- [[{3.1b1a} media literacy is the ability to parse the information and messages presented in media]], and [[{3.1b1a1} our engagement with media and culture are shaped by our epistemological frameworks]]. in other words: - people do not “think critically” about something the same way; when you analyze or evaluate a piece of media, you’re doing so through the lens of your own understanding of truth and fact. - a person might evaluate information via, for example: - evidence or replicability. - faith, doctrine, or tradition. - feelings / vibes. - regardless of whether these lenses are equally “valid” for arriving at some objective fact, they are equally sincerely held. - crucially: [[they always believe that they are engaging in critical thinking|everyone believes they are thinking critically]]. - [[boyd, danah - 2018 - You Think You Want Media Literacy|boyd]] argues that over-emphasizing media literacy can reinforce polarization by: - **asserting epistemological authority** → we can’t make other people think the same way we do. no one wants to be told that they’re *thinking wrong*, so top-down claims of what it means to “know” something are unhelpful in practice. - **encouraging doubt** → the core of media literacy is the idea that you shouldn’t trust what you see. trust in experts and institutions is already disintegrating and [[nothing can radicalize someone more than feeling like you’re being lied to]]; encouraging that distrust helps [[{3.1b1} media manipulators exploit data voids by capitalizing on missing data and the logic of algorithms and search engines|media manipulation]]. - **blaming individuals** → things like [[{3.1b} data voids are gaps in information online|data voids]] are intentionally exploited by bad actors. a lot of the disinformation we see online is intentional. we make individuals responsible for an organized and networked problem. - as [[Doctorow, Cory]] [[Doctorow, Cory - 2017 - Three kinds of propaganda, and what to do about them - Clipping|summarizes]]: “we’re not living through a crisis about what is true, we’re living through a crisis about how we know whether something is true.” - the polarization boyd describes has only gotten worse since covid. see also: - [[{3.2} we're living in a doppelganger culture where we act as other to people's beliefs]] - [[{3.2a1} the mirror world is where people end up when their views are too extreme or fringe for traditional social media]] - [[{3.1b1a2a} they know about cellphones]] - [[2026-08-02]] i think the reason i’ve struggled to wrap my head around some of danah’s points is this note: [[{3.1b1b} disinformation works because it plays on our existing biases]]. - i understand that people can see the same information, process it differently, and earnestly reach different conclusions that they believe to be fair and reasonable. - but there’s a dimension of implicit bias to the types of disinformation people believe and why. - if the way a person evaluates a claim is rooted in or informed by prejudice, we have to be able to challenge that “epistemological framing”. >[!note] major overhaul [[2026-08-02]]