Media Literacy 101: Lesson Two - What
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Welcome back, class!
Class is now in session.
Today, we’re continuing the exploration of the issue of media literacy, and we’re going to examine the issue of what is being said in media.
Last time we examined the who element of media literacy and being skeptical about the person telling us things online or on TV. I debated doing one long lesson about who and what because they are closely linked. When you read or watch something online, what is being said is just as important as who is saying it, because if the who is not trustworthy, it’s doubtful what they are saying is factual or legitimate. The inverse is the same as well, and that’s where we are going to focus our attention today.
Let’s start our discussion of what with not what they are saying, but what they are not saying. It’s just as important to criticize the substance of the article or the video as it is to note what they leave out. We can’t include everything in a particular piece of writing or a video. No one has that kind of time and articles or videos would be too long. However, when people are writing articles or making videos, they actively and unconsciously choose what to include and what not to include. This is why the next lesson is the most important, where we’ll discuss the why, but we are saving that for another week.
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I’ll give you an example from recent news. The horrible school shooting in Georgia this past week quickly found its way into culture wars again, when alt-right, fascist grifters attempted to spin the narrative that the shooter was a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. Why? Because an article by CNN included a phrase where the shooter had expressed frustration over the acceptance of transgender people. CNN has since changed that phrase to the shooter expressing frustration at the acceptance of transgender people by society.
The Newsroom often depicted an anchor who wanted to pursue news where they held people to what they said and questioned them on it.
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Note that phrasing. This is at the heart of what I’m saying. Words have meaning, and the way they are arranged into a sentence has meaning as well. Writing requires conscious choices, but it’s also a product of unconscious priming. Our actions are the result of both conscious reactions to external stimuli, but beneath the surface, our lived experience shapes our mentality and can guide those conscious choices. It’s why in class, I will often stop what I’m saying and think of the right word to use because one word can convey an entirely different meaning than another.
Keeping this in mind, when you read or watch something, do the same things I talked about in the previous lesson. Stop. Think. In this frame, since we’re talking about the what, using the same strategy, take some time and go see what is being said by other outlets. Is it time-consuming? Yeah, but practicing this often can lead to faster analysis. When you do this often enough, you’ll begin to see how other outlets cover the material, and it will begin to highlight to you what is and what is not said at each particular outlet. A great example of this is culture war issues. There are people on social media who practice this literacy daily and will list out what the headlines are at different news outlets to show you how some issues are ignored entirely by politically motivated outlets.
Another part of the approach is to ask yourself what you just watched made you think. What questions did it raise in your head? This is a good thing because it leads to more information, and with media literacy, more information is never a bad thing. Without it, it can lead down rabbit holes, but the chances are that people with actual media literacy won’t go down those rabbit holes. Those holes work on a whole subset of psychology that social media algorithms work on. They play on confirmation bias and the need to belong.
Take a look at the Star Wars grifters out there. What are they always complaining about? Break down the themes of their complaints and it always centers around women, people of color, and sexuality in the franchise. We’ve already talked about who they are and questioned their credibility there. When you do that, and then critique what they say, their legitimacy breaks down even further. They know what they’re doing. They know it’s easier for people to just accept anger and fear instead of looking into what they’re saying, and that there is a deep, innate human connection to feel like you belong.
Despite the online grifters, the Star Wars community is its strongest element.
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Aside from murder, one of the worst things you can do to a human being is to exile them. Exclude them from the group. These grifters know this, either overtly or subconsciously, and they offer a “community” to those who don’t question what is being said and have been raised in an environment that fosters the kind of hate they seek to confirm. It’s why they say such outlandish things that don’t hold up to any pressure. The minute you feel that connection, hear that thing that you feel, but from someone else, and then see affirmations in the comments, they have a hold on you. But it’s not a foregone conclusion. There is hope.
Much of the lessons learned here are internal. You have to have conversations with yourself. Ask yourself: am I agreeing with it because it confirms what I already feel? Again, take your time. Stop. Think. Ask more questions. How do they know what they know? What do other people say? How are they saying it? What does it make you question? One of the most important questions to ask as you dig into these things is: does it make sense? It’s a tricky one to ask because it’s easy to fall victim to their grift. The grifters are successful because there’s an element of sense to what they say, but it’s only surface-level culture war bullshit that really doesn’t have any weight on our lives.
This brings us to the hardest to tackle and the nail in the coffin of every grifter’s scheme: the why.
That’ll be the subject of next week’s lesson.
Class dismissed.
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Save 'The Acolyte': Culture Wars And The State of ‘Star Wars’
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Good afternoon, class.
I come to you today with some sad news that I’m sure you’re well aware of anyway. The Acolyte has supposedly been canceled.
I really debated if I wanted to step outside my planned column rotation and my media literacy lessons to address this, but there’s hope out there still and, as an educator, I cannot abide trolls, hateful bigots, and assholes. Now, my wordage above is selective for a reason. I used “supposedly” because on one hand, things can change on a dime in Hollywood, and on the other hand, there’s a series of posts on the internet about using the word “canceled” to describe the decision not to renew The Acolyte for a second season. It’s a point I understand wholeheartedly. Words have meaning, and that’s one of the themes of this week’s column.
Unless someone says something explicitly as to why, we may not know exactly why the show was not renewed. I’ve seen the numbers game talked about on Reddit and YouTube by supposed people within the industry. Compared to the other Star Wars shows run on Disney+, it did not perform as strongly as other Star Wars shows in viewing minutes. It also cost a reported $180 million to make. Numbers and minutes just didn’t look pretty enough. Though Hollywood is a strange, fickle beast, in the end, it all comes down to money, and we have to remember that as much as we love Star Wars, it’s a business, and the primary goal is to make money. Streaming has struggled to be profitable so far, and it’s led to a trend of extremely short television seasons and series runs in the name of the bottom line. It’s the horrible reality of the situation of an art form (filmmaking and screenwriting) that is governed by the interests of capital.
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However, we can’t ignore the demon on the shoulder, though, and the damage they have done. The internet, while connecting the world and reshaping our lives, has given an oversized voice to the small pockets within fandoms that took advantage of the outlets social media gave them that they otherwise wouldn’t have had. They’re racists, sexists, and homophobes, and no longer relegated to the dark pockets of the internet, they have outlets to spread their depraved thoughts online that they wouldn’t dare say in public. Hate attracts hate, it’s basic psychology. Their disdain for women and people of color growing among the casts of Star Wars projects attracted others who thought as disgustingly as they did. In psychology, it’s an incentive for the content creators to spew their filth, and a sense of confirmation bias for the crowds coming to their channels, feeling validated that they aren’t alone in their depravity.
It all brews a sense of entitled gatekeeping, fostering a belief among them that they have some sort of ownership over the franchise. It’s nothing but delusion, as if they have any sort of right to determine what the fandom as a whole should and shouldn’t get to watch. It’s truly an astounding phenomenon to behold, to witness someone think they know what’s best for the franchise, under the guise of comments like “bad writing” or “terrible acting.” It’s funny to think these grifters have any sense as to what good writing or acting is like. I mean, Theory made an AI “film” of what he thinks is better. It’s embarrassingly terrible.
Unfortunately, the system we are forced to participate in further reinforces their behavior through financial incentives. With the news of the non-renewal of The Acolyte, now they feel vindicated, and they’re taking victory laps as if they had an impact on the decision. I will admit the possibility is there, as there was a concerted review bombing campaign against the show after only the first three episodes, which all aired at the same time. Much of the complaints talked about plot lines that didn’t make sense (that eventually came clear later when the show was, you know, done), bogus retconning, and of course the alt-right culture war faux fear-mongering around great replacement bullshit. The likelihood that they had an impact on the decision is not that great, however, and it more likely has to do more with the money.
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Art and business don’t seem to go hand in hand. Many artists talk about art as this beautiful and organic thing that isn’t done for money. The truth is that art has always thrived on supportive patrons, and when that support wanes, so too does the influx of creatives that expand and push the art form. A great example is the European Renaissance. Decimated by the plague that killed anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of the population of Europe, new fortunes were made and the newly wealthy of Europe sought artists to paint, sculpt, and construct great works of art to adorn their mansions and villas. It led to the greatest flourishing of art and culture in Europe since the height of the Roman Empire. With attention and support, the arts thrive. It encourages people to take risks and push the boundaries of art, and when other artists see these risks supported, art gets better. However, when patrons don’t support the risks, art gets stale
I don’t think there’s anything to celebrate here, not for the bottom line, or the trolls. The Acolyte was fresh and new. There wasn’t a Skywalker in sight, and the only original trilogy character they had was a suggestion of Yoda in the last shot of the season. It took the prequel trilogy’s undertones of Jedi ineptitude and twisted a mystery around it. I’m not saying it was the best there was in Star Wars, but it had the potential to grow. Not any longer, however, as the corporate obsession with profit over everything and the fans obsessed with something unobtainable (the past) saw the end of the series.
It’s a troubling sign of the state of the franchise and doesn’t leave much to hope for with the upcoming premiere of Skeleton Crew. Star Wars is set in a galaxy, and galaxies are huge. There is more to the galaxy than the Skywalkers, and with the original cast reaching old age, the stories they can appear in are quickly dwindling, or already have. Millions of fans enjoy Star Wars and all its potential, and neither the entitled grifters nor the bottom line of the Mouse should deny them of that.
Let it flourish.
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White Moderate Liberal Jedi: Addressing The Obvious For Most, The Surprise For The Ignorant
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Thank you all for attending today. I’ll be your teacher for the foreseeable future. My name is Mr. Brown, and I’m a social studies teacher with a passion for writing, and all things nerdy and geeky. This column aims to educate but also to comment on the societal aspects of the pop culture franchises we all love. I don’t pull any punches, everyone and everything is fair game to my scrutinizing eye. With that said, let’s begin.
If you’re in touch with Star Wars and haven’t been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks, you’ve likely heard something about the nontroversy (yes, that was intentional) surrounding the newest show, The Acolyte. I’ll give you the TL/DR. A bunch of people have been losing their minds on the internet about the new show because none of the main cast are white males, there’s an implied same-sex couple, and there are some new interpretations of things that the canon police are up in arms about. It’s been this way since the 80s and the original trilogy. It’s just amplified now with the power of social media.
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Before I dive into the crux of this column though, let’s have a word about media literacy, or the widespread media illiteracy that seems to have become a plague amongst the fandom. It’s a little surprising to me, an educator, that by 2024, with the prevalence of media in our lives, especially social media now, that media literacy courses aren’t becoming graduation requirements. Then again, as an educator in the system, I’m not that surprised. I think psychology should be a graduation requirement, but I’m a little biased (I teach AP Psychology). With rampant misinformation and the idiocy behind most comments posted online, it’s a sorely needed reform to the education system.
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I say all this because what drew me to write this article was a tweet. Not just any tweet, but an incredibly ignorant and racist tweet. I won’t cite it here because they don’t deserve the attention, but essentially the poster claims The Acolyte is a queer, Marxist bastardization of the Star Wars lore, and that the Jedi are cis white oppressors and hoard power. My reply was simply that the Jedi are the white liberal moderates that MLK warned us about, and it got me thinking more, and it became the impetus for this column.
If you don’t know or didn’t pay attention in school, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting with civil disobedience and wrote a letter to the white Baptist leaders of the south, calling them out for their inaction. He laid out everything his organizers did in preparation for their protest. They presented their case to local leaders, engaged in negotiations, and when they were betrayed, they went through training in non-violent direct action and then demonstrated. The letter is riddled with things you could pull out of discourse today. He talks about the comments made to him about his campaigns, their timeliness, and why they break the law or disrupt other people’s lives.
Everything we hear from white liberal moderates today. They were the same people he wrote about in his letter.
The point is, he goes on to explain, is that it’s easy for people who don’t suffer the injustices MLK and others had to endure (and still endure) today. In psychology, we call it the just-world phenomenon. It’s this idea by those in positions of privilege to comment on the state of the world. To them, who have never been on the receiving end of the system and its oppression, the world is just. They’re the kind of people who trumpet calls for law and order. Call it having blinders on, call it privilege, whatever, what MLK was pointing out in his letter is that when you are suffering injustice, there is no “right time” to protest. When you’ve played by the book, and tried to talk reason to people who can’t see you as human, there is only so far you can be pushed before you hold your ground and say “no longer.”
How, then, are the Jedi like the white liberal moderate, and what does this have to do with media literacy?
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Well, first off, anyone with media literacy could see that the tweet that set this off clearly missed the point of the prequels. Anakin even pointed it out to Qui-gon, who replied in perfect privilege that he wasn’t there to free slaves. There is suffering in the galaxy, and if the Jedi are the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy, you would think they would be pretty actively trying to stop slavery and the wrongs committed throughout. Instead, they have cozied up to power (The Republic), and it puts blinders on them. Lucas was hardly subtle about it in the prequels, and all Leslye Headland has done with The Acolyte (set 150 years prior) is show that their ignorance and unwillingness to see what is right in front of them was the start of their downfall. It’s in their teachings, for crying out loud. “Your eyes can deceive you, don’t trust them.”
The Jedi represent what happens when you get complacent and think that progress and work are done because a threat is gone. Much like MLK and his fellow civil rights leaders ultimately were victorious in getting legislation passed and securing their constitutional rights, the evidence right before our eyes makes it clear that their work is far from done. The Jedi are so invested in their superiority and triumph over the Sith for millennia that they allow themselves to sit back and enjoy the peace without working to make sure that peace continues.
If you take that too much to heart, then you miss everything you need to be seeing.
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Source(s): Letter From Birmingham Jail
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