Media Education in the Age of Social Media David Buckingham Loughborough University

All change? Technology is shifting power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media élite… now it’s the people who are taking control. Rupert Murdoch, 2006

Overview Confusing technology and media Digital idiocy and Media Studies 2.0 Critical concepts and social media The case of ‘fake news’ The limits of media literacy

Technology or media? ‘ICT’ succeeds where ‘media’ fails Confusion of technology and media At an educational level At a social level At a commercial level Technology as a tool, a free service Technology and cultural form Not neutral tools but systems of cultural representation

Failure to connect The new digital divide Instrumental skills Risk and safety The fallacy of the digital natives Digital creativity: confusing technical skill with critical understanding Media Studies 2.0: embrace creativity, forget critique! Reasserting critique – and ‘key concepts’

Social media

Language How do media create meanings? Not free expression Genres and conventions Formality/informality Public/private Authority and power In-groups and out-groups More than ‘risk’ or ‘bullying’

Case study: Trump’s tweets

Representation How do media re-present reality? Versions of the social world and the self – but more than ‘hunting the stereotypes’ or ‘inaccuracy’ Truth, reliability, credibility – more than ‘information’

Case study: society of the selfie Identity, celebrity, mediated social relations Part of wider social trends

Industry Who makes these media, how and why? Media are not monolithic Selling audiences to advertisers Now we make the content – and we are the product? The ‘sharing economy’: the new business model Disintermediation and trust

Case study: Google How does Google make so much money? Understanding search Doing business: diversification, integration Targeted advertising Data-mining

Audience Who uses these media, what meanings do they make? Beyond effects: active and social But is this power to the people – or power to corporations? Who are the active users?

Case study: activism online Illusions of participation Democratising technology – anti-democratic users Narrowing social worlds – the echo chamber effect

Fake news Post-truth, alternative facts A symptom of wider issues “No more experts” The end of trust and deference The changing media landscape

Harmless fun? Another moral panic?

Is media literacy the solution?

Back to key concepts Deconstructing the issue: framing, definition, representation Language: creating authority – word and image; the self-confirming rhetoric of conspiracism Representation: evidence and interpretation; spin, news management Industry: making money in Macedonia, and in Silicon Valley; cross-media circulation; non-regulation Audience: credibility and belief; reputation and trust; audience as producer and distributor

Problems What’s real and fake? What about ‘real’ news? New media and the evil MSM Fixing democracy? Media literacy and media reform

How ‘fake news’ lost all meaning…

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