Is the Disinformation Industrial Complex Coming to a K-12 School Near You?
My extensive report on the rise of media literacy education
The Problematic Rise of Media Literacy Education
In a new piece for RealClearInvestigations, I report on the rise of media literacy education — a seemingly innocuous effort to teach kids how to critically analyze content, but which in practice could represent a hyper-politicized, taxpayer-funded, K-12 extension of America’s growing Disinformation Industrial Complex.
As I cover in the piece:
New Jersey has enacted the first law mandating the inclusion of information literacy education — including media literacy education — in K-12 curricula.
At least seven states both Democrat- and Republican-led are currently considering media literacy legislation aimed at the young.
One scholar writes that media literacy education “often functions as a trojan horse, casting certain political views” – conservative ones – “as prima facie wrong and biased.”
A leading advocate of New Jersey's law has called Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin “bad actors.” Meanwhile, she has described the Washington Post as a “trusted newspaper.”
Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey framed his state's legislation as a response to the “violent insurrection” of Jan. 6, 2021.
Others say media literacy dodges a more fundamental issue: Kids’ “base-knowledge problem.” They lack command of rudimentary facts.
Democratic U.S. Senators – sometimes joined by Republicans – are working to include media literacy in proposed federal laws.
Sidebar: The Biden administration has embedded media literacy in national security policy, arguing that disinformation threatens the homeland.
Read the report here and the associated sidebar here — which I believe gives critical context about the linkage between media literacy and national security, and the centrality of the moral panic over MDM (mis-, dis-, and mal-information) to the burgeoning War on Wrongthink.
On SVB and the Pending Censorship of Financial Opinion
In a related commentary at Straight Arrow News, I discuss Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly’s questioning of financial authorities about whether they have coordinated with social media companies regarding potential “content moderation” around bank runs.
Check it out below:
Orwell would be proud. NJ is also mandating climate change studies in its curriculum.
Home Schooling, with parents and teacher as Spiritually, Scientifically and Socially Intelligent Literates!