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" Postman's early books were mostly about education; he was critical of the shallow and unchanging nature of public education, back then. He went on to write a handful of other books and articles, after "Amusing," a series of warnings on how technology was steamrolling concepts we once revered as pillars of democracy: Critical thought. Civil discourse. Public institutions. Democratic equality in education. Thoughtful, incremental change. Respect for history. Postman died in 2003, just as NCLB and the technocratic accountability movement were rolling across the country, denigrating teachers' hard-won judgment and experience in favor of standardized data. Consider:"

"Kent State University is one of only 15 universities across the country to receive a grant from the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) to screen Eyes Wide Open: This is Media, a documentary that explores individual roles in the changing media landscape. Kent State's School of Journalism and Mass Communication will host the premiere at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 20, in the FirstEnergy Auditorium in Room 340 of Franklin Hall. The event is free and open to the public. Produced by Pivot TV, the documentary is a call to awareness about the critical balance between being connected, being responsible and being private. "This is a must-see and an eye-opening video for everyone, especially millennials engaged with social or traditional media," says Federico Subervi, Ph.D., professor in Kent State's School of Journalism and Mass Communication and National Association for Media Literacy Education member."

"Hobbs approached the educators at the Holocaust Museum about acquiring the same "Mind Over Media" title and expanding the content. She was successful and has created a new resource where she invites educators, students and others to contribute examples of contemporary propaganda. (Full disclosure, I reviewed the site prior to its unveiling and contributed examples.) In an introductory video posted on the website the narrator says "in a world saturated by media messages, propaganda can be found in information, news, advertising or entertainment." The website uses crowdsourcing to create a gallery of propaganda examples. Users upload content they've located, share their own interpretations, and then evaluate the impact of the images, web pages or videos. "

What's the first word that should come to mind when you or your students see a news story or get a news/rumor text?  We think it should be a skeptical "REALLY?" To reinforce the importance of becoming an educated news consumer, RTNDF is launching a news literacy project called REALLY? The campaign is designed to help everyone -- students, teachers, professionals and the general public -- separate fact from fiction. You will want to your student producers and editors to join you for this webinar - or see the archived version.

"FOR ALL THE FEAR they inspire, school shootings of any kind are technically still quite rare. Less than 1 percent of all fatal shootings that involve children age 5 to 18 occur in school, and a significant majority of those do not involve indiscriminate rampages or mass casualties. It has been two decades since Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold ushered in the era of modern, high-profile, high-casualty shootings with their massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. According to James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University, just 10 of the nation's 135,000 or so schools have experienced a similar calamity - a school shooting with four or more victims and at least two deaths - since then. But those 10 shootings have had an outsize effect on our collective psyche, and it's not difficult to understand why: We are left with the specter of children being gunned down en masse, in their own schools. One such event would be enough to terrify and enrage us. This year, we had three. Teachers are at the quiet center of this recurring national horror. They are victims and ad hoc emergency workers, often with close ties to both shooter and slain and with decades-long connections to the school itself. But they are also, almost by definition, anonymous public servants accustomed to placing their students' needs above their own. And as a result, our picture of their suffering is incomplete. [Watch educators as they tell us in their own words about what it's like to to teach in an era of school shootings.]"

"In addition to the Checkology® virtual classroom, the News Literacy Project offers these resources and services for educators. Check them out!"

"These uses of markets to allocate health, education, public safety, national security, criminal justice, environmental protection, recreation, procreation, and other social goods were for the most part unheard-of 30 years ago. Today, we take them largely for granted. Why worry that we are moving toward a society in which everything is up for sale? For two reasons. One is about inequality, the other about corruption"

Full Video "Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family car. Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children's marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids."

"Project Look Sharp is a media literacy initiative of Ithaca College that develops and provides lesson plans, media materials, training, and support for the effective integration of media literacy with critical thinking into classroom curricula at all education levels."

"Crime news got far greater play in the Times' and Strib's online editions, Maier and Tucker found, while their print editions "provided more front-page coverage of government, politics and education than did their online counterparts." Both gave more attention to sports online, and the Times had more business news online than in print, they found. Only by clicking into the depths of an online news site is an avid reader likely to find the same news stories featured online as on the front page of his or her local newspaper. These results have significant implications for the news industry and the reading public. "

"This past Sunday in Steubenville, Ohio, high school football stars Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond were convicted of raping an intoxicated and barely conscious 16-year-old girl. Author and cultural critic Jackson Katz talked about the implications of the case in this wide-ranging two-part interview with Media Education Foundation (MEF) Production Director Jeremy Earp."

"Annually, Frank Baker's Media Literacy Clearinghouse offers an updated compilation of resources on his Using Super Bowl Ads in the Classroom.  He shares lesson plans, media literary materials, news articles and streaming video, reminding us that educators can legally record and use Super Bowl ads in instruction. For me, Frank's reminder comes right on the heels of an exciting session I attended at Educon-The Closer Citizen: Linking Close Reading to a Careful Analysis Of Media and Our Lives."

"An introductory assignment may ask students to think about representations of different social groups in the fictional TV shows, films and books that have shaped their lives. For example, at the beginning of the semester, I will give students an assignment titled "The Stories in Your Life" with the following list, and ask them to think of characters from these social groups that are represented in their favorite stories (this list of groups corresponds with the chapters in the textbook Diversity in U.S. Mass Media): African Americans, Native Americans, Latino Americans, Arab Americans, Asian Americans, teenagers, elderly people, people with disabilities, wealthy people, impoverished people, LGBTQ, and women. When we come together as a class and discuss their lists, the students have typically made some startling yet obvious discoveries: there may be no characters in a certain group, or the characters might be one-dimensional stereotypes. They quickly have those lightbulb moments that will open their minds to deeper discussions about underrepresentation and misrepresentation in entertainment media. They often realize that more often than not, the stories in their lives ask them to identify with white males. This introductory step in media literacy education gives students the reflective and analytical tools to examine what media tells them about themselves and others."

"Gold and Phillip offered their insights on examples of rumors and misinformation in the 2016 campaign, discussed the competing issues and agendas they must navigate in their reporting, and chatted with students and educators about the active role young people can play as consumers and creators of news and information about political issues. The hangout was part of a special series on "Building News Literacy, Critical Media Skills, and Political Awareness Today" produced in connection to Letters to the Next President 2.0.  NLP NEWS Check out the News Literacy Project's latest developments. "

"From Baton Rouge to Minneapolis to Dallas, it has been a fraught week in the United States. Tonight, University of Massachusetts Amherst Professor Sut Jhally is speaking at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts about race relationships in America. Jhally is the founder and executive director of the Media Education Foundation. He is best known for producing and directing films on politics, violence and social issues. Jhally spoke with WAMC about how he thinks the election of Barack Obama affected racial identity in the United States. The lecture is titled "The Crisis of Whiteness in the Age of the Black Presidency." It is free and open to the public."

"An educational film, entitled It's a Look, meant to highlight how carefully constructed - and not real - fashion images are. It's a Look comes with an accompanying lesson plan, and it's targeted at high school girls aged 15-16. Says Shulman, "I decided it might be helpful to show what goes into the creation of a Vogue fashion picture, as a way of illustrating the skill and artifice that makes the final product." This endeavor is a result of the magazine's recent Health Initiative, a pact between the 19 international editors of Vogue to encourage a healthier approach to body image."

"Project Look Sharp is a media literacy initiative of Ithaca College that develops and provides lesson plans, media materials, training, and support for the effective integration of media literacy with critical thinking into classroom curricula at all education levels."

"If people don't think critically about techniques advertisers, politicians and others use to influence us, then they will be easily fooled and manipulated, says media literacy educator FRANK BAKER in an interview with P KUMAR."

"When it comes to creating a successful logo for your brand, it seems simplicity is key. Udemy, an education marketplace, examined logos from 50 brands on Fortune's 2015 World's Most Admired Companies list to figure out what their beloved insignias have in common. The infographic below, Deconstructing Successful Logos, breaks the designs down by color, typeface, shape and a few other criteria. And here are some key findings: Of the 50 logos analyzed-for brands including Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Facebook and Walt Disney-red and blue were the most popular colors. Also, 43 of the top companies use no more than two colors in their designs."