Item
More Than Just Facts: Promoting Civic Media Literacy in the Era of Outrage
- Author
- Ellen Middaugh
- Year
- 2019
- Publisher
- Peabody Journal of Education, T&F
- DOI/Link
- View Source
- Abstract
-
Amid rising concerns about “fake news,” efforts have emerged to explain
the spread and impact of misinformation on youth civic engagement.
These efforts have focused primarily on the role of social media in exposing youth to factually inaccurate civic information and the factors that
influence the ability to discern the accuracy of such information. A less
explored aspect has been the impact of the rise of “outrage language,”
defined as language that evokes strong emotional responses (e.g., fear,
anger, disgust) that communications scholars have documented as playing
a larger role in political discourse over the past few decades (Berry &
Sobieraj, 2014). This article draws on three recent studies of digital media
and youth civic engagement to discuss (a) the role of participatory media
in exposing youth to outrage language in civic discourse, (b) the challenges of balancing attention to the emotional and factual elements when
participating in online civic discourse, and (c) how the development of
online counterpublics through high school classrooms can help students
create models of productive online discourse. The article concludes with
suggestions for future research and educational interventions that address
the challenges associated with outrage language. - Keywords
- Civic Engagement
- Tags
- Political communication
- PGDMIL Course
- C03 – Audiences and Representation
- PGDMIL Block
- C03-B2: Digital Civic Engagement
- Has Part
- C03-U07: Participatory Cultures and Civic Media
- Corpus Status
- Pending Review