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An ecological behavioral examination of news media literacy among young adults

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An Ecological Behavioral Examination of News Media Literacy Among Young Adults
by
Michael Coronado

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
A dissertation submitted to the faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education

December 2021

© Copyright by Michael Coronado 2021
All Rights Reserved

The Committee for Michael Coronado certifies the approval of this Dissertation

Briana Hinga
Angela Hasan
Patricia Tobey, Committee Chair

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
2021
iv

Abstract
The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify how external influences such as the
upbringing, early relationships and cultural environment influence how young college students
encode news and information, how they discern between fact and fiction and what cognitive
methodology they use to process news and information that is meaningful to their lives. As
illustrated in the literature review, much study and research has been done on related media
literacy topics, particularly how K–12 education approaches media literacy teaching in broad
brush strokes. How young college students use and process specific aspects of social media,
digital content, and legacy platforms to understand news about the world around them and how it
influences their actions remains a largely undeveloped field of research.
Keywords: media literacy, news, community college students

v

Dedication
To my family: wife, Amanda Coronado and daughters, Gabriella and Alessandra for their
support, patience, and love.

vi

Acknowledgements
Research is often a journey of one, embarking solo across many paths. Hours of reading,
writing, analyzing, and still questioning at the end: how complete is complete? Though the
researcher walks alone, many stand alongside the research roadways, like guides on a journey
where the path is unclear, helping, nudging, advising as needed until the end is reached.
To Dr. Patricia Tobey, thank you for your counsel, guidance, and leadership through this
journey. To Dr. Briana Hinga, Dr. Angela Hasan, and Dr. Don Murphy, thank you for your time
and commitment and editing assistance. To the USC Rossier adjunct instructors, professors and
fellow classmates for their own unique knowledge and skillsets they shared throughout the
semester, thank you.
Finally, to those students, living in a time when news and information can be challenging
to process, I provide a simple rejoinder to ask of those who feed you content. Always ask: “How
do you know that?”

vii

Table of Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv
Dedication ........................................................................................................................................v
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ vi
List of Tables ...................................................................................................................................x
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ xi
Chapter One: Overview of the Study ...............................................................................................1
Statement of the Problem .....................................................................................................2
Organizational Context and Mission ...................................................................................3
Stakeholders .........................................................................................................................4
Stakeholder Group of Focus and Stakeholder Goal .............................................................5
Purpose Statement ................................................................................................................5
Importance of the Study .......................................................................................................6
Research Design...................................................................................................................6
Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations ....................................................................13
Definitions of Terms ..........................................................................................................14
Organization of the Study ..................................................................................................15
Chapter Two: Review of the Literature .........................................................................................16
News Media Literacy in Focus ..........................................................................................18
Youth and Media Literacy .................................................................................................21
Social Media and News Literacy .......................................................................................24
News Media Literacy Theories ..........................................................................................26
Cognitive Versus Empowerment Media Literacy Theories...............................................26
Where Learning Happens ..................................................................................................34
An Ecology of Media Literacy ..........................................................................................35
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Summary ............................................................................................................................38
Chapter Three: Methodology .........................................................................................................40
Sample and Population ......................................................................................................41
Instrumentation ..................................................................................................................42
Trustworthiness, Credibility, and Confirmability ..............................................................43
Interviews and Data Collection ..........................................................................................46
Data Analysis .....................................................................................................................47
Summary ............................................................................................................................48
Chapter Four: Findings ..................................................................................................................49
Description of the Participants ...........................................................................................49
Findings..............................................................................................................................50
Research Findings Pertaining to Research Question 1 ......................................................51
Research Findings Pertaining to Research Question 2 ......................................................60
Summary ............................................................................................................................66
Chapter Five: Discussion and Recommendations..........................................................................68
Overview of the Study .......................................................................................................69
Summary of the Findings ...................................................................................................69
Discussion for Findings to Research Question 2 ...............................................................73
Implications for Practice ....................................................................................................76
Recommendations ..............................................................................................................78
Future Research .................................................................................................................84
Conclusions ........................................................................................................................84
References ......................................................................................................................................86
Appendix A: Theoretical Alignment Framework Matrix ..............................................................90
Appendix B: Interview Protocol Recruitment Email .....................................................................91
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Appendix C: Protocol for Interview With Participants..................................................................92
Appendix D: Qualitative Analysis Coding Scheme.......................................................................94
Appendix E: Consent to Participate in the Study...........................................................................95
Appendix F: Institutional Review Board Approval .......................................................................97

x

List of Tables
Table 1: Essential Competencies of Digital and Media Literacy 33
Table 2: Reliability, Validity, and Trustworthiness in Qualitative Research 45
Table 3: Participants Age, Major and Self-Identified Ethnicity 51
Table 4: The Eight-Stage Process of Creating Major Change 80
Appendix A: Theoretical Alignment Framework Matrix 92

Appendix D: Qualitative Analysis Coding Scheme 96

xi

List of Figures
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework Reflecting Environmental, Cultural, and Behavioral
Connections Through Time 12
Figure 2: Essential competencies of Digital and Media Literacy 32
Figure 3: Platforms Interviewees Use to Search for News and Content 53
Figure 4: Processes Students Use to Verify the Accuracy of News and Information 56

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Chapter One: Overview of the Study
Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. Education, therefore, is a
process of living and not a preparation for future living.
—John Dewey, My Pedagogic Creed
At perhaps no other time in modern history has news and information permeated an
individual’s existence more ubiquitously than today. Headlines, social media posts, podcasts,
billboards, websites, and a multitude of various mass media platforms, digital and analog,
bombard an individual’s cognitive encoding of information and content, implicitly and explicitly
helping shape worldviews and decisions. In this modern global media landscape, the
transmission of content and information is delivered at such a rapid pace across a diversified sea
of delivery platforms. Not only are individuals confronted with the metacognitive priorities of
encoding news and information, but they must also decipher the meaning, veracity, and
reliability of the messengers. Oftentimes, to complicate the communications message further, the
medium has become the message, demonstrating how media platforms themselves shape how we
understand and process information irrespective of the content (McLuhan, 1967).
A nation of informed citizens is a foundation of democracy in the United States. In our
society, information and content, messages, and platforms, are often operationalized as weapons
deployed to influence, shape, and persuade public opinion. The expression fake news invoked by
political agents and their followers as well as attacks against media outlets only further amplifies
and complicates an already distorted global media domain. Young college students are especially
susceptible as they are typically the most prolific digital and information consumers given their
upbringing in a news and content-saturated 24-hour-always-on cycle.
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This study served to examine the news media literacy skills and process young adults
attending community college, ages 18–25, employ when discovering, processing, and validating
news that is relevant to their lives. The findings of this research provided a list of
recommendations to educators to provide processes they can employ to sharpen evaluation of
media skills and content in students as well as the ways to factually cross check information and
evaluate efficacy and truthfulness.
Statement of the Problem
The problem this study examined is the lack of news media literacy among young people,
which is critical because news and current events connect and influence young people’s
experiences and shape their values about the world (Moore, 2013).
During the 2016 presidential election, young people reported that they accessed nearly
72% of the news they consumed from online digital sources with social media topping their list
of news sources (Head et al., 2016). Determining the accuracy and reliability of news and
content online to provide meaningful knowledge is a challenge for many young college students.
Students struggle with searching and gathering information online, as well as critical analysis
and evaluation of content (McGrew et al., 2018).
A 2016 Stanford University study found most middle school, high school and college
students were functional news illiterates with more than 80% of high school students unable to
discern between an unbiased news source and one that had ties to a Washington D.C. lobbying
firm using a simple Google search, demonstrating that this is s a problem (Dyer, 2017). The
evidence highlights that media literacy as a larger category under which news media literacy
resides, is not being taught effectively in middle and high school education classrooms (McGrew
et al., 2018). Further compounding the deficiency of news media literacy among young college
3

students is a distorted or lack of understanding of how professional news media organizations
function and curate content for readers, viewers, and listeners.
For many college students today, the understanding that a free press is essential in a
democracy is tempered by a deep political polarization that has made them suspicious of biased
reporting (Head, et al., 2016). In addition, the desire for fast news, quick discovery, and short
transitory thoughtfulness of the news they are consuming has made engaging with news in a
meaningful way difficult. Many college students embrace multiple pathways to accessing news
and information. Understanding how students give meaning and efficacy to news and
information is vital to maintaining the health of a democratic system.
Organizational Context and Mission
CYC College (pseudonym) is a mid-sized community college in a large, mostly affluent
county in the southern half of California. The college population to be studied is comprised of
approximately 21,000 students annually with a racial majority of students identifying as Latino,
followed by Asian and White. Like other community colleges, CYC College attract students
from a myriad of nearby cities because of its central location acting as a sort of hub to the several
cities and counties that surround it. CYC College offers more than 50 university-transfer majors,
nearly 180 career- certificate programs, and degrees in multiple areas of study. CYC College
employs more than 200 full-time faculty, over 400 part-time instructors, more than 2225 support
staff as well as several dozen 40 managers.
The organizational mission of CYC Community College is to serve as a premier,
innovative, and equitable learning community recognized for supporting students and enriching
society. CYC College maintains that faculty, staff, and administrators will transform lives
through lifelong learning, providing educational opportunities including transfer to four-year
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institutions, associate degrees, certificates, and a baccalaureate degree. CYC College provides
academic and career pathways to support the achievement of students, while enhancing their
economic mobility, fostering equity, and enriching society. Tuition at CYC College for in-state
residents is $46 per unit, among the lowest of California’s higher education institutions. The
college is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges of the
Western Association of Schools and Colleges, an institutional accrediting body recognized by
the Commission on Recognition of Postsecondary Accreditation and the U.S. Department of
Education. For the purpose of this research, educators were the primary stakeholders because
they are the individuals expected to carry out the goal of implementing recommendations
directed at improving news media literacy among community college students. If the goal is not
met, there are direct implications to students, future political leaders, and our democratic process.
The ubiquitous nature of misleading content, news and information pervades society and
students who lack the news media literacy to discern fact from fiction could find themselves
unknowingly manipulated and coerced without effective media literacy skills.
Stakeholders
There are several major stakeholders who are directly involved in the implementation of
the news media literacy recommendations. Educators are the front-line operators who can
employ the news media literacy recommendations in lessons and curriculum to enhance student
learning. The citizenry in a democratic society is also a stakeholder as they are empowered to
make educated choices among political candidates, legislation and viewpoints and opinions when
news media literacy is enhanced. Finally, students who succeed at mastering news media literacy
through the recommendations, are empowered to understand topics and issues that drive the
decision making which shapes their worldviews.
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Stakeholder Group of Focus and Stakeholder Goal
The primary stakeholders in this research comprise educators who teach at high schools
and colleges. Educators were chosen as the stakeholder of focus because they hold a prime
dyadic relationship with students hungry for learning yet immersed in information that is often
designed to manipulate and mislead. Recommendations from this research help inform the
primary stakeholders of news media literacy processes, and techniques that allow for a more
transparent understanding of information and content while illuminating behavioral aspects of
why certain news and information is chosen. Educators employing the recommendations in this
research can help students reach realistic goals as self-directed learners; those who have
mastered the encoding and decoding review process of news, content and information for
accuracy and efficacy. Educators facilitate learning using worksheet recommendations, Canvas,
Office 365, Zoom and various online search engines.
Purpose Statement
The purpose of this study is to explore through qualitative research how young college
students search for news and information and how they analyze and process news to determine
its validity, reliability, and meaning. This research investigated the habits and techniques
students use to aggregate news from a variety of media platforms and the cognitive process in
evaluating and providing meaning to that content to discern validity. Through this research,
recommendations will be crafted that educators can use in lesson plans and curriculum to teach
students how to be news media literate. The following questions guided the research:
1. How do community college students seek out and consume accurate information to make
educated choices and decisions?
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2. How can students use news media literacy recommendations to empower their ability to
seek out and consume accurate information to make educated choices and decisions?
Importance of the Study
The implications of the importance of media literacy are clear: Audiences can be better
equipped to access, evaluate, analyze, and create news media products if they have a more
complete understanding of the conditions in which news is produced (Ashley et al., 2013). It is
one thing for an individual to use the internet to gather information about an issue but another to
then use that information to fuel offline engagement (Carlisle & Patton, 2013). Furthermore,
existing inequalities in real life are translated and carried over into online life, creating a digital
divide that exists, a result of the interplay of national, institutional, and individual characteristics
(Carlisle & Patton, 2013).
Research Design
The theoretical framework that guides this research is Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological
Behavioral Theory. Through Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory model, this research provides a
collection of narrative results examining how college students assemble news content for their
review, how it is germane to their lives, and how it shapes their decision making. The research
used the lens of the ecological theory to peer through the various systems that influence and
shape how college students look for news and information, its’ meaning to their lives and how it
impacts the actions they take. The four systems are explored below and include the
chronosystem, later added to reflect the dimension of time as it relates to a student’s
environment. The theoretical research used Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979), which provides for a broad enough scrutiny of environmental factors
over time that shape and influence how young people make decisions in their lives.
7

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory offers a blueprint through which educators can
examine relationships within communities and society among individuals. Ecological systems
offer insight into observed relationships between structural and relational home environments
and early individual media use (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Bronfenbrenner posits five
environmental systems within his ecological framework. The microsystem examines the
relationships and interactions a young person has with their immediate surroundings such as
family, school, and neighborhood. The microsystem can influence how a person connects their
direct relationships in life, such as how their parents view the world, the news, and information
the parents see, hear, and use to make everyday decisions. The microsystem can influence the
content choices that a young adult puts into practice. Media can influence the lives and
development of youth as they consume and interact with various content platforms, both digital
and traditional (Jordan & Romer, 2014). In this way, the young college student is in part shaped,
for example, by the behavior of their parents or siblings in this microsystem early in life and
adopt those behaviors in searching for the content and information that mirrors that connection
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979). For example, parents’ use of digital platforms and technologies in their
workplace can influence a young person’s early use of an attitude toward media (Jordan &
Romer, 2014). Within this system, mass media influences have seemingly become one of the
direct relationships that occupy cognitive space and influence decisions. There has been
significant change in how individuals at a young age interact and create media than in years past
that evolves with the behavior of an individual throughout life and into college.
In what was once a passive experience of the individual as the receiver of content (such
as TV shows external to the viewer), content today is immersive and a two-way interaction as
many individuals grow through life in settings where electronic devices and platforms are as
8

immersive and are as connected to their microsystem as parents, siblings, and friends. Electronic
devices such as smartphones and gaming consoles are an extension of the individual in many
settings and influence how and what kinds of content and news the individual seeks and
processes (Walker, 2015). Consider the connections to electronic devices and messages that
occupy a young person’s life so much so as to create a digital identity outside of the actual
person. High school and community college educators examining the microsystem can study and
explore the early uses of media engagement and media platforms/devices parents and siblings
used around youth in their formative years. In this way, educators can help determine how the
student participated and formed early cognitive strategies that shaped media decision making and
the use of various devices that might have been introduced into the home and to what extent of
immersion. For example, educators might learn that a parent’s use of media consisted of always
being digitally engaged in smart phone messaging and social media engagement, which in turn
influences the behavior of the growing youngster, who finds that seeking information and
content via electronic social media engagement and texts is how they reveal what is occurring in
their world. In this study, the interview questions illuminated first, how the established
relationship between a young adult and the microsystem has been established and secondly, how
that relationship demonstrates the connection to learning and processing of news, content, and
information early in life.
The second system is the mesosystem, which examines the connections among two or
more systems of a young adult. In the mesosystem, the connections between two or more
systems such as the cultural family life, the behavior of friends and siblings, as well as school
life and teachers, can begin to shape the news gathering habits of young people that can carry
into high school and college. The mesosystem is where relationship influences begin to permeate
9

the cognitive process of young adults and influence their media search and processing behaviors.
Media becomes a connection in the habits of young students who grow up in a world in which
information is a click away and often the first choice of inquiry in learning about a topic or
subject. Based in part on social cognitive theory, young students observe the actions around them
and will imitate the behavior (use of media; Bandura, 1986). Students may pattern their own
media use after observing how their parents and siblings use media, reflecting how the early
home and school environment can shape a lifelong pattern of media consumption and creation.
Carried into young adulthood, college students take the media habits they learn in the
microsystem and into the mesosystem, where their classmates often heavily influence and shape
media habits in a socio-cultural fabric of learning and diversion. Newer digital platforms and
technologies shift and change based on those relationships in the mesosystem in part as a
necessity for connection among friends and learning in the classroom. By recognizing aspects of
the mesosystem that inhabit young college students’ lives, educators can be better equipped to
identify patterns of media use for news and information and integrate media literacy steps that
can help students discern fact from fiction and critically analyze content across platforms. The
interview questions drew out the connection among those individuals between different
microsystems and other surrounding environments that influence information gathering and
processing.
The exosystem examines the larger social system in which individuals indirectly feel
positive or negative force or pressure linked to their own microstructure. In the exosystem,
individuals can be affected by contextual influences that they do not experience directly
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979). In this study, the research can explore the connection and implications
of media in the exosystem through outside influences by connecting students’ involvement with
10

social institutions and systems including family, school, political or economic and the goals and
values they represent to young adults (McHale et al., 2009). The exosystem in a young adult’s
life might involve participating on school sports teams, government and create an affiliation with
their school. In the same way, through their media involvement, individuals may identify with
the values of particular social organizations, and news media as well advertising media might
reinforce those concepts while aiding in instructing youth about the values and lifestyles the
media attaches to particular social organizations and institutions (McHale et al., 2009).
Throughout the exosystem, aspects such as parental work priorities, school administration
policies, government, and local business practices can reinforce and influence how students view
news content and media. By recognizing the connections students create from the influence of
those aspects in the exosystem and how media reflects or reinforces those connections, educators
can identify trends and the gaps in how students search for news and content. In this study, the
interview questions demonstrated the influence of external, indirect environments that affect how
young people learned to process and encode news and information.
The macrosystem examines cultural context, such as ethnic groups, classes, and religious
affiliations and is the outermost layer in the young adult’s environment. The macrosystem
applies to more abstract influences on a young adult’s development, including cultural values
and attitudes toward political, legal, and economic systems (McHale et al., 2009). Aspects such
as privilege and status from purchasing power reside in the macrosystem, where values and
attitudes are reflected in the policies and practices of social institutions (McHale et al., 2009).
Students look to media to reinforce these attitudes, and educators who can identify the student
use of media to reinforce preexisting attitudes and stereotypes can help identify how and where
young adults make these media connections. Interview questions in this study identified specific
11

cultural patterns and values that shape a young person’s dominant beliefs and ideas and how they
access news and process information. The institutional and cultural influence in the
macrosystem can shape how a student views larger aspects of society and the media, such as
policing or the criminal justice system, as seen in media movies and television shows. Educators
can explore how the world around individual students has influenced the ways they use news and
information based on those cultural influences, such as how parents view politics, race, and other
aspects of the macrosystem. To address those gaps, educators might recognize that digital and
media literacy be integrated at an earlier stage in a young adult’s life to develop and recognize
broader viewpoints outside of those cultural influences. The chronosystem examines the time
dimension as it relates to the individual’s environment. These examples reflect milestones or
turning points in life that over time exert influence on a young person’s beliefs or worldviews,
such as a divorce in the family or separation or marriage. In this study, the interview questions
highlighted how milestone events such as an arrest of a family member by police have shaped
how that individual sees news and information related to a topic such as crime or law
enforcement, or criminal proceedings. Figure 1 presents Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological model
of development as it applies to young adults in this research.

12

Figure 1
Conceptual Framework Reflecting Environmental, Cultural, and Behavioral Connections
Through Time

13

The research design in this study was qualitative and investigate into the topic of news
media literacy among young students to determine how they source and encode information
related to news. The qualitative approach aligns with the research by providing meaningful
interpretation of how students get their news and understand its content through interviews and
narrative stories. Using a qualitative interview method to evaluate perceptions and views
regarding news media literacy enabled me to draw out social, behavioral, and cultural aspects
from participants about how they encode news. A focus on the answers to specific questions
allowed for a well-developed and rich narrative spanning through time the various stages,
milestones and triggers that create and shape the participants’ approach to news media literacy.
Assumptions, Limitations, and Delimitations
An assumption in this study was that results from interviews about how students access
news and information and how they process that content can be gleaned from survey questions
and student oral narratives. Another assumption is that all participants are college students
between the ages of 18–25 attending school at a community college campus in Orange County,
Calif. While media literacy research among students throughout their educational career
maintains and offers a robust body of data and conclusions, this study assumed there may be a
narrative description that posits varied reasons and factors in how college students approach
news that shapes their worldview.
A delimitation of this study was that participants are college students, ages 18–25,
enrolled in a mid-sized, racially diverse community college in Southern California. The
participants are also reflective of a specific category of college student: the first-, or second-year
student studying for a transfer degree, vocational degree, or certificate at a two-year community
14

college. Findings may not be applicable across the college educational spectrum of students
given the specificity of the sample size and demography.
Having worked in the professional news media for nearly two decades, the researcher
likely has unconscious and conscious biases from his workplace experience. The career path of
the researcher from professional news practitioner to journalism and global media professor also
posits potential unconscious and conscious biases based on the teaching of journalism and its
importance to democracy.
Definitions of Terms
• Content: Information that exists on various platforms whether new digital outlets such as
internet websites or legacy platforms such as newspapers and billboards.
• Journalism: The vocation of professional news gatherers employed or working on behalf
of a professional news organization, who adhere to a collection of ethics legal constructs
that guide their daily work.
• Media platforms: The various technologies both new and old that serve as transmission
outlets for news and information such as websites, social media, newspapers, radio, and
magazines. Social media platforms can consist of the various “apps” that are used by
individuals to access information such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat.
• Legacy platforms: Mostly analog products or services that provide news and information
such as newspapers, magazines, televisions, or radios.
• Social media: Any of the multitude of online platforms available as a digital social
gathering place in which the exchange of ideas, comments and thoughts take place among
users.
15

Organization of the Study
This study seeks to understand what kinds of cognitive process and meaningful thought
college students give to accessing news and information that help shape their worldview and
decisions. As most work on media literacy focuses primarily on K–12 students and in
information gathering and processing in general or through a pedagogical lens, there is a
knowledge gap as to the reasons how community college students, many fresh out of high
school, learn about news and how they process that news for validity and accuracy. This study
serves a variety of stakeholders such as educators, professional journalists, college students and
mass media professionals.
Chapter Two is a comprehensive review of current research on media literacy and news
media literacy and will clarify how this study will fill the gap discussed in the literature. Chapter
Three will describe methodology, research design and the specific details of how the study was
conducted. Chapter Four will provide details on how the data was analyzed and conducted.
Chapter Five is an interpretation of the findings as it relates to the existing body of research
related to the dissertation topic.

16

Chapter Two: Review of the Literature
Intelligence plus character, that is the goal of true education.
—Martin Luther King Jr., The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr. Vol. 1
The abundant research available in the field of media literacy spans across education
levels, demographics, socio-economic backgrounds, and pedagogical approaches to teaching.
Under media literacy resides news media literacy, a focused emphasis illuminating the roles of
individual news consumers and their cognitive aptitude toward ascertaining fact from fiction and
understanding the frames by which news is presented in its various forms. A starting point in
understanding the function of news media literacy begins with a review of media literacy and its
contextual meaning and background.
This literature review will explore how students consume news and information, the
method, and platforms they use, and the cognitive process they employ to make sense of that
information. This chapter first provides an overview of media literacy, which is an umbrella
topic under which news media literacy resides. Next, literature focusing specifically on news
media literacy will explain what the topic means specifically in the context of information and
content gathering among young people, how that shapes the decisions they make and the push-
pull between competing theories of how individuals approach news literacy. Next, the literature
will explore the various theories involved in media literacy and news media literacy and how
students use social media as the preferred platform for gleaning news and information. Then, the
chapter will provide an exploration and explanation of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory as a
framework guiding this study on news media literacy among young college students.
To begin an understanding of media literacy and its background is to first recognize that
the term media literacy means many different things to different people, depending on who you
ask—scholars, educators, citizen activists, and the public (Potter, 2010). Nearly all the writings
17

and research on media literacy have been conducted within the past three decades, according to
Potter (2010). One of the earliest attempts to codify a definition of media literacy emanated
during The National Leadership Conference on Media Literacy in which 25 scholars gathered at
the Aspen Institute in Queenstown, Maryland (1992). The group of scholars settled on a basic
definition of media literacy: the ability of a citizen to access, analyze, and produce information
for specific outcomes (Aufderheide, 1993).
Several years later, the National Communication Association invited its members to
come up with their own definition of media literacy. Their definition of a media literate person is
one who “understands how words, images, and sounds influence the way meanings are created
and shared in contemporary society in ways that are both subtle and profound. A media literate
person is equipped to assign value, worth and meaning to media use and media messages”
(Potter, 2010). Other scholars coined their own definitions of media literacy such as,
media literacy may be thought of as the ability to create personal meaning from the visual
and verbal symbols we take in every day from television, advertising, film, and digital
media. It is more than inviting students to simply decode information. They must be critical
thinkers who can understand and produce in the media culture swirling around them.
(Adams and Hamm, 2001, p. 33, as cited in Potter, 2010, p. 676)
Further, to muddy the proverbial waters even more, not only have scholars and
researchers attempted to create a cogent definition of media literacy, but citizen action groups
have also posited their distinct meanings. Among the nearly two dozen citizen action group
definitions Potter cites are agencies and organizations that emphasize media literacy among
children. The Media Education Foundation posits that a media literate person has the tools and
vocabulary needed to re-examine media images and their influence on how we think about our
18

personal, political, economic, and cultural worlds. Indeed, many media literacy scholars harbor
concern regarding the role educators play (or do not play) in teaching youth how to understand
and comprehend information and content in a critical manner (Potter, 2004).
News Media Literacy in Focus
As reflected throughout the literature, media literacy can be described as a topic with a
compendium of competing and diverse definitions, theories, and focal priorities that includes
news literacy. Each of the subtopics under the umbrella of media literacy, such as digital literacy,
K–12 media education, and news literacy, are approached in different ways given the wide range
of communication backgrounds. Individuals who study advertising or film will approach media
literacy with different interests and objectives than a journalist or K–12 educator.
What differentiates news literacy from other forms of media literacy is the role it plays in
shaping, informing, and educating a democratic citizenry (Ashley et al., 2013). As the number of
news outlets continues to contract and diminish in our country, the mounting challenge by news
consumers is often attempting to discern fact from fiction among news content. The usefulness
of sharpening news media literacy skills among individuals means that audiences can better
access, evaluate and analyze news media content and platforms if they understand how news is
put together and produced (Ashley et al., 2013). The research of Ashely et al. (2013) identified
an existing gap between representation and reality that exists in media messages. To that extent,
the researchers developed an instrument to measure media literacy, specifically as it pertains to
news production and consumption. Their news media literacy scale was crafted to measure
attitudes and knowledge and was based on prior research that studied smoking habits and
attitudes. Starting with a 102–item survey administered to 244 college students, the researchers
ultimately narrowed the scale down to 15 items answered on a Likert-type scale indicating
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agreement or disagreement (Ashley et al., 2013). Although there existed certain limitations in the
study – one such circumstance as those students surveyed having existing high levels of media
literacy – the researchers posited that there is strong evidence that how newsrooms and
journalists gather and put together the news should be incorporated into media literacy education.
In short, many of the students, while holding high knowledge about commonly held attitudes
about news media, understood very little about how the media did their jobs.
One of the milestones in modern journalism news media literacy research began in 2006
at Stony Brook University in New York. After a 35–year career at Newsday during a time when
newsrooms were in the midst of structural upheaval, journalist Howard Schneider agreed to start
a new journalism school at Stony Brook (Fleming, 2014). While building a new journalism
program that was itself redefining how news reporting and writing should evolve in a fast-
changing digital world, Schneider would also focus on the unchartered curriculum he called
news literacy. Fleming writes that Schneider positioned news literacy as a solution to the dilution
of press influence and the eroding boundary that differentiates journalism from other types of
information. Young news consumers, Schneider posited, would demand to sharpen their critical
thinking skills, and seek out high-quality news sources. As a result, journalism schools needed
two missions: train the next generation of journalists and educate the next generation of news
consumers (Fleming, 2014).
In her research on the Stony Brook news literacy program, Fleming (2014) interviewed
28 individuals within the program in addition to observation, document retrieval artifact
collection, attended lectures, meetings, and special events. Three guiding principles of teaching
news literacy instruction emerged: (a) access news; (b) evaluate and analyze news; and (c)
appreciate a specific genre of news; (Fleming, 2014). Accessing news literacy to Fleming meant
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the capability of developing an ability to identify it, akin to searching at a map and looking for a
specific address (Fleming, 2014). In her research on Schneider’s work, she also identified the
characteristic of analyzing and evaluating news. One of the skillsets professional journalists
excel in, Schneider posited, is as expert information gatherers and processors. The chief
pedagogical pathway in news literacy is teaching students how to discern fact from fiction in a
series of questions Schneider put forth for students to ask about information they come across.
1. Summarize the main points of the story.
2. Assess the evidence supporting the main points of the story. Was it verified? Was it
asserted?
3. Is the evidence direct or indirect?
4. Are the sources reliable?
5. Does the reporter make his or her work transparent?
6. Does the reporter place the story in context?
7. Are the key questions (who? What? When? Where? Why? How?) answered?
8. Is the story fair? Can you reach a conclusion, take an action, or make a judgment?
The final category relating to appreciation refers to how professional journalists approach
their profession, most of them committed to acting in the public interest by reporting and writing
verified, fact-based stories, often that exposed wrongdoing while furthering the principals of
democracy through a free press. Ultimately, Fleming concluded from her findings that what
Schneider sought to teach students arrived at three outcomes of student understanding:
engagement, awareness of current affairs, and knowledge of press principles and practices.
Schneider, for his part, concluded that news literacy was the answer to America’s foundering
journalism profession.
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The ultimate check against an inaccurate or irresponsible press never would be just
better-trained journalist, or more press critics and ethical codes. It would be a generation
of news consumers who would learn how to distinguish for themselves between news and
propaganda, verification and mere assertion, evidence and inference, bias and fairness,
and between media bias and audience bias. (Fleming, 2014, pp. 146–165)
Although Fleming’s research on the approach to teaching and learning news media
literacy at Stony Brook highlighted key teaching and learning components, the limitations of the
study are reflected by the individuals who were observed. Several of the students, lecturers, staff,
and research assistants, already immersed in their learning and education in the field of
journalism and media studies, reflected a much deeper cognitive understanding of the news cycle
and news gathering process than a first-year community college student or high school senior
that this research attempts to approach. Additionally, that the news media curricula were new and
unvarnished, unfinished in its structure, assumptions can be made as to the greater motivation of
students and staff to see the process succeed. In her recommendations, Fleming indeed posits that
the program was an ambitious and well-funded demand-side curricula idea designed to help
nonmajors develop critical thinking skills (Fleming, 2014).
Youth and Media Literacy
Scholars calling upon intervention to train certain groups of people (typically children) to
identify faulty or misleading messages seek to incorporate media literacy education in the
framework of liberal arts that exposes individuals to a wide range of ideas about humanity and
media influence within broad cultural processes (Potter, 2004). As internet access has amplified
the kinds of content and messages available to young people, students are frequently positioned
in educational and personal settings to analyze, scrutinize, assess, create, and reflect on news and
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information that shapes their environments. At times, even sophisticated news consumers face
the illusory truth effect, a tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated
exposure (Hasher et al., 1977). A 2010 national survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found
that with the expansive technology available to young people and a 24–hour media cycle,
individuals 8 to 18-years-old devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes to using entertainment
media across a typical day. The study also reveals that because they spend so much of that time
‘media multitasking,’ those individuals manage to pack 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media
into those 7 hours.
Consequently, news and current events connect directly to children and their lived
experiences, shaping their values of the world (Moore, 2013). Studies have demonstrated that
media literacy intervention helped decrease fear and worry among children after exposure to
heady topics such as tragedy and terrorism-related news stories (Kaiser Family Foundation as
cited by Moore, 2003).
The comprehension of media literacy in the news consumption habits of students can
significantly affect political knowledge formation, civic discourse, social civic awareness, and
the individual’s worldview (Kahne et al., 2012). The lack of media literacy surfaces at an early
age among students, yet the integration of news and current events into elementary school
teaching is significant in the digital age, as students are called on to access, analyze, create,
reflect, and act on a variety of diverse information in multiple media formats (Moore, 2013).
Integrating the teaching of news media literacy into K–12 teaching has proven
challenging for educators, however, because news and current events can prove so unpredictable
and intersect uncomfortably with national party politics, Moore observes that many educators in
K–12 settings shy away from using news and current events in their teaching. Addressing the
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importance of media literacy education among young people may help empower students to
bridge the gap between representation and reality in media messages. In addition, increased
education efforts in media literacy can help students address the struggle of processing
information.
A theme shared amongst many studies reflects that young people struggle processing
information because the ability to evaluate content is no simple skill; rather, critical evaluation
rests on a substantial body of knowledge regarding the broader social, cultural, economic,
political, and historical contexts in which media content is produced (Bazalgette, 1999;
Castellon, 2012; Livingstone, 2004). Furthermore, students in one study reported frustration
when seeking information online because of their lack of familiarity with a rapidly expanding
and increasingly complex digital information landscape in which ascertaining the credibility of
sources was particularly problematic (Head & Eisenberg, 2009).
Furthermore, today’s college students when it comes to seeking information and research
clearly favor brevity, consensus, and currency in the information sources they seek, the authors
posit. Additionally, the research reflects that today’s students have defined their preferences for
information sources in a world where credibility, veracity, and intellectual authority are less of a
given, or even an expectation. Studies have shown that adults use cues and heuristics to decide if
a website is credible, including the authority of the search engine, site design, and functionality
(McGrew et al., 2018), and determined that while students grow up as digital natives, they
struggle with many aspects of gathering information online, including searching for and
evaluating information. Overall, addressing student struggle with processing information can
help provide a foundation of searching for and deciphering content, its efficacy and relevancy.
Moreover, as more young people eschew traditional legacy media platforms, such as newspapers
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and magazines for content that helps keep them informed and entertained, individuals find
themselves with an overreliance on digital content for their news and information.
Social Media and News Literacy
College students and young people rely heavily on social media and digital content for
their news (Livingstone, 2002; Kahne et al., 2012). The use of social media has exploded in
recent years, and the behavior has largely been driven by young people (Glynn et al., 2011). The
authors go on to state that nearly three-quarters of teens and young adults use social media
networking sites. Young people’s news sources are predominately online, and the pervasiveness
of social networks in young people’s accessing of news is significant (Ripolles, 2012). In
addition, this data reflects that young people increasingly turn to mass media websites to access
news compared to newspapers. The findings also demonstrated that young people’s news
consumption is oriented towards new media, especially social networks, while newspaper
readership among young people is in decline. Addressing the lack of news media literacy among
college students is important because while young people struggle to process news content and
information, they have an overreliance on digital content to make informed choices and decisions
that shape their worldview.
Among respondents in a national survey of college students’ selection of news pathways,
89% said they used social media to get their news, while about three-quarters (72%) said they
accessed news from their accounts at least once a day (Project Information Literacy, 2018).
Among the social media platforms used, the Project Information Literacy report stated: 71% of
students surveyed got their news from Facebook, 55% from Snapchat, 54% from YouTube, 51%
from Instagram, 42% from Twitter, 18% from Reddit, 15% from LinkedIn, 12% from Pinterest
and 12% from Tumblr. The findings suggest that young adults have diverse pathways to news
25

across a variety of menu options in the digital social media space. News in the digital domain
finds students, whether it is a passive or active engagement, to the detriment of many young
people. More than two-thirds, 68% of those respondents in the survey, said the sheer amount of
news available to them was overwhelming and often unwanted or distracting.
Additionally, critically analyzing news online through social media outlets left some
students frustrated with the frenetic bombardment of content appealing to emotional and factual
reasoning. Some of the students recognized the limitations of social media giants such as
Facebook and Twitter as a news delivery system, citing a “distrust of the news items posted on
social media . . . as incomplete and disembodied from the originating source” (Project
Information Literacy, 2018). The social media backlash as it was coined also demonstrated that
other negative factors included what one student called fast news or a minimalist presentation of
news and information that oversimplifies, fragments topics and issues, and eschews critical
context.
Adding to the complexity of young peoples’ challenges with news media literacy is the
lack of trust students place in social media. Yet, therein lies a conundrum. Students gather much
of their news and information in their daily lives through social media platforms but place little
trust in the content that streams across their digital lives. And while traditional journalistic values
still mattered for college students participating in the survey, they struggled with bias, conflicting
viewpoints, the proliferation of the fake news phenomenon, and misinformation, all of which
made engaging and processing news a complicated endeavor (Project Information Literacy,
2018).
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News Media Literacy Theories
Several theories emerge from the literature review process, though scant agreement exists
among various scholars, educators, and media researchers in terms of which serves best to
employ in pedagogy and learning outcomes. For this research, two theories were examined to
explore news media literacy. First, Potter’s cognitive theory of media literacy posits that it is the
individual and her locus of media literacy understanding that is central, not schools, parents, or
the media industry. Therefore, it is a study of the how the mind works to create a cognitive
theory that focuses on the special characteristics of media exposure (Potter 2004). The second
theory explored is Hobbs empowerment theory and retort to Potter’s cognitive theory of media
literacy. Finally, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological behavioral theory served as the primary theoretical
framework in studying news literacy habits among young people and how their environment
influences or shapes how we use and process news content.
Cognitive Versus Empowerment Media Literacy Theories
Potter’s cognitive theory of media literacy puts forth that the individual is the locus of
media literacy—not schools, parents, or media businesses (Potter 2004). As such, educating
students to be more media literate involves more than scrutinizing the media content and
motives, but rather how individuals use media in their everyday lives, the beliefs they harbor
about how media content helps them fulfill goals, and how unwanted media affects build up in
everyday exposure. Potter suggests that pedagogical approaches will not affect lasting and
meaningful changes because not enough is yet known about how the human wind works amid
media exposure. Potter posits four major ideas in his approach to a cognitive media literacy
theory (Potter 2004).
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1. Individual’s interactions with media are in a state of automaticity-that is the constant flow
of content is so great that most people act in an automatic routine.
2. The media creates and shapes the story formulas that give way to automatic routines and
responses. The media conditions people to know which is important and which is not.
3. Individuals can override the automatic routines, but they rarely do. Most individuals are
not willing to activate “their drive state” to act on content and information.
4. Individuals need to address the information processing tasks of filtering, meaning
matching, and meaning construction.
In his work writing about the state of media literacy Potter posits that much of the
existing research and complementary ideas identify four common themes where there is
agreement upon writings on the subject.
The Mass Media Can Exert Potentially Negative Effects on Individuals
The amount of information available across multiple platforms, digital and legacy, can
influence and persuade individuals to action even if the information is false. In current media,
debate continues about the role platform providers play in monitoring information and content
they host. The role of gatekeepers in a digital world, the First Amendment, and the common
responsibility of mainstream media outlets to police themselves for accuracy and truthfulness
collides at times with false information, made up news stories, conspiracy theories, doctored
images, and videos. At times, even sophisticated news consumers face the illusory truth effect, a
tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure (Hasher et al., 1977).
Repeat a lie enough times and it becomes believable.
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The Purpose of Media Literacy Is to Help People Protect Themselves From the Potentially
Negative Effects
While scholars disagree on the level of efficacy media and content have in the control
and influence across individuals, Potter posits that there is a consensus among researchers that
even weak and subtle media influence along with high rates of exposure to various media
platforms are important to consider. Throughout this study on media literacy, the theoretical
frame used to analyze media literacy among young people highlights the environments, those
within the individual’s immediate presence and interconnected environments that are part of the
person’s life in some close but not intimate manner. These first two systems in Bronfenbrenner’s
ecology of human development (the microsystem and mesosystem) serve to demonstrate how the
environmental surroundings can influence and shape how youth learn about and understand the
messages and media that often aims to persuade and convince someone to action or belief.
Media Literacy Must Be Developed
As no one is born media literate, the skills needed to understand, and process information
and content is both learned by individuals through effort and practice as well as from guidance
by experts. The learning process is continual as more highly developed skills are needed to
discern fact from fiction and understand and process messages from progressively more
sophisticated content platforms.
Media Literacy Is Multi-Dimensional
Through cognitive, attitudinal, emotional psychological and behavioral, media constantly
influence people in several ways. Increasing media literacy among individuals requires
development among several dimensions, whereas in past research, much of the analysis focused
29

on one of the four dimensions, believing that each of the dimensions were independent from one
another, rather than interconnected (Potter 2004).
Potter’s protectionist view in media literacy has been challenged as failing to capture the
depth and complexity of the media literacy field (Hobbs, 2011). The two approaches to media
literacy understanding and scholarship reside with the protectionists such as Potter and the
empowerment perspectives that Hobbs amplifies in her counter argument to Potter’s position.
Though both approaches have their limitations, scholars and educators have debated whether the
focus on media literacy should be one of an expanded conceptualization of literacy,
empowerment, or as a means to counter the negative effects of mass media and popular culture,
protectionist (Hobbs, 2011). Much expanded study and work has been efforted in the past 10
years in terms of media literacy and technology that empowers individuals, Hobbs suggests,
where young people through media literacy learning and programs such as media arts and visual
literacy, have emerged as capable, resilient, and active in their choices as media consumers and
creative producers.
Furthermore, at perhaps no other time in modern history have young people immersed
themselves voluntarily in the mediascape, alternating between producers on platforms such as
TikTok and Instagram to consumers of media through podcasts and social media outlets.
Complicating the matter more, social media platforms and their operators find themselves in
current duress as questions over privacy of individual data, manipulation of content and the
gatekeeping role of those services bolster political and cultural debate among society. Still,
despite the debate among educators and scholars over the merits of a protectionist perspective to
media literacy, young people take a real pleasure as both media consumers and producers and
resent being positioned as victims of an evil media system (Hobbs, 2011).
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Hobbs outlined a 10-step plan of action in her white paper on digital and media literacy
advocating that the teaching and integrating of digital and media literacy into the mainstream of
American communities is needed now (Hobbs, 2010). Individuals need to access, analyze, and
engage in critical thinking about the information they encode, the messages they send and how
that content shapes and informs the decisions in everyday life regarding health, work, politics,
and recreation (Hobbs, 2010). Hobbs advocates that full participation in contemporary culture
requires communication competencies, both formally and informally taught, in how individuals
create messages and how they use information and content in a digital world (Hobbs, 2010). In
her research, Hobbs posits that digital and media literacy are a constellation of life skills
necessary for full participation in a media-saturated, information rich society. Hobbs defined the
digital and media literacy competencies as the ability to do the following:
• Analyze messages in a variety of forms by identifying the author, purpose, and point of
view, and evaluating the quality and credibility of the content
• Create content in a variety of forms, making use of language, images, sound, and new
digital tools and technologies
• Reflect on one’s own conduct and communications behavior by applying social
responsibility and ethical principles
• Take social action by working individually and collaboratively to share knowledge and
solve problems in the family, workplace, and community, and by participating as a
member of a community. (Hobbs, 2010, p. 14)
Hobbs calls these traits core competencies of citizenship in the digital age that have
practical value in settings such as applying for a job online, understanding the difference
between relevant health information and marketing ploys and processing how knowledge is
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constructed and how it represents reality or point of view (Hobbs, 2011). While Hobbs has
disagreed with Potter about a protectionist viewpoint on media literacy, she posits that at the
heart of the matter is recognizing that more work needs to be done to promote an individual’s
capacity to simultaneously empower and protect themselves (Hobbs, 2011).
Rather than viewing empowerment and protection as an either-or proposition, they must
be seen as two sides of the same coin. Because mass media, popular culture and digital
technologies contribute to shaping people’s attitudes, behaviors, and values, not only in
childhood but across a lifetime, there is a public interest in addressing potential harms.
(Hobbs, 2010, p. 2)
Furthermore, Hobbs posits that the development of healthy children and youth need to be
both protected from harm that an information-saturated world imposes, while at the same time
allowing for the empowerment of the individual that media and technology can provide in
enriching personal, social, and cultural benefits on youth. In the diagram below, Hobbs created
what she called an essential competencies of digital and media literacy for all aspects of daily life
that individuals employ.

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Figure 2
Essential competencies of Digital and Media Literacy

Note. From Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action by R. Hobbs, 2010, The Aspen
Institute and Knight Foundation.

The five competencies work together, Hobbs writes in a “spiral of empowerment” that
supports lifelong learning through the consumption and creation of content, information, and
messages (Hobbs, 2010). The five competencies also represent current scholarship and thinking
about new literacies acknowledged by professional associations including the International
Reading Association (IRA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the
National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE; Hobbs, 2010).
The five competencies are explained in more detail in Table 2.

Access
Analyze
&
Evaluate
Create Reflect
Act
Digital and
Media
Literacy
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Table 1
Essential Competencies of Digital and Media Literacy
Competency Definition
Access Finding and using media and technology tools skillfully and sharing
appropriate and relevant information with others

Analyze and evaluate Comprehending messages and using critical thinking to analyze
message quality, veracity, credibility, and point of view, while
considering potential effects or consequences of messages

Create Composing or generating content using creativity and confidence in
self-expression, with awareness of purpose, audience, and
composition techniques

Reflect Applying social responsibility and ethical principles to one’s own
identity and lived experience, communication behavior and
conduct
Act Working individually and collaboratively to share knowledge and
solve problems in the family, the workplace, and the community,
and participating as a member of a community at local, regional,
national, and international levels.

Note. From “The State of Media Literacy: A Response to Potter” by R. Hobbs, 2011, Journal of
Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 55(3), 419–430.
https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2011.597594

Teacher education programs have recognized the importance of preparing educators skills
in digital and media literacy, as Hobbs points out in a quote from The Professional Standards for
the Accreditation of Teacher Preparation Institutions:
Teachers understand media’s influence on culture and people’s actions and
communication; as a result, teachers use a variety of approaches for teaching students
how to construct meaning from media and nonprint texts and how to compose and
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respond to film, video, graphic, photographic, audio, and multimedia texts.” (NCATE
Standards, 2007, p. 57, as cited by Hobbs, 2010)
Hobbs further posits that in a country with more than 300 million residents, there is no
“one size fits all” process to teaching media literacy. Instead, multiple pathways to learning must
be efforted in both formal and informal learning environments that can support digital and media
literacy, particularly among underserved audiences such as minority children, youth and young
adults, new immigrants, and seniors (Hobbs, 2010).
Where Learning Happens
Partnerships among families, schools, non-governmental organizations and libraries,
Hobbs suggests, can build the kind of community in which digital and media literacy education
occurs effectively. Among areas of learning to consider:
• In the home: Digital competencies can be learned at home along with parental
engagement.
• K–12 Education: Programs in elementary and secondary schools can help further teach
and engage students in relation to academic subjects such as math and language arts
• Library programs: The general public has access to computers and the internet at libraries
with more than 311 million Americans living within a public library service area and
more than a billion annual visits, according to the Institute of Museum and Library
Services.
• Youth media programs: Smaller programs that can help teens critically analyze, create,
and participate in traditional and interactive media.
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• Higher education: Programs that are offered in colleges and universities that allow
students to engage directly in media to learn competencies that focus on analysis and
advocacy.
An Ecology of Media Literacy
Within the frames of media literacy protectionists and those who favor an empowerment
approach resides a behavioral aspect of media literacy that examines the environmental
influences that exist and how they shape individuals use and access of media. In examining
factors that influence youth’s media use and involvement, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological
perspective provides a framework by which to study the role of media in the lives of young
people (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Bronfenbrenner posits five environmental systems within his
ecological framework. The microsystem, which examines the relationships and interactions a
child has with their immediate surroundings such as family, school, and neighborhood. The
second system is the mesosystem, which examines the connections among two or more systems
in which the child, parent, or family live. The exosystem examines the larger social system in
which they indirectly feel positive or negative force or pressure linked to their own
microstructure. The macrosystem examines cultural context, such as ethnic groups, classes and
religious affiliations and is the outermost layer in the child’s environment. The chronosystem
examines the time dimension as it relates to the child’s environment. (Bronfenbrenner, 2002).
How some youth access and use media in everyday activities research has highlighted a
function of factors such as age, gender, and family background (McHale et al., 2009). In
addition, youth are active in their own development, making choices about how to spend their
time, the reasons behind those decisions and their goals. McHale, et al. (2009) posited causal
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processes in their research that they suggest can help understand the developmental implications
of youth’s media activities as framed through an ecological perspective theory.
First, daily activities can develop a range of cognitive, intellectual, perceptual-motor, and
social-emotional competencies (McHale et al., 2009). Students in middle childhood learn skills
that provide opportunities necessary for making a living in a particular society or culture,
researchers posit (McHale et al., 2009). The authors’ review of the literature on youth
development and media use suggests that depending on the activities a young person might
endeavor, a sense of identity is formed and may be a basis for example, on why youth choose a
state of rebellion and perhaps choose to seek out media that celebrates violence or anti-social
activities (McHale et al., 2009). Next, building social ties, such as activities with peers and adults
who share mutual interests and enthusiasms, can bolster feelings of closeness and affiliation in
young people as they develop (McHale et al., 2009). In doing so, the authors suggested the
media-oriented activities and choices can be influenced by those within the affiliated group.
Young people might choose media-oriented activities to strengthen, bond or express support with
friends or other significant persons in that affiliation as witnessed through the choices on social
media platforms as an example, the authors posit.
Another mechanism by which the research posits youth development and media-oriented
activities can be prompted is by connecting youth to social institutions and systems, including
family, school, or a political system and the goals those systems represent (McHale et al., 2009).
During this 2020 presidential election, several aspects of Bronfenbrenner’s macrosystem
demonstrate the strong behavioral and psychological connections youth and young adults
develop to a cause or candidate. Likewise, the researchers posit that by playing on school sports
teams or participating in student government, young people maybe develop a strong sense of
37

affiliation with the values and goals of their school as an institution (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). As a
result, news media and advertising media may provide cues for how young people choose media
associated with the values ascribed to a particular organization or institution (McHale et al.,
2009).
In their research of 246 Mexican American families, researchers found that most of
adolescents’ time spent watching television included family members (McHale et al., 2009). One
of the findings researchers demonstrated was that young people in Mexican American families
have a sense of holding traditional Mexican familism values (values that highlight individuals’
responsibilities to families) and how those youth spent more time watching television with their
family members. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological perspective demonstrates how the decisions of
how youth engage in media-centric activities can be shaped by their environment. Throughout
this research, the ecological theory can serve as a blueprint for how college students attending
community college seek out and use media in their lives and how their choices are shaped by
their social environments.
In her work on the relationship between Bronfenbrenner’s ecology theory, youth and
mass media, Walker illuminates what she refers to as the digisystem, an extension of
Bronfenbrenner’s five systems of childhood behavioral ecology (Walker, 2015). At the time of
developing his theories in 1979, Bronfenbrenner placed production of mass media in the
macrosystem of his theory. In modern times, however, Walker posits that users today create and
participate in social digital media not only in the microsystem, but that media becomes an
extension of the individual creator (Walker, 2015). Individuals today have become participants in
programs such as reality tv shows, for example, that place them directly into the outcome of the
show where they craft and shape the narrative (Walker, 2015). Not only has the way an
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individual consumes information and content transformed from passive to active over the years
but the manner in how they interact with devices has changed (Walker, 2015). The internet and
how youth access information through devices such as smartphones and tablets, along with social
media platforms and messaging apps, have become integral to the lives of young people
worldwide (Lancet, 2018).
Walker posits that within Bronfenbrenner’s onion-style systems of childhood ecology,
the use of mass media and content is both proximate and distant (Walker, 2015). Youth are often
using a personal device and consuming media outside of the watchful eyes of parents, and the
personal device is part of that individual’s intimate zone. Yet, the content they consume might
come from far away across the globe making the reality of digital devices and media both part of
the microsystem as well as the macrosystem (Walker, 2015). Walker goes even further to suggest
that a new system be created called the digisystem to best reflect how mass media consumption
and creation expands across the systems and unlike the microsystem and the exosystem, the
digisystem need not involve relationships with the child’s parents or caregivers (Walker, 2015).
Summary
The literature indicates that the problems and challenges facing individuals who need to
encode and translate content for meaning in a digitally connected world where information and
content bombards the senses can be overwhelming. Media literacy courses throughout the last
four decades have served to help provide a compass to navigate the information world but have
fallen short in reaching an all-encompassing understanding of discerning what is fact from
fiction. Further, several competing theories focus their attention on how to address media literacy
from a cognitive approach. Under the media literacy umbrella resides news media literacy, a
relatively new form of analysis and scrutiny of news and information sources. While there is a
39

substantial body of research and study on media literacy complete with debate over which theory
is most appropriate, little research, qualitative or quantitative exists that studies the why of
choices made in news media content and how the content is used, scrutinized, and analyzed. An
overview of the qualitative approach using an ecological theory is provided in Chapter Four.

40

Chapter Three: Methodology
The primary danger of the television screen lies not so much in the behavior it produces
as the behavior it prevents—the games, the family activities, and the arguments through
which much of the child’s learning takes place and his character is formed.
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979, pp. 241–242)
This exploratory study consisted of a qualitative approach to investigate how young
college students, ages 18 to 25, search for news and information, how they analyze and process
news to determine its validity, reliability, and meaning and how behavioral relationships shape
news consumption. This research investigated the habits and techniques students use to
aggregate news from a variety of media platforms and the cognitive process in evaluating and
providing meaning to that content to discern validity. The research addressed two questions:
1. How do community college students seek out and consume accurate information to make
educated choices and decisions?
2. How can students use news media literacy recommendations to empower their ability to
seek out and consume accurate information to make educated choices and decisions?
Qualitative research uses an inductive process to investigate research as well as a number
of different approaches in accessing, decoding, and evaluating data that allow for the exploring
and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem
(Creswell & Creswell, 2018). Research using qualitative methods involves questions and
procedures; oftentimes, it involves interviews in a participant’s setting with data building from
particular to general themes (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). Researchers using qualitative
processes focus on individual meaning, flexibility in final structure, and importance of analyzing
and reporting the complexity of a situation (Creswell & Creswell, 2018).
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The data gathering in this study consisted of a phenomenological research design of
inquiry in which the researcher describes the lived experiences of individuals about a
phenomenon as described by participants (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). In this study, the
qualitative interviews were conducted through online live camera sessions such as Zoom or
Skype. The qualitative research design allowed for an approach to investigate and inquire into
the topic of news media literacy among young students to determine how they source and encode
information related to news. The qualitative approach was chosen over a quantitative process
because it allows for an amplification of the reasons why students decide on the news they
encode. A qualitative approach allows for the extrapolation of nuanced answers that can paint a
narrative answering the four RQs listed in this research. A qualitative approach aligns with the
research by providing meaningful interpretation of how students get their news and understand
its content through interviews and narrative stories. Using a qualitative interview method to
evaluate perceptions and views regarding news media literacy enabled me to draw out social,
behavioral, and cultural aspects from participants about how they encode news. A focus on the
answers to specific questions allowed for a well-developed and rich narrative spanning through
time the various stages, milestones, and triggers that create and shape the participants’ approach
to news media literacy.
Sample and Population
The participants in my study were community college students aged 18 to 25 attending a
community college in southern California. The participants were essentially first- and second-
year college students, some fresh from high school, and the primary objective of the study was to
seek out a narrative roadmap that demonstrates the where, why, what, and how of information
and news gathering among young adults. I sought a diverse pool of students who met the age and
42

educational criteria who had little exposure to news literacy instruction. The plan for this study
was to recruit students once institutional review board (IRB) approval was given by emailing
community college faculty at two or three campuses in Southern California, soliciting their help
in securing students for participation in the study. As an incentive, a $25 gift card was randomly
given to one of the students who participated in the study.
Instrumentation
For this study, the instrumentation consisted of a 12–15-question, semi-structured
interview over Zoom or Skype lasting a duration of approximately 45 to 55 minutes per subject.
The questions are positioned to provide responses to how students access and encode news while
also using the theoretical lens of ecological system theory to reveal and scrutinize environmental
and relationship factors that influence news media literacy habits among respondents. The
theoretical research used Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory, which provides for
a broad enough scrutiny of environmental factors over time that shape and influence how young
people make decisions in their lives. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory offers a
blueprint through which researchers can examine relationships within communities and society
among individuals. Bronfenbrenner posits five environmental systems within his ecological
framework. The microsystem examines the relationships and interactions a child has with their
immediate surroundings such as family, school, and neighborhood. In this study, the interview
questions illuminated, first, how the relationship between child and the microsystem has been
established and secondly, how that relationship demonstrates the connection to learning and
processing of news, content, and information early in life. The second system is the mesosystem,
which examines the connections among two or more systems in which the child, parent, or
family live. The interview questions drew out the connection among those individuals between
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the different microsystems and other surrounding environments that influence information
gathering and processing. The exosystem examines the larger social system in which they
indirectly feel positive or negative force or pressure linked to their own microstructure. In this
study, the interview questions demonstrated the influence of external, indirect environments that
affect how young people learned to process and encode news and information. The macrosystem
examines cultural context, such as ethnic groups, classes, and religious affiliations, and is the
outermost layer in the child’s environment. Interview questions in this study identified specific
cultural patterns and values that shape a young person’s dominant beliefs and ideas and how they
access news and process information. The chronosystem examines the time dimension as it
relates to the child’s environment. These examples reflect milestones or turning points in life that
over time exert influence on a young person’s beliefs or worldview, such as a divorce in the
family or separation or marriage. In this study, the interview questions highlighted how
milestone events such as an arrest of a family member by police shaped how that individual sees
news and information related to a topic such as crime or law enforcement or criminal
proceedings.
Trustworthiness, Credibility, and Confirmability
There are several steps to bolstering trustworthiness, credibility, and confirmability in the
qualitative process. Merriam and Tisdell (2016) describe trustworthiness and credibility as it
pertains to how well research findings match reality. Do the findings capture what is really there?
One of the constructs of qualitative inquiry the researchers put forth is that unlike quantitative
inquiry focused on fixed, single, objective phenomenon waiting to be discovered, qualitative
research is holistic, multi-dimensional, and ever-changing. In this research, the qualitative
questions asked of respondents relating to news media literacy is as the authors posited that
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reflected people’s constructions of reality and how they understand the world. While qualitative
inquiry seeks not to prove an objective truth or reality, scholars use several processes to increase
the credibility and ensure internal validity of the research underway (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Table 3 demonstrates that various processes used to ensure the credibility,
trustworthiness, and confirmability a researcher can employ to ensure the accuracy of qualitative
research (Lincoln& Guba, 1985). The specific process used in this study consisted of audit trails
of interviews and notes taken.

45

Table 2
Reliability, Validity, and Trustworthiness in Qualitative Research
Qualitative paradigm Definition How to improve
trustworthiness
Credibility The researcher presents data
and findings that are
plausible, truthful. Is it
believable and accurate?
Triangulation (such as
multiple researchers),
member checks, length of
Study/prolonged
engagement, number of
interviews and/or
observations, constant
comparisons.
Transferability Like external validity,
transferability is the extent
to which findings apply to
other situations; however,
the “receiving contexts,”
not the researcher,
determine the usefulness.
Thick description: provide a
good data base in order to
allow others to make
informed decisions.
Dependability The consistency, trackability,
and logic of the research
design and process.
Multiple researchers, record
accurately, report fully,
inter-rater checks on
coding, match between
research question and
design.
Confirmability Data—i.e. fieldnotes,
interviews, and
observations—can be
traced back to original
sources.
Audit trails (a residue of
records): raw data, data
reduction (memo), data
reconstruction (themes),
process notes (convo with
self about strategies
instrument development)
(same format for interview
protocol)

Note. From Naturalistic Inquiry by Y. Lincoln and E. Guba. Copyright 1985, Sage.

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A strategy deployed in this study to strengthen credibility and ensure internal validity
consisted of member checks. Member checks are a sort of fact-check that is often used daily in
professional journalism, which reconnects the interview responses with the subject who gave
them to ensure accuracy (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
This is the single most important way of ruling out the possibility of misinterpreting the
meaning of what participants say and do and the perspective they have on what is going
on, as well as being an important way of identifying your own biases and
misunderstandings of what you observed. (Maxwell, 2013, pp. 126–127)
Additionally, to aid in the reliability of this study, I wrote notes to record an additional set
of information to compare with Zoom recording accounts in order to ensure accurate synthesis of
data. Also, to ensure my findings were consistent, I used the same methods of interviews and
data collection to confirm credibility. Consistency is the extent to which findings can be
replicated (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Interviews and Data Collection
In the study’s qualitative interview procedure, interviews were conducted over a range of
one month, and each interview was expected to take between 40 and 50 minutes, depending on
the range of the subject’s responses. Interviews were conducted via Zoom conference calls with
live face-to-face interactions between researcher and subject. The data and capture techniques
used consisted of Zoom audio and video recordings as well as note taking. This method of data
collection allows for face-to-face online interaction providing opportunities for additional
questions in a semi-structured interview process. The recording tools also allow for specific and
verbatim recorded interactions that can be used in triangulation measures to ensure credibility
and internal validity.
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Limitations present in this data collection technique reflect the lack of live in-person
interviews because of the existing pandemic in 2020 that has afflicted populations throughout the
world and limited live in-person interactions. However, with existing online, face-to-face video
interaction technology, such as Zoom conference, the data collection procedures ensuring
confidentiality and protecting the information adhered to USC and IRB research policies and
standards. Transcription of Zoom recorded interviews resided on my personal computer under a
coded password, and the Zoom meetings were deleted from the technology organization’s feed.
Data Analysis
Interview responses to the news media literacy interview questions were coded by themes
identified across the RQ subject topics, such as content choices, relationship influences, outside
influences, and institutional and cultural influences. Analysis of the subjects’ responses as well
as observation included notes to later use in theorizing about the appropriate categories for
coding. The original coding scheme manufactured in this research attempted to capture and
measure the respondents’ cognitive strategies and evaluation criteria, their search processes, and
the influences that exist in finding, encoding, and processing news. The coding scheme
incorporated existing theory and prior research of media literacy, news media literacy, and
behavioral theories already in practice using a combination of both grounded theory emergent
coding and framework analysis structured coding. The theories used in this research as
framework for the coding scheme include the cognitive theory of media literacy (Potter, 2004),
the empowerment theory championed by Hobbs, and the ecological behavioral theory
(Bronfenbrenner, 1978).
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Summary
This methodology in this study sought to categorize and indicate various measures in
how young people process news and media in a meaningful way. The indicators were coded to
reflect a correlation between the theoretical lens of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory and how
behaviors, environment, and relationships shape and influence how young people use
information, specifically news and their processing. An overview of the findings and results
using an ecological theory is provided in Chapter Four.

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Chapter Four: Findings
Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.
—Jim Morrison, Break on Through: The Life and Death of Jim Morrison
The purpose of this narrative research was to conduct student interviews with community
college students about their experiences searching for, encoding, and decoding the news and
information that is meaningful to their lives that helps shape the decisions they make. The
conceptual framework identified factors of early relationships, environment, and culture as
important characteristics to understand how students searched for news and analyzed its meaning
and veracity. For this population, the key aspects were relationships, environmental pressures
and triggers, culture, and social issues. I interviewed 12 community college students from CYC
College. This study’s findings contribute to the current discussion about news media literacy
among community college students by sharing students’ narratives about their past and current
news evaluation processes and habits. In addition, the findings explore what educators and
institutions can do to help students bolster their news media literacy effectiveness. The
conceptual framework helped shape the following research questions:
1. How do community college students seek out and consume accurate information to make
educated choices and decisions?
2. In what ways do relationships such as upbringing, culture, friends, and family influence
the way community college students search for news and information to make educated
choices and decisions?
Description of the Participants
This exploratory study consisted of a qualitative approach to investigate how young
college students, aged 18 to 25, search for news and information; how they analyze and process
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news to determine its validity, reliability, and meaning; and how behavioral relationships shape
news consumption. The 12 interviewees’ demographics ranged: Latino, Indian, Italian American,
Filipino, and Caucasian. Some lived at home with at least one parent, and others lived with
roommates. Each of the students had attended at least one semester at CYC College with majors
ranging from music and theater arts to accounting and business. Students selected for this study
were chosen after they were solicited by other faculty members via email at CYC in various
academic departments outside of journalism and communications to participate in the research.
Each of the participants acknowledged they had never taken a communications or journalism—
related class on campus.
Findings
I asked 13 questions during the interviews (Appendix C) and used coding when analyzing
the answers. In the first cycle of coding, I developed themes based on Bronfenbrenner’s
ecological systems theory. Then, I identified the priori and a priori codes in the transcript and
codebook, followed by analytical coding to aggregate similar themes based on the a priori codes.
Table 3 gives an overview of the interviewees. I assigned pseudonyms quoting a student who
referenced the organization in their comments. A total of 16 students were interviewed for this
study, however, three of those students did not qualify for the research as they were beyond the
require age bracket of 18–25 years old and/or they had spent more than two years attending
community college.

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Table 3
Participants Age, Major and Self-Identified Ethnicity
Student
pseudonym
Age Major Race

Sally

19

Biology

American Indian/Alaskan
Wendy 21 Theater African American
Donny 20 Music Latino
Raya 19 Political Science Indian American
Dahlia 19 Kinesiology Latino
Carl 22 Accounting Filipino
Ash 18 Business Indian American
David 21 Music African American
Mark 22 Nursing Filipino
Amy 22 Art Italian American
Kim 18 Political Science Indian American
Sam 22 Mechanical Engineering Middle Eastern

Research Findings Pertaining to Research Question 1
Four themes emerged to address Research Question 1: social media as the main source
for news and content, distrust of the news media, students digging deeper for the truth and
considering a source’s reputation, and news as an important compass in participants’ lives.
Social Media As the Main Source for News and Content
Most interviewees chose social media and associated online apps as their primary source
of news and information. Although many said that, when they were children, their parents relied
on newspapers and TV for information, nearly all said they do not rely on the same legacy
platforms for content. Ash said, “Physical kind of media like a newspaper or newsletter. I
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haven’t picked up one of those in a long time.” One exception, perhaps because of its
convenience, is radio. Several students stated that while driving to work or school or alongside
their parents on an errand, radio they sometimes played radio news in the vehicle. Nearly every
student relied on their smartphone as the hardware of choice. Further, most said the first thing
they did upon waking up each morning was to check their phone for news and information or to
check their “socials.” The students described various processes they used to gather news and
information important in their lives and the variety of platforms where that content originated. Al
but one respondent used social media apps, such as Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, to source
news posts and information from friends and family and other non-personal contacts such as
news organizations and non-personal sources such as individuals identified by algorithms and the
user’s patterns of interest.
All the students except for one responding to the question about where they get news and
information about issues in their lives said the physical news and information gathering process
began as soon as they wake up. One student said, “I’ll wake up and check my phone and see if
there’s any new notifications or anything going on. Check the socials.” Another student said, “I
check my phone in the morning just scrolling through people I follow and explore pages to see
what’s new out there.” Dahlia said she typically wakes up and uses her phone and the associated
news app, and “that has pretty much what is important or relevant to the day.” David said he
views his phone as his main source of information and goes to his Instagram page for news of the
day. See Figure 3 for more information.

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Figure 3
Platforms Interviewees Use to Search for News and Content

Distrust of the News Media: Digging a Little Deeper for the Truth
Several respondents said they do not trust most major media outlets and the content they
read on their social media feeds to be accurate and free of bias. Most felt that large news
organizations infuse bias into their stories, irrespective of accuracy, although interviewees
characterized these as seemingly legitimate and accurate. One student said that although he
trusted the larger news organizations to provide accurate information, he believed that
information was filtered through a specific lens to get a certain point across.
The responses also highlighted a shared cognitive analysis, although through various
means and processes, to corroborate or attempt to understand content’s accuracy. Carl said that
13
9
3
3
1
Platforms Used to Access News & Information
Numbers indicate student responses to using those platforms
Smart phone Computer/Laptop TV
Radio Newspaper Magazines & Newsletters
Friends & Family
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he felt news he received from major TV outlets carried a heightened sense of bias and
misinformation: “When it comes to news sources like CNN and Fox, they have a lot of bias and
political standpoints. I take it with a grain of salt.” Amy said that it is difficult to figure out what
can be believed and what is simply untrue: “If I see something big, I’ll open Instagram, and if
someone died, for example, I’ll second guess it. I’ll second guess the source.”
Participants were asked to provide the process they use to scrutinize news and
information they gleaned in their daily routine. The students provided answers ranging from self-
determined understanding of truth and untruth based on existing knowledge to asking friends and
family to confirm the accuracy of content or information. All interviewees were asked, “How do
you determine the accuracy or truthfulness of the news and information you search for?”
Additionally, a follow-up question was asked: “Does this affect which news sources you choose
to consume?” Overall, the themes mentioned pertained to feeling a sense of overall distrust of
information and content and a need to laterally check and explore other news and content
websites to verify sources and facts. Respondents replied with specific measures they took to
ensure the accuracy of the content they decoded. Ash described a sense of confidence from
larger, mainstream news organizations such as The New York Times and National Public Radio
when fact-checking information and content he might have gleaned from social media or friends.
Chrissy described a process of checking for more than one source in a piece of content, social
media post, or news story to feel confident in its accuracy. Amy said her parents served as
secondary fact-checkers when she wanted to ensure content was truthful. Amy believed that most
online news and content found was difficult to vet for accuracy, especially social media:
It’s kind of hard with social media. You never know what to believe. You’ll take it into
your own hands and actively look up or ask people if you want to find out something
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more specific. I’ll ask my parents or family because they will know more about the
details.
While Amy elaborated on her parents' ability to help with fact-checking news and content she
found dubious, Ash said most media outlets, especially TV news outlets, carry bias and cannot
be completely trusted to be truthful. However, Ash described said major newspaper and radio
outlets as places to go when vetting a story from somewhere else for accuracy:
I feel that I know that a lot of things [news] are filtered quite a bit before they come to us.
I pull up a web page, and I try to corroborate something, so I know what the journalists
are saying. I just use my own brain cells to kind of gauge what to believe and what not to
believe. If I go to The New York Times or NPR (National Public Radio), and I know that I
don’t have to do as much verifying or cross-checking or corroborating.
These comments show the range of students’ definitions regarding how they scrutinize
whether information and news are accurate and truthful. The range of those definitions students
provided can be found in Figure 4.

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Figure 4
Processes Students Use to Verify the Accuracy of News and Information

When asked how they determine the accuracy or truthfulness of the news and information
they search for, all interviewees confirmed they cross-check or search for other sources of
information to corroborate questionable content. One student said they ask their teachers or
parents for more information about content they find questionable or uncertain. “If it is
something serious that’s on the news, I’ll ask my family or parents because they will know more
of the details,” said one of the students. Another student confirmed that their parents are fact-
checkers for information and content they find unclear or are uncertain about. “If I get
information from a professor and if I go to my dad, he may give an opposing view, and that will
probably change or affect at least the way I think about a particular issue,” said one student. Still,
in addition to relying on parents to fact-check information, each respondent said they look to
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other news sources they deem legitimate, such as The New York Times and NPR to confirm
truthfulness. While several students maintained their own cautious and skeptical view that there
was explicit and implicit bias put forth in news sites they considered “legitimate,” they still
trusted that the information and content ascribed to those news sites was accurate and valid.
Reputation Matters Among News Content Choices
In the current state of news and content dissemination, truthfulness, accuracy, and bias
appeared to play a limited role in how participants decided which sources of information they
could trust as accurate and legitimate. In society, information and content, messages, and
platforms are used in various ways to influence, shape, and persuade public opinion. The
expression “fake news” recently invoked by modern politicians and their followers, as well as
attacks against media outlets, only further amplifies and complicates an already distorted global
media domain. College students can be especially susceptible as they are typically the most
prolific digital and information consumers given their upbringing in a news- and content-
saturated 24-hour-always-on cycle. One student said, “In our past presidential election, we had
Fox versus CNN, and you knew there were definitely differences in opinions and viewpoints,
bias, so I definitely search (be aware) for that.” David believed that overall reputation does make
a difference to journalists who are putting out the news and the ability of a news organization or
individual journalist to protect and bolster that reputation for accuracy makes a difference in the
sources he goes for information: “Knowing the news source, I may be like I should not take them
too seriously, or I should definitely take them seriously because they know what they are talking
about.”
Students said determining the value of a specific news story determines how they will
scrutinize the information for accuracy. Ray said she searches multiple news outlets about a
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specific topic and attempts to figure out whether the news agency is right-wing or left-wing and
in doing so, gets both sides of the issue. Dahlia said she looks to see who is publishing the news
on her feed to determine its reputation among content providers: “I try to see who is publishing
the information. Is it a doctor or KTLA News or professor? If I see New York Times, I’ll take it
seriously.” Sally described the process they use to vet a post first seen on social media or a news
story that comes across a specific app or online feed:
If I see an article on Twitter, for example, I make sure to follow a verified news source
like ABC7, and I will make sure it’s a verified news source because it has a little blue
checkmark. From there, I read the article, and if it’s like a quote from, say, the World
Health Organization or the CDC, I try and find other articles that use the same quote or
provide a little bit more nuance. I also try to find the author of the article to see if they
have a lot of experience.
News as a Compass in Life
The impact and importance of accurate news and information in helping students
understand the world around them were apparent in the interviews. Once they confirmed the
validity and accuracy of the content to the best of their ability, students said the information
played an important role in helping shape daily decisions and bolster their understanding of
current events. The impact of the COVID-19 during this research was prominent among
respondents. Donny said that in terms of values, the information from news and topics does little
to shape the decisions in his life, but he does see the value in having information that is timely
and accurate: “I will carve out time to consume media.” Amy said the most useful news to her is
current events, such as what is happening around her in her city and across the state. “Everyone
wants to know: Mask or no mask?” Most agreed that news and information from mainstream
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sites that have built credibility and trust over decades are important when forming decisions. In
the words of Raya, news expanded her perspectives: “I think the news I receive is pretty
important as long as it is factual. It keeps me knowledgeable and not in the little bubble I grew
up in.” Dahlia was more direct in how news and information informed the decisions in her life:
“The news helps me I think to understand what is wrong and what is right because it keeps me
educated and aware of what is going on.” In addition to the value and moral compass that news
and information can impart, oftentimes, current events and topics can directly impact students’
lives. As put forth by Carl, “News and information definitely has an effect on my daily life.
Things like the rise in gas prices, taxes, where to go out, where to get gas, [and] things that affect
my life.”
In addition, controversial topics and issues in the news that had greater consequence also
resonated among interviewees. Ash said that after reading or listening about a mass shooting or
road rage incident with deadly results, the news shaped his disposition from that point:
There was a shooting nearby on the 91 freeway. Road rage. How that affected me was
like, OK, you know I’m probably not going to purposely get into any road rage incident
or yell at somebody who cuts me off.
In the past century, mass communication platforms such as magazines and newspapers
have prompted and amplified socio-cultural revolutions, ranging from the sexual revolution to
feminism to race-specific publications. For many, news and information have kept the
conversation about socio-cultural issues prominent, as they have for David, an African American
student interviewed:
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News definitely play a very major role in my life. I’m chocolate, so going outside and I
guess seeing the metaphorical temperature, the climate of what’s going on is really
important. Not only for my safety, but the safety of others.
Research Findings Pertaining to Research Question 2
The second research question asked, “In what ways do relationships such as upbringing,
culture, friends, and family influence the way community college students search for news and
information to make educated choices and decisions?” This question first explored the processes
and media platforms students use to encode and decode information in their daily lives. Then, the
findings for this research question illuminated the ways students sought out information, from
whom, how culture and background played a role in seeking news and content, and how family,
upbringing, and surroundings influenced news and content gathering and decision making. Three
major themes emerged from Research Question 2: the importance of news during the global
pandemic, news influencers early in life, the education environment as news influencers, and
friends and classmates as news influencers.
Impact of News Amid COVID-19
This finding was in part influenced by the pandemic, which shuttered schools and retail
outlets as well as restricted close contact among friends, neighbors, and classmates. The ways
students actively searched for news and information were heavily influenced by maintaining an
electronic connection to the rest of the world with social platforms and devices such as
smartphones and tablets. The interviewees discussed the pandemic as one of the main search
points for news in their lives to figure out what the masking requirements dictated for a given
time, what was closed and open, how school would continue, and other virus-related topics. The
search for news and information among participants might show a greater interest in news and
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current events. Thus, results could be more heavily concentrated toward the pandemic because of
the year-long restrictions, mandates, and overall concern with avoiding COVID and staying
healthy. News that was meaningful in students’ lives took on a greater role during the pandemic
as restrictions, mandates, and health concerns emerged as pressing issues. Ash said
understanding and learning played a role in news consumption:
News is meaningful for a multitude of reasons. One, we can learn something from it.
And, two, we can understand what to do or what not to do. News can also be just for our
general knowledge that something happened.
Topics that students said they needed to understand through the news cycle were the
global pandemic, social justice issues, and mass shootings, all events that can carry heavy
emotional trauma. Mark said of current events,
I feel like I’m very lost if I don’t know what’s going on in the world. There was a time
when I went through the day with no news, and someone told me there was a mass
shooting, and I was like, excuse me, what just happened?
Raya explained that understanding topics and issues that are happening around town or in
her city “allows me to be able to converse with her peers and know what’s happening in the
world.” For others, the events that followed the shooting deaths of Black men and the killing of
Black men by police officers were better understood through the news cycle: “News and
information play a very major role in my life. I stay active about certain issues that pertain to me
and my people and not just my people, but all people of color, and that is really important.”
News Influencers Early in Life
I asked students several questions about their upbringing and the relationships they
shared as children and teens to explore how the environment and those around them shaped their
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methods, ways, or dispositions when searching for meaningful news and information. Their
responses reflect that the didactic relationships between student and parent and student and
teacher had a significant influence on how students searched for and absorbed news and
information, especially as it related to current events. One of the interviewees said that he does
not have a smartphone or tablet and that his father typically relays information about current
events to him by: “I’m Indian. The Indian mindset is study, study, study, and work as hard as you
can.” There was little time for random web searching in this student’s life. Instead, his father,
whom he trusted to tell him what was important for him to know, provided news, current events,
and topic-driven information daily. One student had the opposite behavioral experience in which
one parent was not in his life, and the other was largely inconsistent in sharing information: “I
don’t think they [mom, cousins] did a very good job of that, influencing how I learned about the
world. I watched TV and Disney shows.”
Wendy explained that much of her childhood was immersed in having the news on TV in
the family home. As was typical prior to the internet and smartphone revolution, televisions were
among the primary drivers of news and information in households during the 1980s, 1990s, and
early 2000s:
My mom would often have the TV on watching news, cable TV, and so I got used to
watching it. My mom was very political, still is, and I had to look at the news because
I’m African American, and I have to know what’s happening in my community and
surroundings.
Others echoed the pattern of news consumption as background noise provided by their
parents early in life, as TVs or radios beamed news coverage in a 24-hour news cycle. Carl
explained that his parents typically got their news from TV by watching news in the morning.
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While eating breakfast, they would have the TV on, he said. Mark said TV and radio news were
always on in and around his early childhood:
There were TVs in the background growing up. My brother would always listen to NPR,
and I started to listen to it with him, and that’s I’m sure how I got into it (news on NPR).
I would listen to NPR every time I ever hung out with him or drove. And from that point
on, I would listen to NPR on the radio anytime I drove to school.
The Education Environment as a News Influencers
Interviewees recounted the factors during their teenage years and in high school and
relationships that influenced and shaped their methods, ways, or attitudes toward searching for
news and information. Their responses reflect the didactic relationships between student and
teacher and between student and friend/classmate. Nearly all students said that teachers,
classmates, and friends had a direct impact on how they understood the world around them and
how they searched for and understood information and content that shaped their lives. One of the
interviewees said,
I would rely on what teachers in high school told us. Or my friends would have a
different teacher and would say, ‘That’s not what they told us.’ And they would describe
it. Students expressed a skeptical connection to the truth of news stories when friends
would describe a story and skepticism about bias, but interest in stories about current
events that teachers would tell them.
Several students explained their parents had the most influence in how they sought news
and the kind of news they found meaningful during childhood and through their early middle
school years. However, by the time they reached high school, the influencers shifted from family
to institution, teachers, and classmates. Also, during this time, formative processes began to take
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shape, ranging from socio-cultural ideas to racial identity and equality and political knowledge.
At the same time, bias and falsity in news coverage surfaced among students who recalled
learning about topics and issues through school and friends. Donny said that in high school, he
became much more socially aware of issues, the media, and stories about social issues and topics
in the news and among teachers. Mark and Dahlia said high school classrooms became a place
where news was shown frequently, and topics were discussed and even written about. Mark
explained how he transitioned into finding news of value thanks to his teacher:
During my teenage years, I really wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to listen
to the news, but my friends found it boring. My American Government teacher would
play CNN the whole class period. I enjoyed it.
Dahlia said she began to learn about news in the high school classroom:
The teachers would play different videos, whatever the administrators thought was
important for us to know that day, CNN, YouTube, news articles they thought were
relevant. That’s how I got my information.
Oftentimes, students said the news was unavoidable as a topic in class. Carl said several
classes were often focused on events transpiring outside of the classroom: “In classes like
political science and history, we would have to write reports about current events, so that was a
big part of learning about the news.” What lacked in the educational setting, however, appeared
to be any type of news media literacy component that helped students understand the news they
digested, where it came from, potential explicit and implicit bias, and how to discern fact from
falsity. None of the interviewees could recall any media literacy measures or news media literacy
steps taken to help them understand content. Amy said that much of the information was
presented, and students were left to figure out what it meant.
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I would say a lot of influence about the news came from my high school teachers. There
were always those things where you would have a biased teacher, or the news was one-
sided. Growing up, that’s where I was exposed to things like bias and racism. The idea
that the history books were written by the winners.
Friends and Classmates as News Influencers
Friends and classmates in high school significantly impacted the ways students sought
out news, understood news topics, and used the content to shape decisions in their lives. Several
students said that hearing other classmates discuss current events, social media posts, and
political views illuminated different how various opinions came about but did not necessarily
change or alter their own views. Donny said he learned more about events happening in real time
and how they mattered as more students began talking about current events: “In high school, I
started to become more socially aware of issues. I was being exposed to different kinds of media
and hearing people’s stories.”
Others whose cultural backgrounds were underrepresented said that learning about the
news was a gateway to learning about themselves:
I come from a background that is underrepresented and you know you want to fight for
causes that support them. I grew up with a lot of my friends identified with those
communities, so you want to consume news from platforms that are going to support
them.
Students also were made aware of how their friends’ and classmates’ opinions and
viewpoints on topics and issues had been crafted and shaped in the home environment:
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I could definitely see where my friends’ opinions came from: their parents. They would
go to a biased source and take their word as true. I would take what they said with a grain
of salt and make my own opinion.
David said that, despite the differences in political viewpoints or how his friends interpreted
certain issues or topics, discussion of the news was important to him: “My friends, along with
my parents, opened my mind to new things, new people. It made me more accepting as a person.
Differences in people are awesome, for lack of a better word.
Summary
This study explored how community college students searched for and processed news
and information that shaped their choices and how they determined the accuracy of those content
choices. Participants experienced familial and cultural cues early on through childhood that
exposed them to various news topics and issues in the home as well as cues about what kinds of
content delivery platforms they used. Many individuals expressed a nostalgia regarding the kinds
of news and delivery platforms and environment they experienced as children when thinking
about how their family got information about the world around them. Several participants said
that their viewpoints were, in part, crafted early by their parents’ interest in certain issues and
topics and that as students, they carried those habits through middle and high school when
delving deeper into conversations about charged news events.
All participants discussed the need to try to ascertain truth from falsity and bias when
they searched for and processed news and content. Several respondents also suggested that news
was more than just informative, as it was necessary based on their skin color, gender
considerations, or financial concerns. They used news to help them understand and gain meaning
and context. Based on the interview data, this chapter discussed eight findings related to the
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research questions. Additionally, several students discussed implicit and explicit biases regarding
their high school teachers and their influence on how they encoded news and information
especially in the context of current events. Educators should take specific note in navigating their
own biases when it comes to sharing news and information that influences students. Chapter Five
addressed the implications of these findings and suggestions based on this study’s data by
outlining recommendations and solutions.

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Chapter Five: Discussion and Recommendations
If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to
control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it.
—Edward Bernays, Propaganda
Chapter Four provided findings regarding the processes and cognitive steps students use
to search for news and information that is important in their lives as well as how their
environment, upbringing, culture, and relationships influenced how they sought out content and
affected decision making. Chapter Five provides brief explanations for the research findings and
recommendations for educators and schools to implement in K–12 and community college
settings. Recommendations for organizational change will also be made to address steps
educational institutions can take to positively impact the student population.
The topics addressed in this qualitative study were related to how community college
students searched for news and information and how environmental and cultural relationships
affected news media literacy. This research sought to highlight cognitive and behavioral steps
community college students set in motion when seeking news and information. The multiple
themes/findings featured in Chapter Four focused on the role that family, relationships, culture,
and environmental factors play in shaping how students seek, understand, and use news and
information in their lives. Understanding how these factors of news media literacy apply to
community college students leads to an understanding of how content, media, and information
shape decisions, behavior, and knowledge, critical because news and current events connect and
influence young people’s experiences and shape their values about the world (Moore, 2013). The
following sections discuss each of the eight themes related to the research questions along with
their associated theoretical background.
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Overview of the Study
The purpose of this study focused on how external influences such as upbringing, early
relationships, and cultural environment influenced how young college students encode news and
information, how they discern between fact and fiction, and what cognitive methodology they
use to process news and information that is meaningful to their lives. Interviews v were
conducted to understand participants’ experiences with news and information. This research
exploration was conducted during the pandemic when students were engaged in remote learning.
Further, interviews were conducted when the United States experienced anti-press sentiment and
hatred fueled, promoted, and propagated by individuals and elected leaders at the highest level of
government. As illustrated in the literature review, much study and research have been done on
related media literacy topics, particularly how K–12 education approaches media literacy
teaching in broad brush strokes. How young college students use and process specific aspects of
social media, digital content, and legacy platforms to understand news about the world around
them and how it influences their actions remains a largely undeveloped field of research.
Summary of the Findings
The interviewees had unique perspectives and life experiences, yet the results reflected
common themes supported by theories regarding the news media literacy experience among
community college students. First, digital, and web-based technology were participants’ primary
choice when seeking information and content, despite legacy information platforms like
newspapers, magazines, and books. The following sections describe the five major themes
relating to the first research question.
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The News Gathering Process: Social Media Is Key
Participants were asked to describe the processes they use to gather news and information
and what kinds of platforms they used. Most students described using their smartphones almost
immediately upon waking to view social media posts, content, and information on various apps.
Hobbs (2011) posited that young people take pleasure as media consumers and producers. As
such, students should be educated in news media literacy habits to be capable of accessing,
analyzing, and engaging in critical thinking about the information they encode and the messages
they send (Hobbs, 2010).
Hobbs (2010) explained that information and news inform young people’s decisions in
everyday life regarding health, work, politics, and recreation. Digital and media literacy is a
constellation of life skills necessary in a media-saturated, information-rich society (Hobbs,
2010). As a result, full participation in contemporary culture requires communication
competencies, both formally and informally taught, in how individuals create messages and use
information and content in a digital world (Hobbs, 2010).
Students Had Similar Explanations for News Importance
In the literature, a sense of news importance refers to the value students place on how
news and information help inform their knowledge of the world and shape their daily decisions.
Aptly, news and current events connect directly to their lived experiences, shaping their values
(Moore, 2013). Furthermore, additional studies on media literacy and news intake have found
that news comprehension can significantly affect political knowledge formation, civic discourse,
social and civic awareness, and the individual’s worldview (Kahne et al., 2012). Interviewees
echoed these themes and provided richer personal scrutiny to reflect the importance of news and
information in their daily lives.
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Participants echoed additional sentiments surrounding concepts of how news informs
their lives, broadens their perspectives, and shapes how they go about their day. The responses
show the range of reasons news is important to them even as they admit the sheer amount of
information and news is overwhelming and oversaturates their lives, sometimes affecting their
mental dispositions.
Determining Accuracy and Truthfulness in News
Head and Eisenberg’s (2009) study on college students and the information and news
media landscape highlights the frustration that students experience when seeking content online
because of their lack of familiarity in an expanding and increasingly complex digital information
world. Chapter Two outlined some of the promising practices educators can use that lead to
positive news media literacy experiences for students. Recommendations to better equip students
with news media literacy skills in a media-saturated environment were among a 10-step plan of
action advocating that the teaching and integrating of digital and media literacy into the
mainstream of American communities is needed now (Hobbs, 2010). Individuals need to access,
analyze, and engage in critical thinking about the information they encode, the messages they
send, and how that content shapes and informs the decisions in everyday life regarding health,
work, politics, and recreation (Hobbs, 2010). The student responses in Chapter Four affirmed
that using critical analysis, double-sourcing information and employing credibility and validity
checks on news positively impacted their ability to understand topics and issues that impacted
their lives.
Students Employed Various Accuracy Checks
How students evaluate and cross-examine various sources to confirm accurate content in
news searches contribute to the definition of digital and media literacy competencies outlined by
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Hobbs (2010). Students mentioned examples of identifying authors of a published news story or
social media post to determine credibility or relying on the reputation of a news organization or
social media outlet when discerning the validity or accuracy of the content. Hobbs (2010)
described the process among the media literacy steps students take, including analyzing
messages in various forms by identifying the author, purpose, and point of view, and evaluating
the quality and credibility of the content.
Reputation and Prominence Determine Credibility
As mentioned in Chapter Two, debate continues about the role platform providers play in
monitoring the information and content they host. The role of gatekeepers in a digital world and
the common responsibility of mainstream media outlets to police themselves for accuracy and
truthfulness collides at times with false information, made-up news stories, conspiracy theories,
doctored images, and videos. At times, even sophisticated news consumers face the illusory truth
effect, a tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure (Hasher et
al., 1977). In Chapter Four, Raya mentioned that if she is examining the accuracy or truthfulness
of a topic or news event, she will search multiple news outlets with the same type of news to
scrutinize how the information is presented. In her research on Schneider’s work, Fleming
(2014) identified characteristics of analyzing and evaluating news. One of the skillsets
professional journalists excel in, Schneider posited, is as expert information gatherers and
processors. The chief pedagogical pathway in news literacy is teaching students to discern fact
from fiction in a series of questions Schneider put forth for students to ask about information that
includes topics like summarizing a story’s main points, assessing evidence supporting this point,
whether evidence is direct or indirect, reliability of sources, and whether the story appears fair
(Fleming, 2014).
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News and Content Influences and Shapes Decision Making
As mentioned earlier, the impact of accurate news and information was important to
students insofar as contributing to their understanding of the world around them as well
influencing the decisions and actions of their daily routine. Students absorb a prolific amount of
news and content in their lives, and discerning fact from falsity is important. Understanding how
to employ news media literacy techniques is critical because news and current events connect
and influence young people’s experiences and shape their values about the world (Moore, 2013).
Several interviewees explained the various ways accurate news and information shapes their
decision making. Carl said news and information such as gas prices and where to go out in light
of Covid-19 restrictions and mask rules impacted his decisions. News and information that was
timely and news that individuals can use appeared as a theme among students. David said as an
African American student, news plays a very major role in his life in terms of understanding how
he should go about presenting himself, the clothes he should wear, and even how his disposition
should be presented based on current events and the cultural climate gleaned from the news.
Discussion for Findings to Research Question 2
The second research question focused on the students’ relationships, upbringing, culture,
and environmental factors that influenced how they seek and process news and information. The
findings illuminated ways students sought information and from whom, the role of culture and
background in seeking news and content, and how family, upbringing, and surroundings
influenced news and content gathering and decision making. These results align with ecological
systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), which provides for a broad enough scrutiny of
environmental factors over time that shape and influence how young people make decisions.
Family relationships early in life, friends, teachers, culture, and other environmental factors
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influence how students absorb, seek, and process news and content. Ecological systems offer
insight into observed relationships between structural and relational home environments and
early individual media use (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).
Impact of COVID-19
Maintaining an electronic connection to the rest of the world influenced participants’
news and information searches. The interviewees discussed the pandemic as a central search
topic to help them navigate mask mandates, businesses to frequent, navigate school, and other
topics related to the pandemic. Participants’ searches might have skewed toward current events,
and results could heavily reflect topics related to the pandemic because of restrictions, mandates,
and overall health concerns.
The Role of News in Student Life
News plays a key role in providing participants a sense of knowledge, understanding, and
meaning. Interviewees reported that news and information kept them informed and educated.
The connection to world events and local topics provided the life context for them to converse
with friends, family, and social circles. Several students reiterated the meaning and value of
news and information with descriptors such as “important to my life,” a feeling “of being lost
without news,” and “enriches and brings entertainment to life.” In this way, a media literate-
person “understands how words, images, and sounds influence the way meanings are created and
shared in contemporary society in ways that are both subtle and profound and a person who is
equipped to assign value, worth and meaning to media use and media messages” (Potter, 2010, p.
681).
Moreover, the role that news and information play students’ lives contribute to shaping,
informing, and educating a democratic citizenry (Ashley et al., 2013). As the number of news
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outlets continues to diminish, the news consumer’s mounting challenge is often attempting to
discern fact from fiction.
Childhood Life Influences Shape Content Choices
Relationships and environmental factors play a significant role in determining and decode
news and information. This was evident from the interviewees and is part of addressing the
second research question. Respondents spoke about the didactic relationships they had with
family members as children and the behavioral influence of how their parents searched for news
and understood the world around them as important. This is consistent with the literature insofar
as how the ecological behavioral theory model and the social comparative theory model
influence and shape students’ decision making. Parents’ or siblings’ behavior helps shape the
young college student’s behaviors in searching for content and information (Bronfenbrenner,
1979).
Several respondents explained that their first patterns of news consumption began early in
life in their parents’ cues. Moreover, digital platforms and technologies in their workplace can
influence a young person’s early use of and attitude toward media (Jordan & Romer, 2014).
Mass media influences early in life through didactic relationships are seemingly direct
relationships that occupy cognitive space and influence decisions.
Education, Teachers, and Classmates Influence Content Choices
Research on community college students’ use of news and information indicates that high
school and teen years are formative in shaping how students seek and understand content. Social
media was the primary source of news and information during the high school years.
Smartphones and gaming consoles are an extension of the individual in many settings and
influence how and what kinds of content and news and individual seeks and processes (Walker,
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2015). In the mesosystem, the connections between two or more systems can begin to shape
young people’s newsgathering habits, which can carry through high school and into college. The
mesosystem is where relationship influences begin to permeate the cognitive process and
influence media search and processing behaviors. Media becomes a connection in the habits of
young students who grow up in a world where information is a click away and often the first
choice of inquiry in learning about a topic or subject.
Interviewees said that, in high school, they learned to be more socially aware of issues,
understood more deeply the constructs of racism and bias, and how teachers professed
information that was directed through their own perspective, viewpoints, and lens. Several
students also explained that teachers influenced how they viewed the world around them through
the lens of a specific news channel or source, specifically teachers who taught American
government, civics, and history. These findings draw on social cognitive theory, where young
students observe and imitate the actions around them (use of media; Bandura, 1986).
Implications for Practice
This study’s findings may help educators and learning institutions become more aware of
news media literacy topics and issues that challenge students. The study informs the work of
formal and informal educators. The following sections provide recommendations to improve
community college students’ media literacy habits in terms of understanding and processing
content and information. Based on the literature and this study’s findings, the focus of reform
efforts should be across multiple outlets where formal and informal educators can effect change.
Partnerships among families, schools, non-governmental organizations, and libraries can build
effective digital and media literacy education (Hobbs, 2010). Implications for news media
literacy reform practices are also outlined below.
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Institutional Change
Teacher education programs have recognized the importance of preparing educators in
digital and media literacy (Hobbs, 2010). The Professional Standards for the Accreditation of
Teacher Preparation Institutions identified that teachers do the following:
Understand media’s influence on culture and people’s actions and communication; as a
result, teachers use a variety of approaches for teaching students how to construct
meaning from media and nonprint texts and how to compose and respond to film, video,
graphic, photographic, audio, and multimedia texts. (NCATE Standards, 2007, p. 57)
Hobbs (2010) further posited that there is no one-size-fits-all process to teach media literacy.
Instead, multiple pathways in both formal and informal learning environments can support
digital and media literacy, particularly among underserved audiences. Thus K–12 campuses and
colleges must use various teaching approaches to further teach and engage students in all
academic subjects. In college settings, students in programs where they engage directly in media
learn competencies in analysis and advocacy (Hobbs, 2010).
Hobbs outlined a 10-step plan of action to address digital and media literacy while
advocating for teaching and integrating digital and media literacy into the mainstream
communities (Hobbs, 2010). Individuals need to access, analyze, and engage in critical thinking
about the information they encode, the messages they send, and how that content shapes and
informs their health, work, politics, and recreation decisions (Hobbs, 2010). Hobbs noted that
full participation in contemporary culture requires communication competencies in creating
messages and using information and content in a digital world (Hobbs, 2010). Hobbs posited that
digital and media literacy is necessary for full participation in a media-saturated, information-
rich society. The following section presents recommendations for organizations can take action.
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To summarize, educators and other institutional personnel are responsible for employing
news media literacy techniques, processes, and curricula that promote students’ evaluating,
scrutinizing, and decoding of news and content. In doing so, students can learn core
competencies of citizenship in the digital age that have practical value in applying for a job
online, understanding the difference between relevant health information and marketing ploys,
and processing how knowledge is constructed and how it represents reality or point of view
(Hobbs, 2011). The following recommendations are posited to help organizations meet effective
news media literacy teaching and learning goals for their students.
Recommendations
The following section outlines recommendations for educators and learning institutions,
including a clear, methodological process that educators and schools can employ to close the gap
in news media literacy knowledge. Integrating news media literacy into K–12 teaching has
proven challenging for educators because news and current events can prove unpredictable and
intersect uncomfortably with national party politics. Many educators in K–12 settings shy away
from using news and current events in their teaching (Moore, 2013). The recommendations also
include creating effective professional development and a suggested curriculum that can lead to
improved learning experiences for all students in media literacy. Additional recommendations
include continued support for existing programs that address news media literacy already in
place and how to help institutions move from recommendations to reality. Based on Hobbs’
(2010) media literacy model and the literature review, I suggest the following recommendations
regarding professional development, transforming the classroom learning experience, and
specific pedagogical steps in teaching effective news media literacy techniques.

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Institutional Change: Through Commitment and Professional Development
Learning institutions must communicate the importance of media literacy among
educators as a broader topic while empowering teachers to embrace uncomfortable content and
current events. The development of healthy children and youth need to be protected from harm
that an information-saturated world imposes while allowing for the individual empowerment that
media and technology can provide in enriching personal, social, and cultural benefits (Hobbs,
2011). Creating a sense of urgency toward a mission or goal is the first stage of Kotter’s (2007)
theory of organizational change, which will be discussed in the following section.
The literature suggests professional development for educators and administrators to
increase news media literacy learning and competencies (Hobbs, 2011). Specifically,
professional development is needed to better prepare educators to discuss news media literacy
competencies that can create a spiral of empowerment that supports lifelong learning through
consuming and creating content, information, and messages (Hobbs, 2010). The competencies
also represent current scholarship and thinking about new literacies acknowledged by
professional associations, including the IRA, the NCTE, and the NCATE (Hobbs, 2010).
From Recommendations to Reality: Kotter’s Eight-Step Model for Org Change
It is imperative for institutions to educate well-rounded students who can successfully
participate in a democratic society by addressing gaps in news media literacy processes among
young adults. Campus leadership must facility the institutional imperative and sense of urgency
necessary to effect change (Kotter, 2007). I will use Kotter’s (2007) eight-step theoretical model
for successful organizational change to inform how CYC can close news media literacy gaps for
community college students.

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Table 4
The Eight-Stage Process of Creating Major Change
Establishing a sense of urgency
Examining the market and competitive realities
Identifying and discussing crises, potential crises, or major opportunities

Creating the guiding coalition
Putting together a group with enough power to lead the change
Getting the group to work together like a team

Developing a vision and strategy
Creating a vision to help direct the change effort
Developing strategies for achieving that vision

Communicating the change vision
Using every vehicle possible to constantly communicate the new vision and strategies
Having the guiding coalition role model the behavior expected of employees

Empowering broad-based action
Getting rid of obstacles
Changing systems or structures that undermine the change vision
Encouraging risk taking and nontraditional ideas, activities, and actions

Generating short-term wins
Planning for visible improvements in performance, or “wins”
Creating those wins
Visibly recognizing and rewarding people who made the wins possible

Consolidating gains and producing more change
Using increased credibility to change all systems, structures, and policies
Hiring, promoting, and developing people who can implement the change vision
Reinvigorating the process with new projects, themes, and change agents

Anchoring new approaches in the culture
Creating better performance through customer and productivity-oriented behavior
Articulating the connections between new behaviors and organizational success
Developing means to ensure leadership development and succession

Note: Adapted from John P. Kotter, “Why Transformation Efforts Fail,” Harvard Business
Review (March-April 1995): 61
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Step 1 requires that leaders establish a sense of urgency as it is crucial to gaining needed
cooperation (Kotter, 2007). The misinformation propagated through our most recent presidential
election and subsequent efforts to discredit news and journalism should provide a call to action
as information, manipulation of news and content, and innovation in foreign technology and
actors to create fake news on social media and online sites persists.
Community college stakeholders understand the importance of factual information and
supporting news media literacy efforts. During the 2016 presidential election, young people
reported that they accessed nearly 72% of the news they consumed from online digital sources,
with social media topping their list of news sources (Head et al., 2016). Determining the validity
and reliability of accurate news and content online to provide meaningful knowledge is a
challenge for many young college students. Students struggle with searching and gathering
information online and with critical analysis and evaluation of content (McGrew et al., 2018). A
2016 Stanford University study found that most middle school, high school, and college students
were functional news illiterates (Dyer, 2017). Thus, a new, dynamic approach to creating and
teaching information and news literacy must be created that can invigorate educators to act and
students to learn. Creating a strong sense of urgency usually demands bold or even risky actions
that normally are associate with good leadership (Kotter, 2007).
Step 2 of Kotter’s (2007) organizational change principle requires the organization to
build a coalition of members from key campus groups who can create actionable steps to move
the organization toward its goal. Step 3 refers to a picture of the future with some implicit or
explicit commentary on why people should strive to create that future. Within the educational
setting, the right coalition of partners is needed to implement a vision that can bolster news
media literacy among young adults. The vision can be mundane and simple, but it includes
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strategies, plans, and budgets and is only one factor in a large system (Kotter, 2007). The
coalition of educators and change agents must have a clear vision. Kotter (2007) defined the
characteristics of a vision as clear and focused on imaginable, desirable, feasible, and attainable
while being general enough to allow individual initiative and alternative responses in light of
changing conditions. That vision should also be communicable and easily explained within 5
minutes.
Step 4 of Kotter’s (2007) model requires the institution to convey the new vision to a
campus audience in a method that creates a shared sense of a desirable future that can motivate
and coordinate the kinds of actions that create transformations. One of the reasons Kotter (2007)
explains that visions fail in the communication stage is that they can be challenging intellectual
and emotional tasks. Each of the coalition members must be able to answer for themselves the
questions that the mind generates: What will this mean for me? My friends? The institution? Do I
really believe what I’m hearing about a direction? (Kotter, 2007). Campus leaders must
encourage and motivate the vision’s early adopters often, as the most powerful way to
communicate a new direction is through behavior.
Step 5 of Kotter’s (2007) model requires the institution and its leaders to remove barriers
to change, such as outmoded ways of thinking of news and content, discomfort, and lack of
confidence among educators in discussing how news and information play into current issues
and topics. They must also build on current knowledge in how young adults use technology to
access news and content. A successful transformation that removes barriers to change mandates
the training. In the case of an educational institution, leaders must think thoroughly about the
vision, understand the capabilities and functions of the coalition members, and recognize the
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kind and amount of training required to help people learn new behaviors, skills, and attitudes
(Kotter 2007).
Step 6 (Kotter, 2007) involves generating and tracking short-term wins. Major
institutional changes take time and running a transformation effort without serious attention to
short-term wins is risky. Short-term wins build transformation milestones and provide the
guiding coalition concrete feedback from students and educators about the understanding of their
vision. Kotter describes the role of short-term wins in six ways: providing evidence that
sacrifices are worth it; rewarding change agents with a pat on the back; helping fine-tune vision
and strategies; undermining cynics and self-serving resisters; keeping bosses on board; and
building momentum.
Step 7 features the institution keeping a foot on the accelerator to reach the end goal.
Major change takes a long time, especially in big organizations or institutions (Kotter, 2007).
Many forces can stall the process far short of the finish line. Interdependencies can seriously
complicate change. Short-term wins that are visible and celebrated are needed as successful
transformation coalition members use the credibility afforded by the short-term win to push
forward faster (Kotter, 2007). The right leadership among coalition members embarking on news
media literacy reform is vital at this stage to prevent change from stalling.
Step 8 is ensuring that the culture of the new change takes root among all members of the
institution to ensure the organization’s long-term success (Kotter, 2007). Culture changes only
after you have successfully altered people’s actions, after the new behavior produces some group
benefit for a time, and after people see the connection between the new actions and performance
improvement (Kotter, 2007). Successfully anchoring change in a culture comes after long
endeavors to reach the end of the transformation process. They also depend on results that
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identify that the new way is better than the old. Change also requires much discussion to admit
the efficacy of the new practice, often involves changing key individuals along the way making
the right decisions to ensure new leaders will assert the new change (Kotter, 2007).
Future Research
As a result of the findings in this study, future research on news media literacy among
community college students should take into account the influences among teachers and
administrators, whose lesson plans impact how students interpret the news and learn about bias
and trust. Exploring the influence among educators and administrators will illuminate how best
to equip students with the tools to understand and act critically when scrutinizing news content.
Additionally, future research with a larger student sample that encompasses varied
upbringing, socioeconomic backgrounds, and cultural behavioral aspects might illuminate the
family and cultural dynamic that influences how students interpret news and information.
Research utilizing different lenses and frameworks might provide a more robust analysis of how
culture, upbringing, and familial dynamics play a role in students’ news media literacy.
Conclusions
The modern world is filled with ubiquitous sources of information. Throughout the last
couple of decades, the platforms and devices in which we source news and information
transformed from analog to digital to always being connected to us. That information can help
us, inform us, shape our opinions and beliefs, misinform our understanding of the world, and
change us in ways we thought were not possible through persuasion, manipulation, and
misdirection. Community college students embarking on their new educational adventures need
more comprehensive processes and tools to navigate news and information in modern times.
85

There should be a greater awareness of the lack of news media literacy curriculum and
programming in K–12 and higher education.
Community colleges should consider news media literacy programming and class
instruction across all topics. Educators should feel comfortable and supported in addressing,
discussing, and analyzing controversial topics and issues where information and misinformation
are spread. It is time to examine an organizational culture where controversial topics and issues
are swept aside due to fear of confronting students’ real issues of concern. Students want to feel a
sense of confidence in understanding from an authoritative and empathetic educator how
information plays a role in their daily lives and how to use information and misinformation to
shape their decisions. With courage and the right training in news media literacy, educators can
empower students to become information gatherers, confident in their knowledge, bolstered by
new literacy tools, and strengthened by their newfound understanding to become better citizens
in our democracy.

86

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Appendix A: Theoretical Alignment Framework Matrix
Research question Theoretical framework Data instrument questions
How do community college
students determine if news
and content they search for
is true or false?

Cognitive Theory of Media
Literacy (Potter, 2004)

Empowerment Theory in
Media Literacy
(Hobbs, 2011)
Interview questions: 1–3
How do community college
students seek out and
consume accurate
information to make
educated choices and
decisions?
Social Ecological Theory
(Bronfenbrenner, 1977)
Interview questions: 2a, 4, 5
What obstacles prevent
students from learning
effective news media
literacy practices?
Social Ecological Theory
(Bronfenbrenner, 1977)

Cognitive Theory of Media
Literacy (Potter, 2004)

Interview questions: 8–14

How do community college
students determine if news
and content they search for
is true or false?
Social Ecological Theory
(Bronfenbrenner, 1977)

Interview questions: 2,4,6,
8–14

91

Appendix B: Interview Protocol Recruitment Email
Subject line: An Ecological Examination of News Media Literacy Among Young Adults in
Community College.

Email text: Hello. I am Michael Coronado, a doctoral student at USC. The purpose of this email
is to inform you about a research study called an ecological examination of news media literacy
among young adults in community college. Please read the information below and let me know if
you would be interested in participating in this questionnaire. Approximately 15–20 students will
be interviewed via Zoom for this research. Your participation is voluntary. You must be aged 18
or older to participate and have been enrolled at this community college for at least one semester.
Even if you decide to participate, you may still stop the interview at any time without any
consequence to you. If you are interested or would like to know more about this study, please
contact me at mc35913@usc.edu. An appointment will be set up to find a convenient time for a
Zoom interview. Thank you for your time and consideration. I appreciate it.

Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this study is to learn more about how students search for,
process, and use news and information, how they discern fact from fiction and how upbringing,
relationships and environment influence those decisions.

Procedure: In a Zoom video session, you will be asked a series of questions about news. The
interview will take about 30–40 minutes.
Participants will be entered in a drawing for one of two $25 Amazon gift cards.

Confidentiality: Only the researcher will have access to the data. Your responses will be coded
and stored on a secured computer that is passcode encrypted.
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please contact Dr.Patricia Tobey at
tobey@usc.edu, USC Rossier School of Education, or Michael Coronado, mc35913@usc.edu.

92

Appendix C: Protocol for Interview With Participants
Preamble: Thank you for participating today. This interview will inform my research findings
on news media literacy among community college students ages 18 to 25 in Southern California
and how they search for, process, and use news and information that shapes their decisions. This
interview has two sections: 1) questions about how you seek news and content 2) questions about
your past family and environment and its relationship to seeking information and news.

Qualitative Interview Questions
Question Set 1: Seeking News and Information
1. Tell me about how you go about getting news and information about issues in your life?

2. What are the different ways you get news and information?
a. What news is least useful to you and what news is most useful?

3. What specific process or steps do you use to get that information or news?

4. Tell me how valuable or meaningful information and news is to you?

5. In what ways can you describe news and information that is meaningful to you?

6. How do you believe that the information and content you search for shapes the decisions
or values in your life?

7. How do you determine the accuracy or truthfulness of the news and information you
search for?
a. Does this affect which news source you choose to read?

8. Describe your typical day as it pertains to searching for news, information, and content.

Question Set 2: Past and Family
9. Looking back to your childhood, let’s say from ages 5–12, what do you remember about
the ways your family got information and news that was important to them.

10. In what ways do you believe your family influenced how you learn about the world
around you?

11. Looking back to your teenage years, let’s say from ages 13–8, what do you remember
about the ways your friends and classmates got information and news that was important
to them.

12. In what ways do you believe your teenage friends and classmates influenced how you
learned about the world around you?

93

13. Thinking about your current life, describe factors that influence how you search and get
your news—this could be your close friends and the platforms they use to get news—or it
could include all of the different ways you stay connected to information and news.

14. How do you believe the way that you search for news and information today has been
shaped by the people around you from your past?

Demographic Questions

1. What is your age?

2. What is your major(s)?

3. What county do you reside in?

4. What city do you live in?

5. What gender do you identify with?

6. What ethnicity or race do you identify with?

94

Appendix D: Qualitative Analysis Coding Scheme
Theme Interview question(s)
addressed
Research question
addressed
Content choices

1, 2, 2a, 8, 10, 14 RQ 1, 2
Accuracy and
truthfulness in news

3, 7, 7a, 10, 12, 14 RQ 2
Reasons for content and
platform choices

1, 2, 2a, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12,
13, 14
RQ 1, 2
Initiative in verifying
facts in news

2, 2a, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7a, 8 RQ 2
Fact-checking process

7, 7a, 8 RQ 1, 2
Reputation: content
providers

7, 7a, 8, 10 RQ 1
News shaping behavior

4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 RQ 1, 2
News amid COVID

1, 2a, 4, 6 RQ 1, 2
Early influences in
news and content

1, 8, 9, 10, 11 RQ 1, 2
Behavioral models:
parents

1, 8, 9, 10, 11 RQ 1
Education in news
delivery

1, 11, 12, 13, 14 RQ 1, 2
Educational/teachers
influencers amid
news

1, 11, 12, 14 RQ 1
Friends/classmates as
influencers amid
news
1, 11, 12, 13, 14 RQ 1

95

Appendix E: Consent to Participate in the Study

University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
Waite Phillips Hall
3470 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA 90089

INFORMATION SHEET FOR EXEMPT RESEARCH

STUDY TITLE: An Ecological Behavioral Examination of News Media Literacy
Among Young Adults
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Michael Coronado
FACULTY ADVISOR: Patricia Tobey, PhD

You are invited to participate in a research study. Your participation is voluntary. This
document explains information about this study. You should ask questions about
anything that is unclear to you.

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study is to explore the ways community college students search for
and process news and information that helps shape the decisions they make. The study
will also explore how upbringing, aspects of culture and environment helped shape the
kinds of news and information students seek and across what platforms.

PARTICIPANT INVOLVEMENT
This study requires that participants take part in a one-hour interview with the
researcher. The interview will be conducted by video-conference call via the Zoom
platform. If you decide to take part, you will be asked to keep your video camera on to
ensure an engaged and interactive session. The researcher will ask open ended
questions about how you search for news and information as well historical and cultural
aspects of your upbringing as it relates to understanding news and information around
you. The interview will be recorded via Zoom and transcripts analyzed for the
researcher’s records only, and expressly for the purposes of this study. The researcher
may contact you a few weeks after the interview to share draft portions of the study and
check whether your opinions and views were appropriately interpreted and expressed.

96

CONFIDENTIALITY
The members of the research team, and the University of Southern California
Institutional Review Board (IRB) may access the data. The IRB reviews and monitors
research studies to protect the rights and welfare of research subjects.
When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no
identifiable information will be used.
The research study will use pseudonyms for the college under study, as well as
pseudonyms for participants. Transcribed data will be kept indefinitely on the
researcher’s private computer hard drive which is password protected. You have the
right to review/edit the transcripts which will be recorded from the Zoom online platform.
The audio/video recordings will be deleted after two years. Information will not be
released to any other party for any reason.

INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions about this study, please contact the investigator, Michael
Coronado (mc35913@usc.edu) and faculty advisor, Patricia Tobey, PhD
(tobey@usc.edu).

IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions about your rights as a research participant, please contact the
University of Southern California Institutional Review Board at (323) 442-0114 or email
irb@usc.edu.

Version Date: 7/27/19

97

Appendix F: Institutional Review Board Approval

1640 Marengo Street, Suite 700
Los Angeles, California 90033-9269
Telephone: (323) 442-0114
Fax: (323) 224-8389
Email: irb@usc.edu
Date: May 12, 2021, 10:30pm
Action Taken: Approve
Principal
Investigator:
Michael Coronado,
ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
Faculty
Advisor:
Patricia Tobey
OFFICE OF THE PROVOST
Co-
Investigator(s):

Project Title: News Media Literacy
Study ID: UP-21-00241
Funding: N/A

The University of Southern California Institutional Review Board (IRB) designee reviewed
your iStar application and attachments on 05/12/2021.

Based on the information submitted for review, this study is determined to be exempt from 45
CFR 46 according to §46.104(d) as category 2.

As research which is considered exempt according to §46.104(d), this project is not subject to
requirements for continuing review. You are authorized to conduct this research as approved.

If there are significant changes that increase the risk to subjects or if the funding has changed,
you must submit an amendment to the IRB for review and approval. For other revisions to the
application, use the “Send Message to IRB” link.

The materials submitted and considered for review of this project included:

1. iStar application, revised and updated per contingencies 05/07/2021
2. IRB Social-Behavioral Protocol Template - coronado(0.01), 04/20/2021
3. coronado - script and interview questions(0.01), updated 05/07/2021

Abstract (if available)

Abstract The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify how external influences such as upbringing, early relationships, and cultural environment influence how young college students encode news and information, how they discern between fact and fiction, and what cognitive methodology they use to process news and information that is meaningful to their lives. As illustrated in the literature review, much study and research has been done on related media literacy topics, particularly how K–12 education approaches media literacy teaching in broad brush strokes. How young college students use and process specific aspects of social media, digital content, and legacy platforms to understand news about the world around them and how it influences their actions remains a largely undeveloped field of research.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Coronado, Michael A. (author)

Core Title An ecological behavioral examination of news media literacy among young adults

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Organizational Change and Leadership (On Line)

Publication Date 11/11/2021

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag community college,Journalism,media literacy,news literacy,OAI-PMH Harvest,Students

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Tobey, Patricia (committee chair), Hasan, Angela (committee member), Hinga, Briana (committee member)

Creator Email macoronado70@gmail.com,mc35913@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC17138510

Unique identifier UC17138510

Legacy Identifier etd-CoronadoMi-10215

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Coronado, Michael A.

Type texts

Source 20211115-wayne-usctheses-batch-896-nissen (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu