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Bridget Lehnert

Research Paper

Why the United States should include Media Literacy in School Curriculums

Introduction

The topic of this paper is to analyze the relationship between media literacy and political

interest. More specifically, the questions I am trying to answer are 1. Does media media literacy

have an effect on political interest? 2. Can we increase political interest through media literacy?

3. Can the media be “blamed” for political disinterest? This is important because our media

outlets and even conversations revolve around pop culture and trends instead of relevant

information/news that affects everyone locally and across the globe. We live in a time where the

Kardashians and the first lady’s outfits–to name a few–take precedence over important events.

Additionally, when important/political issues or events are presented, often they are biased or not

credible. One could blame the media for this, but the media needs ratings, clicks or views to

sustain its business. So, they feed the public whatever the public wants. And so, my hypothesis is

that implementing media literacy in school curriculums will increase political interest. By media

literacy, I am referring to the 21st-century approach to media education. Specifically, it teaches

students to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms - from print to

video to the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as
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well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy. [1]

To prove this, I will be using Mill’s Most Similar Systems design, which consists of comparing

two similar systems and finding one difference that changes the outcome between both countries

or systems. [2] In my paper, I plan on comparing the United States to the United Kingdom –

which are similar in that they both speak the same language, are capitalistic, share similar

cultures, and especially important for this paper, they have similar media consumption habits.

However, since the 1980s the UK has included media education in the formal, mainstream

school curriculum in secondary (11–16) and further (16–19) education in the UK. The United

States, on the other hand, has a more decentralized education system, and although media is used

to teach, media itself is not taught. To show that media literacy increases political interest, I will

be researching media education, media consumption, types of media consumption, and political

interest over time. I anticipate that the UK population is more politically interested compared to

the United States, and are therefore also more politically active. The first section will provide

some background and theories about media literacy, the second section will focus on analyzing

media consumption, the effects of media literacy in the UK using media quality, tv networks, and

news sites/organizations. I will also compare those findings with the data I collect from the US.

In the third section, I will share my findings/results and show how these positively or negatively

correlate with media literacy. In the last section, I will conclude with a summary, limitations,

opportunities and implications.

Background/Importance
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The volume of media that we are exposed to today means that we are continually

presented with information and messages. Not only is time spent a factor, but also simply the

amount of information that is consumed. According to a report by Common Sense Media,

Tweens (8-12yrs) spend on average 6 hours per day consuming media, teenagers (12-18yrs)

consume on average 9 hours of media, and adults around 11 hours. [3] According to Ofcom, the

numbers are pretty much the same for the UK population. [4] This can lead to ‘information

overload’ – the difficulty a person can have understanding an issue and making decisions that

can be caused by the presence of too much information. [5] Political scientist Shanto Iyengar

writes: “The rapid diffusion of new media has made available a wide range of media choices,

providing much greater variability in the content of available information. On the one hand, the

attentive citizen can — with minimal effort — access newspapers, radio and television stations

the world over. On the other hand, the typical citizen — who is relatively uninterested in politics

— can avoid news programming altogether by tuning into ESPN or the Food Network … In any

given society, the knowledge gap is mainly a reflection of differing levels of demand for

information … under conditions of enhanced consumer choice, the knowledge gap between more

and less motivated citizen widens.”[6] Similarly, in the book "The Information Diet", Clay

Johnson compares the information we consume to a diet. He argues that people tend to consume

information they find interesting, which is similar to “eating dessert first”. He also states that

social media, blogs, and videos have emphasized this because people share their interests,

beliefs, and opinions and causes it to spread. This has caused the media to create quick, cheap,

popular information with the intention to spread or go viral. [7] According to the Stanford Daily,

most news comes in the chronological feed on a current basis. However, the 24-hour news cycle
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causes news, no matter how important, to disappear within weeks. [8] In “News vs.

Entertainment: How Increasing Media Choice Widens Gaps in Political Knowledge and

Turnout”, Markus Prior argues that having a lot of choice regarding media content, will cause

people to consume their preferred media choice. That means that people who are interested in

politics will become more knowledgeable because that is what they seek out. However, people

who prefer entertainment will abandon the news. And so, low-quality media, constant

consumption, and too many options lead to an uninformed and disinterested population.[9]

Citizens become politically informed if they have the motivation, capability, and opportunity to

learn.[10] Media literacy does exactly this by helping students become competent, critical, and

literate in all media forms. It also transforms the process of media consumption into an active

and critical process so that people gain greater awareness but also avoid the potential for

misrepresentation and manipulation, and understand the role of mass media and participatory

media in forming views of reality.

Method/Cases

To prove that media literacy can make people more politically interested, I will be using a

comparative method, Mill’s Most Similar System design. In the next section, I will be comparing

the United States and the United Kingdom regarding media consumption, attitudes, and political

interest. I will gather data on voting behavior, attitudes toward media outlets, media

consumption, and interests.

Data
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Political interest starts with exposure and information. In this section, I will analyze how

Americans and the British population get their news. According to the American Institute of

Press, most Americans (33%) get their news throughout the day. Their study also shows that

Americans use a wide variety of devices to follow the news, including television, radio, print

newspapers and magazines, computers, cell phones, tablets, e-readers, and devices such as a

Xbox or Playstation that link to the internet. Additionally, the American Press Institute stated

that "the most popular way that Americans report finding their news is directly from a news

organization, such as a newspaper, TV newscast or website (88 percent). People continue to

discover news through traditional word-of- mouth (65 percent) either in person or over the phone

and do so at higher rates than more modern methods of sharing like email, text message, or other

ways online (46 percent), or social media (44 percent). And roughly half of Americans said they

got news in the last week from search engines and online news aggregators (51 percent for

each)'. [11] Since most Americans still get their news directly from a news organization, I will

need to look at the most popular news organizations and their content. According to Gallup, the

top news outlets are Fox, CNN, Local news, and regular nonspecific evening news. The

interesting thing here is that all of these news organizations are politically polarized (see figure

1.1) and heavily opinion based. The Economist reported in “ The Foxification of News” that Fox

News was established by the Republican party to promote their party, policies and appeal to a

Republican audience. Fox isn’t the only polarized news organization -- famous news

organizations and shows such as the Daily show, Al Jazeera, MSNBC, The New York times are

also polarized. [12] And so, I believe that this partially explains why a lot of people prefer not to

tune into the news because the information is either opinionated, biased, hard to find, or paid for
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in some way or another. In the UK on the other hand, according to Statista, the UK’s most

popular news source is BBC One. Ofcom’s annual news consumption report of 2014 also states

that the reason most people in the UK follow the news is to know what is going on in the world

(58%). [13]

The first data, I am going to look at are voter’s turnout across the US and the UK over a

period time. Specifically, if media literacy had an effect had an impact on voting turnout. For

this, I am using the two graphs below provided by May2015 political [14] website and UK

Political Info [15]:

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These graphs show us that the UK has an overall higher turnout rate than the US. (see.

1.2). However, changes in voter turnout significantly decreased from 1979 to 1997. That’s 18

years after media literacy was incorporated into school curriculums. That’s pretty close to the

amount of schooling a child would have had when the curriculum was implemented to when they

would vote having completed education with media literacy. Of course, voting behavior is just

one way of measuring political interest, that is assuming that political interest leads to political

participation regarding voting behavior.

Another way of measuring political participation/activism is by petitions signed. It looks

like there was a significant decrease in petitions signed from 2004 to 2014. [15] See:
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As mentioned earlier, political participation might not necessarily indicate political interest.

However, I wasn’t able to find any data for the UK before 1980. So, I will work some of the

recent data that is available to me and compare it to the US. According to Institute for Social and

Economic Research at the University of Essex for its UK-wide Understanding Society survey,

40000 households were questions and of those in the youngest group - aged 16 to 24 - 42.4%

stated that they had no interest in politics. [16] The US political interest is pretty evenly divided

between “somewhat interested” at 32%, “not very interested” at 31%, and “not at all interested”

at 26%. [17] Additionally, perceived political knowledge seems to fluctuate over the years. In

2004, 45% reported they feel they don’t know much about politics, in 2006 it went up to 51%

and in 2014, it went down to 38%. [18] See:

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Results

As I am very limited with my data and haven’t been able to find any data from before

1980, when media education was implemented, I haven’t been able to conclude if media literacy

does indeed increase political interest or participation. Also, many variables could affect the

outcome. However, the UK does seem to have higher voter turnout rates than the US, but the

UK’s voter turnout started decreasing in 1997. I can’t say for sure whether or not this was an

effect of being media literate – however, as the graph shows, it could be related to an emotional

response to Tony Blair. A possible explanation of the continuous decrease could be that more

information was available to the public and that they better understand how to evaluate this

information. Media literacy can shed light on truths about how our media is funded, provided

and presented, and perhaps leads to a more disinterested population. Another variable to consider

is voters’ perceived impact -- if you feel like you cannot control your environment, or feel that

your vote doesn’t matter, this could decrease your interest in politics and make you not want to

participate at all. Another problem I ran into is that the UK has only one major news outlet,

which is where most people get their information. This news organization has been around since

1936. Perhaps, media literacy helped with understanding other media outlets and wasn’t

necessarily needed for their news.

Conclusion

Although, my research is inconclusive, media literacy is essential especially with our ever

growing addiction to being “connected” online, and consuming an alarming amount of media

every day. Especially here in the United States where the information is often biased, opinion
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based or propaganda. The news needs to get to a place of reporting and education, instead of

convincing or one-sided. As mentioned before, the media in the United States is highly

polarized, which says that we want to engage with ideas, and information that we believe or

already know. Although, I wasn’t able to find evidence of media literacy improving political

interest, I do believe that there are benefits that should be considered and perhaps could even be

used for a further study in the future. For example, it would be interesting to know if media

literacy contributes to the quality of media in the long term, or if media literacy helps us decide

what to watch and what not watch. Since the discipline of media education and media literacy is

still pretty new, much more research needs to be gathered. My suggestion for future researchers

would be to collect data specifically from those people who received media education in school

to those who haven’t and compare their attitudes in terms of political interest, participation,

activism, attitudes toward the government and the media, trust level: media, trust level:

government, media consumption, news consumption, types of news, and types of news

organizations. I also think it would be beneficial to look at the education system in general.

Looking at how and when political science is taught in the UK versus the US and if there are any

major differences. Also, the presence of new media platforms from 1980 to 2015 has grown, so

social media studies could be beneficial as well as these types of medias tend to be mind

stimulating. This is especially important and necessary due to the amount of media we consume

daily, which is expected to increase due to multitasking, and the amount of messages we receive,

whether it be marketing or political. Additionally, money is being poured into media outlets

through advertising, sponsorships, lobbying, etc. Now more than ever People need to be
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educated on this issue and need to understand how to navigate and understand the media. I

believe that this will make us a more educated and aware society as a whole.
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Sources

1. "Media Literacy: A Definition and More | Center for Media Literacy." ​Center for Media
Literacy​. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2015
2. Przeworski, Adam, and Henry Teune (1970) ​The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry​.
New York: Wiley, pp. 31-46.
3. Wallace, Kelly. "Teens Spend 9 Hours a Day Using Media, Report Says - CNN.com."
CNN​. Cable News Network, 3 Nov. 2015. Web. 14 Dec. 2015.
4. "Adults' Media Use and Attitudes Report 2014." ​Adults' Media Use and Attitudes Report
2014​. Ofcom, 29 Apr. 2014. Web. 14 Dec. 2015.
5. "Information overload - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." ​Wikipedia​. N.p., n.d. Web. 14
Dec. 2015.
6. "In Political News, There’s a Fine Line Between a Well ..." ​Mediashift​. N.p., n.d. Web.
14 Dec. 2015.
7. Johnson, Clay A. ​The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption​. Beijing:
O'Reilly Media, 2012. Print.
8. Diab, Omar. "Information Overload and Social Media." ​Stanford Daily​. N.p., 15 Nov.
2013. Web. 14 Dec. 2015.
9. Prior, Markus. "News vs. Entertainment: How Increasing Media Choice Widens Gaps in
Political Knowledge and Turnout." ​Am J Political Science American Journal of Political
Science​ 49.3 (2005): 577-92. Web.
10. Luskin, R. C. (1990). Explaining political sophistication.Political Behavior, 12, 331 –
361.
11. "How Americans get their news.” ​American Press Institute​. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Dec. 2015
12. "The Foxification of News." ​The Economist​. The Economist Newspaper, 09 July 2011.
Web. 14 Dec. 2015.
13. ​News Consumption in the UK: 2014 Report​. N.p.: n.p., n.d. ​Ofcom​. The Office of
Communications, June 2014. Web.
14. Lambert, Harry, and Tom Monk. "Follow Every Prediction – and Make Your Own – with
May2015's Election-forecasting Machine." ​May2015 2015 General Election Guide​. N.p.,
6 Jan. 2015. Web. 14 Dec. 2015.
15. "British Social Attitudes 28." (2012): n. pag. Web.
16. "Most Young Lack Interest in Politics - Official Survey - BBC News." ​BBC News​. N.p.,
21 Feb. 2014. Web. 14 Dec. 2015.
17. "World Values Survey Wave 6: 2010-2014." ​WVS Database​. Wold Values Survey, n.d.
Web. 14 Dec. 2015.
18. Audit of Political Engagement 11: The 2014 Report: With a Focus on the Accountability
and Conduct of MPs​. London: Hansard Society, 2014. Web.
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Appendix

Figure 1.1
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Figure 1.2