheet, a profile of the top-ranked podcasts in the u.s., most u.s. journalists are concerned about press freedoms, most popular, report materials.

• Slideshow : Summary of Findings
• 2012 Media Consumption Survey

1615 L St. NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

• Age & Generations
• Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• Economy & Work
• Family & Relationships
• Gender & LGBTQ
• Immigration & Migration
• International Affairs
• Internet & Technology
• Methodological Research
• News Habits & Media
• Non-U.S. Governments
• Other Topics
• Politics & Policy
• Race & Ethnicity
• Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Copyright 2024 Pew Research Center

Responsible media technology and AI: challenges and research directions

• Opinion Paper
• Open access
• Published: 20 December 2021
• Volume 2 , pages 585–594, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Christoph Trattner   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1193-0508 1 ,
• Dietmar Jannach 2 ,
• Enrico Motta 3 ,
• Irene Costera Meijer 4 ,
• Nicholas Diakopoulos 5 ,
• Mehdi Elahi 1 ,
• Andreas L. Opdahl 1 ,
• Bjørnar Tessem 1 ,
• Njål Borch 6 ,
• Morten Fjeld 1 ,
• Lilja Øvrelid 7 ,
• Koenraad De Smedt 1 &
• Hallvard Moe 1  

14k Accesses

18 Citations

5 Altmetric

Explore all metrics

The last two decades have witnessed major disruptions to the traditional media industry as a result of technological breakthroughs. New opportunities and challenges continue to arise, most recently as a result of the rapid advance and adoption of artificial intelligence technologies. On the one hand, the broad adoption of these technologies may introduce new opportunities for diversifying media offerings, fighting disinformation, and advancing data-driven journalism. On the other hand, techniques such as algorithmic content selection and user personalization can introduce risks and societal threats. The challenge of balancing these opportunities and benefits against their potential for negative impacts underscores the need for more research in responsible media technology. In this paper, we first describe the major challenges—both for societies and the media industry—that come with modern media technology. We then outline various places in the media production and dissemination chain, where research gaps exist, where better technical approaches are needed, and where technology must be designed in a way that can effectively support responsible editorial processes and principles. We argue that a comprehensive approach to research in responsible media technology, leveraging an interdisciplinary approach and a close cooperation between the media industry and academic institutions, is urgently needed.

Similar content being viewed by others

Fake news on Social Media: the Impact on Society

Literature reviews as independent studies: guidelines for academic practice

Advances in social media research: past, present and future.

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

The past two decades have been marked by a rapid and profound disruption of the traditional media industry. Today, the Internet is ubiquitous, practically everyone has a smartphone, the cloud reduces up front investments in large computing infrastructures, processing power still doubles every 2 years and an increasing number of our physical assets are connected. These developments have provided the basis for new product and service innovations, which have made it possible to break up and restructure supply and demand, alter value chains and create new business models [ 17 ].

One of the most visible effects of the changes in the last decades is that media content is now largely consumed through online channels, while technological developments continue to impact how media is distributed and consumed. For instance, the increased digitization of media has opened up a variety of opportunities for collecting and analyzing large amounts of audience and consumption data, which can be used to tailor services and content to the perceived interests of individual consumers. Beyond distribution, new technological developments have opened up opportunities to enhance the media production process, such as through the use of machine learning (ML) to sift through large numbers of documents, the application of analytic tools for audience understanding, the deployment of automated media analysis capabilities, the development of sociotechnical processes to support fact-checking, and so on [ 21 ].

At the same time, a number of new challenges also arise with these developments. Some of these challenges affect the industry, where media organizations have to keep up both with rapid technological developments and with new players that enter the market. However, other challenges are more societally oriented, such as the ways in which new technologies increasingly automate media personalization. One of the most pressing problems in this context is often seen in the increasing opportunities for spreading misinformation and disinformation. Whereas the former is false and misleading information not necessarily meant to deceive, the latter is intentionally created and communicated to deceive people [ 42 ]. While misinformation and disinformation have always been a feature of human society, modern technology has made it much easier for malicious actors anywhere in the world to reach the largest possible audience very quickly, something that would have been impossible in the past [ 5 ].

Overall, these challenges for industry and the potential threats to society create a need for more research in responsible media technology, which we define as technology that aims to maximize the benefits for news organizations and for society while minimizing the risks of potential negative effects. In this paper, we will first review societal and industrial challenges in Sect. 2 . Afterwards, we outline a number of important research directions in responsible (AI-based) media technology in Sect. 3 , covering different aspects of the media production and dissemination process. Then, in Sect. 4 , we emphasize why an integrated approach is needed to address today’s challenges, which not only requires the cooperation of technology experts in academia and media organizations, but also an in-depth understanding of how today’s media industry operates, e.g., with respect to their editorial ethics and processes. In this context, we also introduce a new research center on responsible media technology which we have recently set up in Norway. Norway is a small, wealthy democratic nation state often described as a Nordic welfare state with high ICT penetration and comparatively egalitarian media use patterns. With a strong legacy news industry and widely used public service broadcasters, it is a case characterized by a proactive media policy operating at an arms’ lengths distance, with the main aim of providing media diversity to foster public debate [ 67 ]. In this context, the research center’s main goal is to foster interdisciplinary research and industry-academia co-operation, to tackle the key sociotechnical challenges relevant to the new media landscape. Footnote 1

2 Challenges for media industry and society

On the basis of the recent technological developments, this section introduces and discusses urgent challenges for the media industry and for society. Here, we give particular, but not exclusive, attention to the impact of artificial intelligence technologies.

2.1 Challenges for the media industry

A key consequence of digitalization and the new business models that have become possible is that new competition has emerged for the media industry. There are, for example, new niche players who are able to target specific user demands more accurately, thus threatening to take over positions previously held by traditional media houses and their established editorial processes. For example, finn.no has become the main platform for classified ads in Norway, a sector previously covered primarily by traditional media; Twitter has become a major debate platform, making it possible to bypass the traditional media; Facebook appears to give us far more insight into peoples’ lives than the personals sections in the newspapers ever did; and Netflix, HBO, Twitch, TikTok, and YouTube challenge the positions owned by the commercial and public broadcasters in the culture and entertainment sectors.

Large platforms, such as Facebook, aggregate content and services more efficiently than the media has been able to, capitalizing on both content curation by users and algorithms for predictive content personalization. Ultimately, these large platforms now act as powerful media distribution channels, while traditional media organizations have become content providers to these platforms, almost no different than just about anyone else with a smartphone.

In this weakened position, traditional media organizations also face new threats. Presented on an equal footing, it is easy for both malicious editorial and non-editorial players to present misinformation and disinformation as news (“fake news”), which may soak up attention. As a result it is often left up to the users to find out for themselves whether or not news mirror reality. This both hurts responsible media organizations in terms of the attention they garner and at the same time underscores credibility as an important currency. To strengthen their position and maintain comparative advantage in this new competitive landscape of untrustworthy sources, responsible media entities may benefit by fortifying their role to stand out as reliable sources of information.

In the context of meeting these challenges, we suggest that advanced media technologies that are deployed in responsible ways may be a meaningful way forward for traditional media organizations. For example, such organizations are in a strong position to understand the needs of their audiences in depth and to then personalize content to these needs and preferences while trying to minimize negative effects and create public benefits [ 70 ]. Likewise, they can leverage technology to scale their ability to fact-check the morass of content circulating on platforms to buttress both their own brand credibility and to increase the overall quality of information people encounter online. In the end, the use of such technologies may not only help to keep up with the competition for attention, but may also help to meet a media organization’s own goals in terms of editorial principles and ethics, including fulfilling any public service mandates.

2.2 Societal challenges

Societies and individuals may suffer in different ways from the negative effects that accompany the recent profound changes in the media landscape. For instance, the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation can threaten core democratic values by promoting political extremism and uninformed debate and discrimination [ 13 ]. Unfortunately, while there is much work on tackling these issues, e.g., through fact-checking organizations that counter disinformation, more needs to be done before they are effectively addressed [ 9 ].

As viewership and readership of linear TV and physical newspapers drop, users are going online, where they are bombarded with choices. The editorial voices which have for so long decided on what is relevant enough to publish and push, have been challenged by a combination of algorithms and user choice—creating users empowered to (or forced to) become their own editors. The world’s most frequented digital media platforms, such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Netflix and others, use a variety of algorithms and machine learning in elaborate sociotechnical systems, to decide which content is made visible and amplified, and which is suppressed. While understanding how such AI technology impacts public discourse to the benefit of individuals, communities, and society, traditional media will also have an interest in making technology foster democratic values [ 36 ].

There are also a multitude of concerns about the degree to which media organizations, however unintentionally, may contribute to the polarization and radicalization of the public [ 72 ]. For example an increased focus on AI-based personalization and recommendation technology could lead media organizations to contribute to the formation of so-called “echo chambers” [ 31 ]. These can potentially reduce the degree to which citizens are exposed to serendipitous information or information with which they disagree. In addition, media organizations are often concerned with freedom of speech and facilitating public debate on important societal issues. As more technologically advanced services are created, care needs to be taken so that large groups of users are not alienated by their complexity.

A policy aspect is also present, as platforms might be held responsible for the views and statements of others. As such, content moderation will be necessary to limit distribution of harmful content (e.g., inciting, fraudulent, exploitative, hateful, or manipulative). Incoming EU legislation, such as ‘Article 13’ [ 58 ], increases the burden on media organizations that allow users to upload content. EU legislation will require media organizations to make greater efforts in checking copyright and hate speech, as media is produced, disseminated and promoted.

3 Research directions

Next, we introduce and discuss five main research areas in responsible media technology, areas we consider as priorities for research and development efforts:

Understanding media experiences;

User modeling, personalization and engagement;

Media content analysis and production;

Media content interaction and accessibility;

Natural language technologies.

3.1 Understanding media experiences

New developments and technological innovations are changing how news are being distributed, consumed, and experienced by users. However, we still lack knowledge on how users will interact with the media of the future, including highly personalized content [ 73 ], bots or other conversational agents [ 33 ], AI-mediated communication [ 35 ], augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), and so on. Research needs to understand to what extent the behavior and experiences of audiences can be meaningfully monitored, measured, and studied. The problem remains to develop a more substantial picture and understanding of consumers’ media use across all available media and platforms, both online and offline, in high-choice media environments, and via new modalities and interfaces.

For instance, technological innovations such as news recommender systems [ 40 ] can have both positive and negative impacts on people’s consumption of news, and society in general, and so it is paramount to both understand user experiences and develop designs to shape those experiences to support a well-functioning public sphere.

Research on changing media use has recognized the need to trace and analyze users across media. This is methodologically challenging and must be carefully weighed against privacy concerns, but is key to understanding how people engage with media in their daily lives [ 47 ]. With the datafication of everyday life, increasingly powerful platforms [ 71 ] and intensified competition for attention [ 74 ], media users face a media environment which is increasingly perceived as intrusive and exploitative of their data traces [ 52 ]. This situation causes ambivalence and resignation [ 24 ] as well as immersive and joyful media experiences. A comprehensive foresight analysis of the future of media use emphasizes the need to understand fragmented, hyper-connected and individualized experiences, but also to consider the agency and capabilities of users in the context of potentially intrusive media technologies, and to develop critical and trans-media research that speaks for the interests of users in datafied communicative conditions [ 16 ]. This challenge is crucial to democracy, as media use continues to be central for public connection and to enable citizens to access information and engage fully in the societal discourse [ 51 , 66 ]. Rather than predominantly making sense of media usage through quantitative metrics, such as clicks, time spent, shares or comments, critical attention to problematic representations of datafication [ 49 , 55 ] should be bridged with broader and deeper understandings of media as experience [ 15 ] using a range of mixed methods approaches. In this context, responsible media innovation must build on knowledge that is attentive to diverse users’ cross-media experiences and to the democratic role of media use.

The main questions in this area include the following. How will users interact with the media of the future? How can we monitor and understand users across media, including groups who leave few data traces, and user experiences beyond metrics? When do users evaluate media (organizations, platforms etc.) as responsible and how can studying user experiences feed into responsible innovation? More research is needed to answer these questions, through the design and development of novel qualitative and quantitative approaches and metrics, in combination with existing research methods for understanding audiences.

3.2 User modeling, personalization and engagement

Many modern media sites nowadays provide content personalization for their online consumers, e.g., additional news stories to read or related videos to watch [ 32 , 39 ]. Such recommender systems, which typically rely both on individual user interests and collective preference patterns in a community, are commonly designed to make it easier for consumers to discover relevant content. However, the use of recommendation technology may also lead to certain undesired effects, some of which only manifest themselves over time [ 26 ].

Probably the best known example is the idea of filter bubbles [ 57 ], which may emerge when a system learns about user interests and opinions over time, and then starts to preferentially present content that matches these assumed interests and opinions. In conjunction with user-driven selective exposure [ 64 ], this can lead to self-reinforcing feedback loops which may then result in undesired societal effects, such as opinion polarization. While stark filter bubbles are not typically observed in empirical studies [ 8 ], some more subtle self-reinforcing tendencies have been observed in real systems such as Facebook [ 1 ] and Twitter [ 2 ], raising questions about the long-term implications of more slight shifts in user exposure.

Other than the frequently discussed filter bubbles, echo chambers, as mentioned above, are another potential effect of recommendations that may lead to a polarized environment, where only certain viewpoints, information, and beliefs are shared [ 31 ] and where misinformation diffuses easily [ 18 ]. Such echo chambers are often seen as a phenomenon that is inherent to social media networks, where homogeneous and segregated communities are common. Recommender systems can reinforce such effects, e.g., by mainly providing content to users that supports the already existing beliefs in a community.

Looking beyond individual communities, recommender systems may also reinforce the promotion of content that is already generally popular, a phenomenon referred to as popularity bias. This phenomenon is well-studied in the e-commerce domain, where it was found that automated recommendations often focus more on already popular items than on promoting items from the “long tail” [ 29 ]. In the media domain, popularity biases may support the dominance of mainstream content in recommendations [ 69 ], thereby making it more difficult for consumers to discover niche or local content, and may, furthermore, have implications for the quality of content surfaced [ 2 , 11 , 27 ]. In addition, there is also evidence that the algorithms used by dominant content sites, such as YouTube, can drive users towards extreme content, paradoxically also on the basis of popularity biases [ 54 ].

A strong focus on already over-represented items is often considered as a situation that lacks fairness, see for example the discussion in the music domain in [ 48 ]. In general, the problem of fairness has received increased attention in recent years in the recommender systems research community. While no consistent definition of fairness is yet established and the perception of fairness can vary across consumers [ 63 ], fairness is often considered as the absence of any bias, prejudice, favoritism, mistreatment toward individuals, group, classes, or social categories based on their inherent or acquired characteristics [ 10 ]. Often, fairness and unfairness are also related to the problem of (digital) discrimination [ 25 , 28 ], which is often characterized as an unfair or unequal treatment of individuals, groups, classes or social categories according to certain characteristics. Discrimination is another phenomenon, which may be reinforced by recommender systems, in particular when they operate on data that have inherent biases. In the context of industry challenges, fairness can come up in the context of how national or local media are treated in recommendations on media platforms, with implications for how attention acquired through platforms converts to advertising or subscription revenue Footnote 2 .

Overall, the main questions in this context are the following: To what extent can we effectively and fairly both model and predict the behavior of users accessing online media? To what extent can we personalize and engage media users online to efficiently keep them informed, and at the same time do this responsibly? In general, more research is required in the area of responsible recommender systems, which are able to generate recommendations which are designed to avoid the reinforcement of negative effects over time (such as filter bubbles or popularity biases), e.g., by striving to provide alternative viewpoints on the same issue, thus leading to fair outcomes for the media industry.

3.3 Media content analysis and production

Media content analysis and production is becoming increasingly enabled by advanced AI techniques which are used intensively for a variety of journalistic tasks, including data mining, comment moderation, news writing, story discovery, fact checking and content verification, and more [ 3 , 21 ]. At the same time, the deployment of AI responsibly in the domain of news media requires close consideration of things such as how to avoid bias, how to design hybrid human-AI workflows that reflect domain values, how journalists and technologists can collaborate in interdisciplinary ways, and how future generations of practitioners should be educated to design, develop, and use AI-driven media tools responsibly [ 7 , 20 ].

A crucial task that can be supported by AI technology is that of news writing. Reasonably straightforward techniques (e.g., the use of text templates filled in with data from rich databases) are already used routinely to produce highly automated stories about topics, such as sports, finance, and elections [ 30 , 43 ]. Opportunities also exist for automated generation of highly personalized content, such as articles that adapt to appeal to a user’s location or demographic background [ 73 ]. A challenge is to avoid bias in the resulting AI-automated or AI-augmented workflows, which can result both from the selection of informants and other data sources, from the analysis techniques and training materials used, and from the language models that generate the final news text [ 65 ].

There is still quite a large gap between the domain- and story-specific news generation programs currently in use and the more ambitious technologies that can be found in the field of interactive computational creativity, where users collaborate with advanced AI software for text generation [ 37 ]. Newer approaches to controlled text synthesis using large language models in conjunction with knowledge bases are on the horizon [ 76 ], but have not yet been deployed by media organizations. End-user control and the ability to “edit at scale” will be essential to ensure the accuracy, credibility, and feasibility of deploying text synthesized using such techniques in the domain of news.

Another area of news production, referred to as computational news discovery , leverages AI techniques to help orient journalists towards new potential stories in vast data sets [ 22 ]. Such approaches can help journalists surveil the web, identify interesting patterns or documents, and alert them when additional digging may be warranted [ 23 ]. A concern is to detect and defuse biases in what the algorithms consider newsworthy. Related techniques for representing news angles used by journalists to identify and frame newsworthy content are also under development [ 53 , 56 ]. The goal of this work is to provide computational support to generate interesting new stories that match the news values and angles of interest to a particular media organization. Similar techniques can also be explored to foster news diversity by generating stories that report alternative viewpoints on the same underlying event.

An area of content analysis that has received substantial attention is in helping media detect and fight misinformation online. Multimedia forensic techniques are for example being used to uncover manipulated images and videos [ 14 ]. Moreover, automated fact checking uses machine learning and information retrieval to identify check-worthy claims, retrieve relevant evidence, classify claims, and explain decisions [ 68 ]. Research has also examined deep learning approaches to “fake news” detection [ 62 , 77 ], semi-supervised machine learning techniques that analyze message streams from social media, such as Twitter [ 6 ], and the analysis of propagation patterns that can assist in differentiating fake from genuine news items [ 45 ].

Overall, the problem of computational support for responsible media production is a complex one, requiring an interdisciplinary approach and the integration of different types of technologies. Some of the main open research questions in this context include: How can we computationally produce high-quality media content that can complement traditional news production? How can the biases inherent in AI systems be managed and mitigated when producing this content? And how can we analyze user-generated content accurately to generate more valuable insights?

Correspondingly, research is required in terms of (1) novel computational methods and AI-based models to generate high-quality, accurate content that is aligned with the values and standards of an editorial team, and on (2) novel algorithmic approaches for efficient media content analysis to support verification goals and content generation. In general, the integration of multimedia forensics techniques and fact checking into platforms that are used for content generation represents an important step in that direction.

The ultimate aim is then to develop sociotechnical systems that can effectively leverage AI to help produce newsworthy, interestingly-presented content that is verified, accurate, and generally adheres to the high quality standards of news media. Close collaboration with media production companies is crucial to ensure industry relevance and effective integration and testing of such methods and tools in realistic production settings.

3.4 Media content interaction and accessibility

Tomorrow’s media experiences will combine smart sensors with AI and personal devices to increase engagement and collaboration [ 75 , 79 ]. Enablers such as haptics, Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR), conversational AI, tangible user interfaces, wearable sensors, and eye-free interactions have made clear progress. Recent work has for example studied the use of drones for various types of media production such as photography, cinematography, and film-making [ 46 ]. By employing a range of device-categories, tomorrow’s media experiences will become further specialized and individualized, better targeting individuals’ needs and preferences. Research into adaptation includes responsive user interfaces (UIs), adaptive streaming, content adaptation and multi-device adaptation [ 80 ]. Adaptation is also needed for collaborative and social use [ 34 ].

Another aspect of responsible media production is ensuring that users are able to understand the content. With the development of vastly more complex services and automated systems, ensuring that no user is left behind represents a major challenge. In a country like Norway, for example, 1 million people (19% of the population) have hearing disabilities, 180,000 (3%) are blind or have severely limited eye sight, 200,000 (4%) have reading disabilities, 870,000 (16%) are over 67 years, and there are about 790,000 foreign workers. While there is some overlap on these categories, it is clear that content and services designed for highly able young users will under-deliver to a substantial number of users.

To ensure usable services to all, it is not enough to just add subtitles or audio descriptions. Cognitive limitations can both be due to multitasking, age, but also due to unfamiliarity with the content, e.g., when watching an unknown sport or watching a TV series with a very large cast. It is also important to limit bias in user engagement. For example, interactive participation may be heavily skewed towards younger users if it is non-trivial to locate or interact with a voting service.

As more content is consumed through various different media types, it can also quickly become confusing or uninteresting if the combined service is deemed inconsistent. As an example, breaking news will often report inconsistent numbers. Even a single content provider might have several different news desks, producing content for their own formats, and with some content pieces fresher than others. This makes it difficult to trust the content, and could lead to less serious platforms being preferred by users who find them more consistent and thus easier to accept.

Research should, therefore, focus on different ways to interact with content and systems, providing personal adaptations of the content to match individual needs and wishes. Partially automating processes to cater to different wishes and needs is of high importance, as is understanding how smart sensors, specialized devices and varied setups can be integrated in the experience in an inclusive and engaging manner.

3.5 Natural language technologies

The automated analysis, generation and transformation of textual content in different languages nowadays rely on Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies. Current NLP methods are based almost exclusively on neural machine learning. Hence it is data-driven at its core, relying on large, unlabeled samples of raw text, as well as on manually annotated data sets for training of supervised ML models. NLP models are increasingly being applied to content within the news domain as well as to user-generated media content [ 44 , 59 , 60 ]. Newsroom analysis of textual content can assist in text classification, extraction of keywords, summarization, event extraction and other types of automated text processing. Sentiment analysis on user-generated content can be applied to monitor user attitudes, as input to recommender systems, etc. Text generation models can assist journalists through the automatic or semi-automatic production of news stories. With the widespread use of NLP-based technology in the media sector, there are a number of open challenges that must be addressed to enable responsible media technology in the years to come.

The rapid developments in the field of NLP come with important ethical considerations. Large-scale language models [ 19 ] that are built on an extensive corpus of news texts will inherit many of the same biases as its sources [ 4 ]. An example is gender bias in language models trained on large quantities of text [ 41 ], where biases have been shown to negatively affect downstream tasks [ 61 , 78 ]. In NLP, biases can be found both in the data, the data annotation and the model (pre-trained input representations, fine-tuned models) [ 38 ]. Proper data documentation and curation is key to studying bias and raising awareness of it [ 50 ]. Furthermore, research on how to mitigate bias in NLP constitutes a crucial direction to enable responsible media technology [ 65 ].

Since current NLP technology is almost exclusively data driven, its quality is heavily reliant on the availability of language and domain specific data resources. Access to trusted NLP resources and tools for low-resource languages has become important not only for research but also from a democratic perspective. While NLP is a core activity in many large technology companies, their focus remains mainly on widely used languages, such as English and Chinese. The lack of task-related annotated training data and tools makes it difficult to apply novel algorithmic developments to the processing of news texts in smaller, low-resource languages and scenarios [ 12 ]. To address this challenge, a focus on data collection and annotation is important for a wide range of languages, language varieties and domains.

4 A call for interdisciplinary research

The described challenges cannot be addressed easily within a single scientific discipline or sub-discipline. On the contrary, they require the close collaboration of researchers from computer and information science (e.g., natural language processing, machine learning, recommender systems, human–computer interaction, and information retrieval) with researchers from other fields including, for example, communication sciences and journalism studies. Moreover, there are various interdependencies and cross-cutting aspects between the described research areas. Improved audience understanding, for example, can be seen as a prerequisite or input to personalized recommendation and tool-supported media production, and user modeling and personalization technology can be a basis for the synthesis of individualized and more accessible experiences.

Finally, the described research challenges cannot be reasonably addressed without a significant involvement of the relevant media industry and a corresponding knowledge transfer between academia and media organizations. To develop next-generation responsible media technology, it is of utmost importance to deeply understand the state-of-the-art, the value propositions, and the constraints under which today’s diverse media industry is operating and which goals they pursue. This in particular also includes the consideration of regional or national idiosyncrasies, as well as technologies that work appropriately for languages other than English.

To address the aforementioned issues in a holistic and interdisciplinary way it is necessary to develop new organizational structures and initiatives that bring together the relevant stakeholders, knowledge, and technical capabilities. This is why MediaFutures, a joint academia-industry research center, was founded at Media City Bergen (Norway’s largest media cluster) in October 2020. The center aims to stimulate intensive collaboration between its partners and provide means to bring together the multi-disciplinary range of expertise required to tackle the long-term challenges that the media industry faces. The center will develop advanced new media technology for responsible and effective media user engagement, media content production, media content interaction and accessibility, and will research novel methods and metrics for precise audience understanding. The center will deliver a variety of research outputs, e.g., in the form of patents, prototypes, papers and software, and perform significant research training in media technology and innovation to ensure that its outputs will sustain and impact the media landscape in the long run, including the creation of start-up companies.

The center is a consortium of the most important media players in Norway. The University of Bergen’s Department of Information Science and Media Studies hosts and leads the center. User partners include NRK and TV 2, the two main TV broadcasters in Norway, Schibsted, including Bergens Tidende (BT), and Amedia, the two largest news media houses in Scandinavia/Norway, as well as the world-renowned Norwegian media tech companies Vizrt, Vimond, Highsoft, Fonn Group, and the global tech and media player IBM. The center further collaborates with other national research institutions, including the University of Oslo, the University of Stavanger and NORCE, and with well-regarded international research institutions.

5 Conclusion

Rapid developments in technology have significantly disrupted the media landscape. In particular, the latest advances in AI and machine learning have created new opportunities to improve and extend the range of news coverage and services provided by media organizations. These new technologies however also come with a number of yet-unresolved challenges and societal risks, such as biased algorithms, filter bubbles and echo chambers, and massive and/or targeted spread of misinformation. In this paper, we have highlighted the need for responsible media technology and outlined a number of research directions, which will be addressed in the newly founded MediaFutures research center.

MediaFutures, https://mediafutures.no .

https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/apple-news-local-journalism.php .

Bakshy, E., Messing, S., Adamic, L.A.: Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook. Science 348 (6239), 1130–1132 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa1160

Article   MathSciNet   MATH   Google Scholar  

Bandy, J.: Diakopoulos, Nicholas: More Accounts, fewer links: How algorithmic curation impacts media exposure in twitter timelines. Proc. ACM on Hum.-Comput. Interact. 5 (CSCW1), 1–28 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1145/3449152

Article   MathSciNet   Google Scholar  

Beckett, C.: New powers, new responsibilities: A global survey of journalism and artificial intelligence. (2019). https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/polis/2019/11/18/new-powers-new-responsibilities/

Bender, E.M., Gebru, T., McMillan-Major, A., Shmitchell, S.: On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? Proc. ACM Conf. Fairness Account. Transpar. 21 , 610–623 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445922

Article   Google Scholar  

Bergstrom, C., Joseph, B.-C.: Information gerrymandering in social networks skews collective decision-making. Nature 573 , 40–41 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02562-z

Boididou, C., Middleton, S.E., Jin, Z., Papadopoulos, S., Dang-Nguyen, D.T., Boato, G., Kompatsiaris, Y.: Verifying information with multimedia content on twitter. Multimed. Tools Appl. 77 (12), 15545–15571 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-017-5132-9

Broussard, M., Diakopoulos, N., Guzman, A.L., Abebe, R., Dupagne, M., Chuan, C.H.: Artificial intelligence and journalism: Artificial Intelligence and Journalism. J. Mass Commun. Q. 96 (3), 673–695 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699019859901

Bruns, A.: Are Filter Bubbles Real? John Wiley and Sons, Amsterdam (2019)

Google Scholar  

Burel, G., Farrell, T., Mensio, M., Khare, P., Alani H.: Co-spread of misinformation and fact-checking content during the COVID-19 pandemic. InInternational Conference on Social Informatics, pp. 28-42 (2020)

Chen, J., Dong, H., Wang, X., Feng, F., Wang, M., He, X.: Bias and debias in recommender system: A survey and future directions. CoRR (2020). arXiv:2010.03240

Ciampaglia, G.L., Nematzadeh, A., Menczer, F., Flammini, A.: How algorithmic popularity bias hinders or promotes quality. Sci. Rep. 8 (1), 15951 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-34203-2

Cieri, C., Maxwell, M., Strassel, S., Tracey, J.: Selection criteria for low resource language programs. In: Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, vol. LREC’16, pp. 4543–4549. European Language Resources Association (ELRA) (2016)

Commission European. Communication from The Commission to The European Parlament, The Council, The European Economic and Social Committee and The Committee of the Regions - Tackling online disinformation. A European Approach (2018). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52018DC0236

Conotter, V., Obrien, J.F., Farid, H.: Exposing digital forgeries in ballistic motion. IEEE Trans. Inf. Forensics Secur. 7 , 02 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1109/TIFS.2011.2165843

Costera, M.I.: Journalism, audiences and news experiences. In: Wahl-Jorgensen, K., Hanitzsch, T. (eds.) The Handbook of Journalism Studies. Routledge, New York (2020). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315167497-25

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Das, R., Ytre-Arne, B. (eds.): The Future of Audiences. Palgrave Macmillan, London (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75638-7

Book   Google Scholar  

Dawson, A., Hirt, M., Scanlan, J.: The economic essentials of digital strategy. McKinsey Q. (2016). https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-economicessentials-of-digital-strategy

Del Vicario, M., Bessi, A., Zollo, F., Petroni, F., Scala, A., Caldarelli, G., Stanley, H.E., Quattrociocchi, W.: The spreading of misinformation online. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 113 (3), 554–559 (2016)

Devlin, J., Chang, M.W., Lee, K., Toutanova, K.: Bert: Pre-training of deep bidirectional transformers for language understanding. Proc. Conf. N. Am. Chapter Assoc. Comput. Linguist. 5 , 5 (2019)

Diakopoulos, N.: Towards a design orientation on algorithms and automation in news production. Digit. J. 7 (8), 1180–1184 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2019.1682938

Diakopoulos, N.: Automating the News: How algorithms are Rewriting the Media. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (2019). https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674239302

Diakopoulos, N.: Computational News Discovery: Towards Design Considerations for Editorial Orientation Algorithms in Journalism. Digit. J. 8 (7), 1–23 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2020.1736946

Diakopoulos, N., Trielli, D., Lee, G.: Towards understanding and supporting journalistic practices using semi-automated news discovery tools. In: Proceedings of the ACM (PACM): Human-Computer Interaction (CSCW), 5 (CSCW2) (2021)

Draper, N.A., Joseph, T.: The corporate cultivation of digital resignation. New Media Soc. 21 (8), 1824–1839 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819833331

Ekstrand, M.D., Burke, R., Diaz, F.: Fairness and discrimination in recommendation and retrieval. Proc. ACM Conf. Recomm. Syst. (2019). https://doi.org/10.1145/3331184.3331380

Elahi, M., Jannach, D., Skjærven, L., Knudsen, E., Sjøvaag, H., Tolonen, K., Holmstad, Ø., Pipkin, I., Throndsen, E., Stenbom, A., Fiskerud, E., Oesch, A., Vredenberg, L., Trattner, C.: Towards responsible media recommendation. AI Ethics (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-021-00107-7

Elahi, M., Kholgh, D.K., Kiarostami, M.S., Saghari, S., Rad, S.P., Tkalcic, M.: Investigating the impact of recommender systems on user-based and item-based popularity bias. Inf. Process. Manag. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2021.102655

Ferrer, X., van Nuenen, T., Such, J.M., Coté, M., Criado, N.: Bias and discrimination in AI: A cross-disciplinary perspective. IEEE Technol. Soc. Mag. 40 (2), 72–80 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1109/MTS.2021.3056293

Fleder, D., Hosanagar, K.: Blockbuster cultures next rise or fall: The impact of recommender systems on sales diversity. Manag. Sci. 55 , 697–712 (2009). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.955984

Galily, Y.: Artificial intelligence and sports journalism: Is it a sweeping change? Technol. Soc. (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2018.03.001

Ge, Y., Zhao, S., Zhou, H., Pei, C., Sun, F., Ou, W., Zhang, Y.: Understanding echo chambers in e-commerce recommender systems. Proc. Int. ACM SIGIR Conf. Res. Dev. Inf. Retr. (2020). https://doi.org/10.1145/3397271.3401431

Gomez-Uribe, C.A., Hunt, N.: The Netflix recommender system: Algorithms, business value, and innovation. Transactions on. Manag. Inf. Syst. 6 (4), 13:1-13:19 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1145/2843948

Gómez-Zará, D., Diakopoulos, N.: Characterizing communication patterns between audiences and newsbots. Digit. J. 8 (9), 1–21 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2020.1816485 . ( ISSN 2167-0811 )

Hai, H.T., Dunne, M.P., Campbell, M.A., Gatton, M.L., Nguyen, H.T., Tran, N.T.: Temporal patterns and predictors of bullying roles among adolescents in Vietnam: A school-based cohort study. Psychol. Health Med. 22 , 107–121 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2016.1271953

Hancock, J.T., Naaman, M., Levy, K.: AI-mediated communication: Definition, research agenda, and ethical considerations. J. Comput.-Mediat. Commun. 25 (1), 89–100 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmz022

Helberger, N.: On the Democratic Role of News Recommenders. Digit. J. 5 (4), 1–20 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2019.1623700

Hollister, J.R., Gonzalez, A.J.: The campfire storytelling system-automatic creation and modification of a narrative. J. Exp. Theor. Artif. Intell. 31 (1), 15–40 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/0952813X.2018.1517829

Hovy, D., Prabhumoye, S.: Five sources of bias in natural language processing. Lang. Linguist. Compass (2021). https://doi.org/10.1111/lnc3.12432

Jannach, D., Jugovac, M.: Measuring the business value of recommender systems. ACM Trans. Manag. Inf. Syst. (2019). https://doi.org/10.1145/3370082

Karimi, M., Jannach, D., Jugovac, M.: News recommender systems-survey and roads ahead. Inf. Process. Manag. 54 (6), 1203–1227 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipm.2018.04.008

Kurita, K., Vyas, N., Pareek, A., Black, A.W., Tsvetkov, Y.: Measuring bias in contextualized word representations. In: Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on Gender Bias in Natural Language Processing, pp. 166–172 (2019)

Lazer, D.M., Baum, M.A., Benkler, Y., Berinsky, A.J., Greenhill, K.M., Menczer, F., Metzger, M.J., Nyhan, B., Pennycook, G., Rothschild, D., et al.: The science of fake news. Science 359 (6380), 1094–1096 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao2998

Leppänen, L., Munezero, M., Granroth-Wilding, M., Toivonen, H.: Data-driven news generation for automated journalism. Proc. Int. Conf. Nat. Lang. Gener. (2017). https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/W17-3528

Li, C., Zhan, G., Li, Z.: News text classification based on improved Bi-LSTM-CNN. Int. Conf. Inf. Technol. Med. Educ. (ITME) (2018). https://doi.org/10.1109/ITME.2018.00199

Liu, Y., Wu, Y.-F.: Early detection of fake news on social media through propagation path classification with recurrent and convolutional networks. In: AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (2018)

Ljungblad, S., Man, Y., Baytaş, M.A., Gamboa, M., Obaid, M., Field, M.: What matters in professional drone pilots’ practice? An interview study to understand the complexity of their work and inform human-drone interaction research. Proc. CHI Conf. Hum. Fact. Comput. Syst. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445737

Lomborg, S., Mortensen, M.: Users across media: An introduction. Convergence 23 (4), 343–351 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856517700555

Mehrotra, R., McInerney, J., Bouchard, H., Lalmas, M., Diaz, F.: Towards a fair marketplace: Counterfactual evaluation of the trade-off between relevance, fairness and satisfaction in recommendation systems. Proc. ACM Int. Conf. Inf. Knowl. Manag. (2018). https://doi.org/10.1145/3269206.3272027

Milan, S., Trere, E.: Big data from the south(s): Beyond data universalism. Telev. New Media 20 (4), 319–335 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419837739

Mitchell, M., Simone, W., Zaldivar, A., Barnes, P., Vasserman, L., Hutchinson, B., Spitzer, E., Raji, I.D., Gebru, T.: On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? Proc. ACM Conf. Fairness Account. Transpar. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1145/3442188.3445922

Moe, H.: Distributed readiness citizenship: A realistic, normative concept for citizens public connection. Commun. Theory 30 , 205–225 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtz016

Mollen, A., Dhaenens, F., Das, R., Ytre-Arne, B.: Audiences Coping Practices with Intrusive Interfaces: Researching Audiences In Algorithmic, Datafied, Platform Societies. The Future of Audiences. Palgrave Macmillan, London (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75638-7_3

Motta, E., Daga, E., Opdahl, A.L., Tessem, B.: Analysis and design of computational News Angles. Computer (2020). https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2020.3005513

Nicas, J.: How YouTube Drives People to the Internet’s Darkest Corners. Washington Post Journal, Washington (2018)

Noble, S.U.: Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. NYU Press, New York (2018). https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt9w5 . ( ISBN 9781479849949 )

Opdahl, A.L., Tessem, B.: Ontologies for finding journalistic angles. Softw. Syst. Model. 20 (1), 71–87 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-020-00801-w

Pariser, E.: The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. The Penguin Group, London (2011)

Parliament European. Polarisation and the use of technology in political campaigns and communication. (2019). https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2019/634414/EPRS_STU(2019)634414_EN.pdf

Petroni, F., Raman, N., Nugent, T., Nourbakhsh, A., Panic, Z., Shah, S., Leidner, J.L.: An extensible event extraction system with cross-media event resolution. Proc. ACM SIGKDD Int. Conf. Knowl. Discov. Data Min. (2018). https://doi.org/10.1145/3219819.3219827

Reuver, M., Fokkens, A., Verberne, S.: No NLP task should be an island: multi-disciplinarity for diversity in news recommender systems. Proc. Conf. N. Am. Chapter Assoc. Comput. Linguist. 2 , 45–55 (2021)

Rudinger, R., Naradowsky, J., Leonard, B., Van Durme, B.: Gender bias in coreference resolution. Proc. Conf. N. Am. Chapter Assoc. Comput. Linguist. (2018). https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/N18-2003

Singhania, S., Fernandez, N., Rao, S.: 3HAN: A deep neural network for fake news detection. Neural Inf. Process. (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70096-0_59

Sonboli, N., Smith, J.J., Cabral Berenfus, F., Burke, R., Fiesler, C.: Fairness and transparency in recommendation: The users perspective. Proc. ACM Conf. User Model. Adapt. Personal. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1145/3450613.3456835

Stroud, N.: Polarization and partisan selective exposure. J. Commun. (2010). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2010.01497.x

Sun, T., Gaut, A., Tang, S., Huang, Y., ElSherief, M., Zhao, J., Mirza, D., Belding, E., Chang, K.W., Wang, W.Y.: Mitigating gender bias in natural language processing: Literature review. Proc. Annu. Meet. Assoc. Comput. Linguist. (2019). https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/P19-1159

Swart, J., Peters, C., Broersma, M.: Repositioning news and public connection in everyday life: A user-oriented perspective on inclusiveness, engagement, relevance, and constructiveness. Media Cult. Soc. 39 (6), 902–918 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443716679034

Syvertsen, T., Enli, G., Mjos, O., Moe, M.: Hallvard: The Media Welfare State: Nordic Media in the Digital Era. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor (2014). https://doi.org/10.3998/nmw.12367206.0001.001

Thorne, J., Vlachos, A.: Automated fact checking: Task formulations, methods and future directions. In: Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Computational Linguistics, pp 3346–3359 (2018)

Trielli, D., Diakopoulos, N.: Search as news curator: The role of google in shaping attention to news information. Proc. CHI Conf. Hum. Fact. Comput. Syst. (2019). https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300683

Van den Bluck, H., Hallvard, M.: Public service media, universiality and personalization through algorithms: Mapping strategies and exploring dilemmas. Media Cult. Soc. 40 (6), 875–892 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443717734407

Van Dijck, J., Poell, T., de Waal, M.: The Platform Society Public Values in a Connective World. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2018). https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190889760.001.0001

van Stekelenburg, J.: Going all the way: Politicizing, polarizing, and radicalizing identity offline and online. Sociology. Compass 8 (5), 540–555 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12157

Wang, Y., Diakopoulos, N.: Readers perceptions of personalized news articles. In: Proceedings Computation + Journalism Symposium (2020)

Webster, J.G.: The Marketplace of Attention: How Audiences Take Shape in a Digital Age. The MIT Press, London (2014). https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt9qf9qj

Wozniak, A., Wessler, H., Luck, J.: Who prevails in the visual framing contest about the united nations climate change conferences? J. Stud. 18 (11), 1433–1452 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2015.1131129

Xu, P., Patwary, M., Shoeybi, M., Puri, R., Fung, P., Anandkumar, A., Bryan C.: MEGATRON-CNTRL: Controllable story generation with external knowledge using large-scale language models. (2020). https://aclanthology.org/2020.emnlp-main.226.pdf

Zellers, R., Holtzman, A., Rashkin, H., Bisk, Y., Farhadi, A., Roesner, F., Choi, Y.: Defending against neural fake news. Adv. Neural Inf. Process. Syst. 32 , 9054–9065 (2019)

Zhao, J., Wang, T., Yatskar, M., Ordonez, V., Chang, K.W.: Gender bias in coreference resolution: Evaluation and debiasing methods. Proc. Conf. N. Am. Chapter Assoc. Comput. Linguist. (2018). https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/N18-2003

Zhu, K., Fjeld, M., Ünlüer, A.: WristOrigami: Exploring foldable design for multi-display smartwatch. Proc. Des. Interact. Syst. Conf. (2018). https://doi.org/10.1145/3196709.3196713

Zorrilla, M., Borch, N., Daoust, F., Erk, A., Florez, J., Lafuente, A.: A web-based distributed architecture for multi-device adaptation in media applications. Pers. Ubiquitos Comput. 19 , 803–820 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-015-0864-x

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by industry partners and the Research Council of Norway with funding to MediaFutures: Research Centre for Responsible Media Technology and Innovation, through the centers for Research-based Innovation scheme, project number 309339.

Open access funding provided by University of Bergen (incl Haukeland University Hospital).

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

Christoph Trattner, Mehdi Elahi, Andreas L. Opdahl, Bjørnar Tessem, Morten Fjeld, Koenraad De Smedt & Hallvard Moe

University of Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Austria

Dietmar Jannach

The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

Enrico Motta

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Irene Costera Meijer

Northwestern University, Evanston, USA

Nicholas Diakopoulos

NORCE, Bergen, Norway

University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Lilja Øvrelid

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christoph Trattner .

Ethics declarations

Conflicts of interest.

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Trattner, C., Jannach, D., Motta, E. et al. Responsible media technology and AI: challenges and research directions. AI Ethics 2 , 585–594 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-021-00126-4

Download citation

Received : 25 November 2021

Accepted : 28 November 2021

Published : 20 December 2021

Issue Date : November 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-021-00126-4

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Media technology
• Artificial intelligence
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

The truth behind course evaluations

Imbolc: Pagan holiday of birth and beginnings

Review: ZENO Remake gives players a chance to experience a unique psychological horror

Fantasy Authors visit St. Charles: highlights from the book signing

Beltane: The Height of Spring

Opinion: Be a responsible media consumer

MADELINE RAINERI  |  News Editor

As days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months, new viral videos, pictures and memes circulate throughout our social feeds sometimes faster than we can even process the content that is being plastered in front of our faces. 

One of the videos making its rounds this week is about local news anchors across the United States reading the  exact  same script about fake news.

Journalists and lay people alike have proclaimed their outrage at the audacity of the Sinclair Broadcast Group, the corporation in charge of stations like KDNL in St. Louis . Sinclair Broadcast Group is also trying to negotiate buying Tribune Media Co. which would impact two other local St. Louis stations. 

While the video mashup of anchors from different cities reciting a pre-packaged segment on fake news is disgruntling, to say the least, it certainly cannot be that   shocking.

The general public has become careless and quite frankly reckless in their pursuit of news and information outside of the content bubble in which we exist. We accept anything and everything we see from major media outlets as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth without so much as even lifting a finger to explore options outside of what we have been spoonfed. 

We accept blatant distruths as reality and continue propagating the spread of unreliable and destructive fake content by our blatant disregard for responsible media consumption and operation. We exist in a fantasy land where doctored images and false accusations constantly circulate, only reaffirming our narrow and self-limiting viewpoints. 

[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]This complacency in our media consumption has absolutely spawned the tragedy that is corporations like the Sinclair Broadcast Group being able to air the same script across a variety of stations.[/perfectpullquote]

This complacency in our media consumption has absolutely spawned the tragedy that is corporations like the Sinclair Broadcast Group being able to air the same script across a variety of stations.  

The concept of a 24-hour news cycle and our insatiable hunger for any news (even if it’s not accurate news) has forced us into a larger ring that must account for a wider and diversified audience. The journalists bringing us our information are no longer blue-collar working class high school graduates with a knack for writing and a passion for truth-telling. We are now rapidly consuming media produced by highly skilled individuals with extensive training and impressive resumes with a drive for the dollar, reporting on a broader spectrum of news than just about the car break-in that happened up the street. 

But there has been no large-scale repulsion, decrying the likes of CNN and Fox News because they are giving the general public exactly what they want .  Incendiary and divisive rhetoric focused on a hyper-specific group that devours the affirmations that their opinions are valid through unprofessional reporting. 

And that is how corporations like Sinclair Broadcast Group have slowly but surely integrated their agenda into our daily lives. It’s not even new, according to a New York Times article from 2017 that shows SBG’s push for “right-leaning” content  to be used by television stations. 

We have worked ourself into a position that is, to be cliché, right between a rock and a hard place. We have cornered ourselves thoroughly by 1). blindly believing everything we are told through media, 2). refusing to open our content bubbles to allow all varieties of news and varied reporting styles in to develop a larger opinion and 3). refusing to be accountable for our own part in the continuation of “fake news.” 

The bottom line is that fake news and biased reporting will continue to be a problem because we let it. 

Stop letting runaway emotions and your need for validation from external sources pollute the space we all use: the internet. 

And for the record, your teens probably aren’t snorting condoms either. 

• featured content
• Lindenwood University
• lindenwood university missouri
• media consumption
• sinclair broadcasting group
• Social Media
• viral videos

Your donation will support the student journalists who produce Lindenlink. Your contribution will help to cover our annual website hosting costs.

Student Media of Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri

Comments (0)

Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Login or sign up to be automatically entered into our next $10,000 scholarship giveaway

Get Started

• College Search
• College Search Map
• Graduate Programs
• Featured Colleges
• Scholarship Search
• Lists & Rankings
• User Resources

Articles & Advice

• All Categories
• Ask the Experts
• Campus Visits
• Catholic Colleges and Universities
• Christian Colleges and Universities
• College Admission
• College Athletics
• College Diversity
• Counselors and Consultants
• Education and Teaching
• Financial Aid
• Graduate School
• Health and Medicine
• International Students
• Internships and Careers
• Majors and Academics
• Performing and Visual Arts
• Public Colleges and Universities
• Science and Engineering
• Student Life
• Transfer Students
• Why CollegeXpress
• $10,000 Scholarship
• CollegeXpress Store
• Corporate Website
• Terms of Use
• Privacy Policy
• CA and EU Privacy Policy

Articles & Advice > Student Life > Blog

How to Be Responsible Using Social Media as a Student

We all use social media every day and have a level of responsibility as users. Here's some advice for students to learn responsible social media practices.

by Sydney Mathew CollegeXpress Student Writer

Last Updated: Apr 30, 2024

Originally Posted: May 14, 2022

Social media is a tool that has many advantages, allowing you to directly communicate with a large audience, be a member of an ever-present online community, stay connected with friends and family, develop your interests, meet new people, and explore your own identity and opinions. However, if not used safely and responsibly, social media has many disadvantages—and potential consequences. That’s why you should keep these important rules in mind as you navigate your way through the world of social media.

Make sure your pages represent you

Think of social media as a résumé of your character. Do your pages and profiles showcase your passions, hobbies, and friends? Many peers or those you may network with will use social media to get to know you better, so you want to make sure your presence is an accurate representation of yourself. Don’t be overly fake, lie about yourself, or share things that don’t represent your beliefs—this isn’t a true representation of you. 

Never post anything that paints you in a bad light

This is arguably one of the most important social media tips: Don’t post anything that can be used as evidence of unlawful activity. This can lead to you getting in serious trouble with your current or future school and the police. An easy rule is to imagine what a parent, employer, teacher, or grandparent would think about what you’re about to post. Even if you post as “private,” it’s important to remember that nothing is really private in our online world—things can be screenshot and shared in an instant.  

Related: How to Prepare Your Social Media for the Job Search

Stay in control of your content feed

Unfollow and stay away from other social accounts that spread false news, bully others, post insensitive content, or make you feel bad about yourself. Take charge of the media that you are taking in. You want to use social media to uplift your life, stay informed, and connect with your friends. Only follow accounts that are a safe space and promote your growth as an individual. 

Manage your time wisely

The digital world is an easy place to get lost in. Be mindful of how long you’re simply scrolling, especially if you’re not actually getting anything out of it. Set limits on how long you should be on social media apps. Turn off your notifications so it’s less distracting when you have things to get done. Your apps shouldn’t become a roadblock preventing you from completing your daily tasks. This tip is important since it’s so easy to get sucked into TikTok video after TikTok video. 

Related: How to Manage Your Time Intentionally as a Student

Understand the policies

Many schools and workplaces have policies about social media usage. It’s important to understand and adhere to the rules of your institution. Also, be sure to follow the rules of the specific social media platform you’re using. As you’re setting up your account, read through everything (yes, even the fine print) so you understand what rules you need to follow and what you’re consenting to. Go through the privacy settings and change the default setting to something more applicable to you. Also, try to avoid third-party applications. These are often unreliable and are simply used to gather your personal information. 

Keep yourself safe from strangers

Be wary and cautious when following or interacting with people you don’t know on the internet. Even if their profile is friendly or they’re a well-known person on the platform, you don’t know who is truly behind the screen. When conversing with “friends” online, don’t expose any private information. Never meet with a new online friend in person; chances are they are not who they say they are. And don’t respond to any of their requests you’re not comfortable with. 

Related: How to Stay Safe on Your College Campus

Don’t post everything

Do not post about your every move, location, school, town, etc. This information can be used against you. It’s important to maintain a level of privacy between you, your followers, and the digital world. Being careful about what you post and who you interact with keeps you safe from identity theft, privacy infiltration, stalking, and more. The best thing you can do is to keep your accounts private and only let people you know follow you. 

Keep your parents in the loop

Although most of us don’t want our parents to see everything we’re doing, friend your parents on social media. This will hold you accountable for the content you post and interact with. Plus, having an adult perspective is beneficial as you make decisions about your social media usage. Additionally, this will keep you safer as well as strengthen your relationship and trust with your parents. 

Related: Top 8 College Topics to Discuss With Your Student Today

Social media is an integral part of the average teenager’s daily life. With the endless communication, entertainment, and information these platforms provide, it’s very hard to disconnect from the online world. When using social media, it’s important to remember what Spider-Man taught us: With great power comes great responsibility. With the digital world at your fingertips, it’s vital that you follow these rules to remain safe. 

Have you friended CollegeXpress yet? Follow us on social media , and be sure to connect with our featured schools , scholarships , and other helpful resources for your college search!

Like what you’re reading?

Join the CollegeXpress community! Create a free account and we’ll notify you about new articles, scholarship deadlines, and more.

Tags: college students high school students life skills networking online safety social media student life

← Previous Post

Next Post →

About Sydney Mathew

Sydney Ann Mathew is a student at Shadow Creek High School in Texas. She’s an academically successful student, participating and holding office positions in a variety of organizations and clubs. At the age of nine, Sydney won first place in a city-wide invention competition. Her invention currently has a “patent pending” status and is in the process of being approved. Sydney enjoys attending church and singing in the youth choir. She volunteers in her local neighborhood community and was instrumental in starting a chapter of Color Cycle, a national recycling initiative, at her elementary school. In her spare time, Sydney enjoys spending time with family and friends, dancing, and playing basketball, volleyball, and the piano. She also writes and uses poetry to convey her emotions and feelings. After high school, she plans to pursue a career in business.

Join our community of over 5 million students!

CollegeXpress has everything you need to simplify your college search, get connected to schools, and find your perfect fit.

Samantha Fils-Aime

High School Class of 2019

I love that CollegeXpress has helped me find some scholarships to apply for but also helped me succeed in school with lots of tips. I also really like how they consistently email me about webinars that teach me a lot of things from the comfort of my home!

Ana Sophia Garcia-Cubas Assemat

$10,000 Scholarship Winner, 2020

CollegeXpress has been an instrumental resource for my scholarship search and has given me the opportunity to try my best so I can graduate from college debt-free.

Maurice Whan

$2,000 Spring Scholarship Contest Winner, 2021

This year has been tough for my family and myself, so receiving this scholarship has been a blessing in disguise! CollegeXpress has been an excellent resource in helping me prepare financially for college. Thank you again for this amazing opportunity!

My college search began at CollegeXpress. Due to this helpful tool, I was able to gather a lot of information to guide my college planning decisions. Through CollegeXpress, I was also able to apply to several scholarships to help pay for my tuition. I would definitely recommend this website to anyone who wants to explore colleges and get more information from admission experts, counselors, and real students.

Fabiola Rodriguez

High School Class of 2022

CollegeXpress helped me on my journey to get to the school of my first choice by showing me all the options I have. I didn’t know of the College of Southern Nevada until I went on this website, and it helped me look for other choices and compare what colleges would be right for me.

Colleges You May Be Interested In

Mercyhurst University

Allegheny College

Meadville, PA

The University of Chicago

Chicago, IL

Kettering University

Angelo State University

San Angelo, TX

Personalize your experience on CollegeXpress.

With this information, we'll display content relevant to your interests. By subscribing, you agree to receive CollegeXpress emails and to make your information available to colleges, scholarship programs, and other companies that have relevant/related offers.

Already have an account?

Log in to be directly connected to

Not a CollegeXpress user?

Don't want to register.

Provide your information below to connect with

We’re sorry, this site is currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again in a few moments. Exception: request blocked

• Subscribe Now

How can you be more responsible on social media? Here are some tips

Already have Rappler+? Sign in to listen to groundbreaking journalism.

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

CONFUSING PLATFORMS. The CIVID-19 forced senior citizens indoors, where they had to ask the help of younger members of the family for tasks, like shopping and bill payments, that they had formerly done.

MANILA, Philippines – Now that the internet is widely accessible to most people, how can we be more responsible on social media? What can people do to promote a safe community on social media? 

In the third session of MovePH’s media and information literacy training series, experts highlighted that digital citizens must know and exercise their rights and responsibilities online. This is to help promote a safe and responsible digital environment. The webinar featured World Bank consultant Bernice Soriano and content creator Mona Magno-Veluz (also known on TikTok as Mighty Magulang).

Here are some ways for people to be responsible digital citizens.

1. Know your digital rights

Not all social media users are aware of their digital rights. Soriano emphasized that a citizen’s rights offline should also apply online. 

“Digital technology should provide ways to exercise human rights. But what happens usually, these are being violated online…I think a lot of women, LGBTQIA, [and] other marginalized communities would actually echo these. It’s always been said that just because you were bashed online–then it’s okay because it’s just online… No, your rights were still violated and that shouldn’t happen,” Soriano said in a mix of Filipino and English. 

Given the lack of or limited laws on digital rights, hatred, anger, and shaming tend to get normalized on social media. This especially applies to how we usually perceive cyberbullying and online violence as passive and harmless. 

To learn more about digital rights and how we can help translate these into action in our communities, here are some resources you can check: 

• United Nations Secretary Roadmap for Digital Cooperation 
• Declaration of European Digital Rights and Principles 
• Philippine Declaration on Internet Rights and Principles

2 . Be mindful of how you use social media

Responsible digital citizens are savvy social media users. According to Soriano, responsible digital citizens are encouraged to educate and empower people by creating, consuming, and sharing content. This can be done simply by helping a family member protect their social media accounts, or it can be as complex as utilizing social media to spark movements and advocacies to reach more people.

“You have a lot of information available to you. The web, the internet is there. We consume a lot of information, but what’s key is [to] apply the literacy skills to know which information I need, to apply critical thinking, and eventually be able to act as a person that can make good judgment,” Soriano said.

Veluz echoed this, citing how false information is at times created faster than the ability of the platforms to react. Thus, the need for social media users to be careful about what they share and how they interact with posts online. 

“If you keep watching accounts that propagate fake news so that you can get angry and leave nasty comments, you are being anger-baited and you are helping drive up their social media relevance. So, the lesson to that is to just stay calm,” Veluz said in a mix of Filipino and English. 

People should know what issues to prioritize, and what are the things that should be left ignored. When dealing with conversations online, Veluz suggested practicing a three-strike rule: leave a conversation after three exchanges of debates to avoid further flooding and engaging with internet trolls. 

“No matter our purpose for being in social media, we must be upstanding social media citizens…Social media should be a reflection of our values and issues that matter to us,” she added.

3. Engage meaningfully

Disinformation breeds hatred and violence. With heightened conflict on social media, online citizens can easily act like internet trolls without being aware of it, especially when they come across posts that are different from their views. 

“We cannot confuse the right to speak with being right. We cannot confuse opinions with facts,” Veluz said.

To sustain a healthy discourse online, citizens should be open to facts and criticism. As opinions should be grounded on facts, people should not be shamed for changing their opinions on certain things, especially when they find better information and evidence on something they once believed in.

Veluz added that it is important for us to be careful in our approach when dealing with disinformation. 

“We have to periodically review our tactics to engage people. We have to pivot when the results are telling us that whatever we are doing is not working. We have to continuously innovate on how to share lights, because the darkness will be doing exactly the same thing,” she added.

4. Practice empathy

Empathy can go a long way and is one of the key factors to building trust, persuade, and sustain meaningful relationships with the people around you. 

When correcting a relative or friend, Veluz shared that her personal technique is to ask questions politely to understand where they are coming from. By doing that, you are not making it appear as if you are better or smarter than someone else. It is important to acknowledge what they know before you slowly guide them towards the correct information.

On top of that, she also advised the current generation to break the chain of name-calling, bashing, or speaking without sense or reason as it may only hinder people from listening to you.

“I want to believe that people I talk to online and even offline are capable of compassion and kindness, even if we do not always agree…I always tell my kids never write anything down or say anything online if you cannot say those exact words to that person’s face,” Veluz said. 

“As a genealogist, I always tell people that 100 years from now, our social media presence will be the primary evidence on what kind of human beings we were,” she added.

The five-part media and information literacy series aims to bring together teachers, students, and leaders who will learn – and talk about – how to be critical and discerning online. This was launched by the #FactsFirstPH initiative , through Rappler’s civic engagement arm MovePH, along with 25 participating schools and organizations in the Philippines.

Participants may register for the media and information literacy series here for free . – Rappler.com

Add a comment

Please abide by Rappler's commenting guidelines .

There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.

How does this make you feel?

Related Topics

Recommended Stories

{{ item.sitename }}, {{ item.title }}, civic engagement, [watch] #theleaderiwant: filipino voters sound off on community issues a year before 2025 elections.

Call for videos: What issues in your community need to be addressed by our leaders?

TAYO Awards Foundation opens 21st search for accomplished Filipino youth groups

By the youth, for the youth: Rappler event to highlight student actions for causes

Community journalism takes center stage in #FactsFirstPH forum

social media platforms

Australian court lifts order blocking x on church stabbing video.

[ANALYSIS] A Rube Goldberg cartoon of our inconvenient reality

[OPINION] Badoy’s red-tagging and freedom of expression

Musk targets Australian senator, gun laws in deepening dispute over X stabbing content

Musk decries Australian court ‘censorship’ of X terror posts

Checking your Rappler+ subscription...

Upgrade to Rappler+ for exclusive content and unlimited access.

Why is it important to subscribe? Learn more

You are subscribed to Rappler+