Analyzing Media
Images courtesy of Flickr users (in order of appearance): brighter than sunshine; Shannon Kringen; Dennis Skley; Justien Van Zele; Mark Smiciklas; & Silke Remmery.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Amy Sonnie, Emily Weak, and Christine Ianieri, Oakland Public Library, who authored the curriculum and handouts this guide is based on. The content of this guide is Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, and content authored by Oakland Public Library is labeled as such.
Example Articles- Media Analysis Exercise
The following articles are examples of contrasting perspectives/bias for the topic of Turning Point USA. Students analyzed these and then shared how they assessed/evaluated them.
Group 1: TPUSA & SCU
Group 2: Free Speech
Group 3: Professor Watchlist
Group 4: Charlie Kirk/TPUSA
Presentation Slides
Fake News Handouts & Class Slides
- Class PresentationPowerpoint slides used for the student workshop.
- ENGL 1H/2H GuideVisit the class guide to see materials from the full series of classes in Dr. Serviss' ENGL 1H/2H course.
- Evaluating News ExerciseA checklist and resources to support students in evaluating new sources.
- Fake News Grid WorksheetWorksheet that can be used for the media bias/journalistic quality activity.
Partisan Bias, the Media, and the Constitution
Linked below are the media bias grid the workshop drew on and the interview used to introduce the workshop.
- News Quality GridThe creator of this grid, an attorney named Vanessa Otero, explains: “The categorization of news as simply ‘real’ or ‘fake’ is too simplistic; there are different ways in which news is good or bad.”
- News Quality- V. Otero's BlogRead Vanesso Otero's blog post sharing a little more about the chart she created and why.
- If Confirmed, Would Neil Gorsuch Rule Contrary To Trump's Policies?Fresh Air interview with legal expert Jeffrey Rosen. The clip used in the workshop is toward the end of the interview (around minute 25 if you'd like to fast forward).
