Lesson 3 Reading:  “Mediaocracy” and Front Page News

 

Selection 1:  What is “the news”?



 

We The Voters - Mediaocracy from Vimeo
https://vimeo.com/filmbuff		  


Assignment: Mediaocracy

  1. What was the most surprising?
  2. How does this information change what you think about social media and your use of it?

Include answers on assignment sheet.

  

Assignment: Front Page News

  image of several front pages

http://www.newseum.org/

 

The Newseum, a museum in Washington D.C. collects each day’s on its website. If the link doesn’t work, you can get to that page using this address: http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages.  Copy the words into your browser. Under today’s date, you will see some options for how to view the front pages. Choose Gallery to give you a small image of all options.

Inspect at least four pages -- both those that seem to have the same photo(s) or topics and those that aren’t covering that story.

For each newspaper, use your tools to determine whether or not it’s a paper with a specific agenda (articles have language that appears to be biased) or a paper that focuses on both hard and soft news.


Assignment: complete on the assignment sheet.

Part 1.

  1. Document the pages you looked at. For each page, include the name of the paper. Write two sentences of observations about what is on the page.

Then, answer the following questions:

  1. What elements of front pages are most appealing?
  2. What makes you want to click on them?
  3. How does the variety of information encourage reading?
  4. What elements of front pages will you add to your website/ Google Slide.

Part 2.
After looking at the front pages, think about what you’ve learned about how we use media. Either look for articles that oppose one another or use this website to view opposing views.

Assess two sites to discover how they show their bias. Use what you have learned to decide whether or not you can trust that site’s news.

Look at this graphic. What can you infer from the information in the tables about consumer confidence with newspapers?

Did you notice in yesterday’s graphic how many news agencies are owned by the same companies?

What do you think about that? Does it make it harder to figure out where to get your news or does it make some sites seem more reliable?

  



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