From Knowledge to Intentions: Testing a Model of News Literacy Behaviors (Stephanie Craft)
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication conference – San Francisco, California
August 8-10, 2025
This study is the first to test the News Literacy Behaviors model (Vragaet al., 2021) by examining how a new 15-item measure of news literacy (NL) is associated with attitudes, norms, behaviors, and other factors, and how these influence intention to engage in two NL behaviors: news consumption and verification. Based on nationally-representative U.S. data from March 2025, we discuss implications for both theoretical understandings of NL and practical efforts to improve NL education.
From Context to Consumption: Mastering News and Media Literacy Knowledge with the 5C Model (Stephanie Craft)
National Association for Media Literacy Education conference 2025 – Virtual
July 11-12, 2025
News and media literacy education often prioritizes skills while overlooking foundational knowledge of how media systems work. In this session, we introduce our latest knowledge assessment—a practical 15-item T/F scale that can used by anyone—and share research showing how knowledge affects NL/ML outcomes. Join us to explore how to integrate our holistic “5C” framework (context, creation, content, circulation, consumption) into your NL/ML practice at any level.
Critical Eyes, Deceptive Lies? Political Advertising and You (Michelle Nelson, Kirby Cook [M.S., ICR Doctoral Candidate])
College Convention 2024 – Manchester, New Hampshire
January 7–9, 2024
Can political ads lie? Why are so many ads so negative? What can we learn from political advertising and how can political ads help us to make decisions in the voting booth? Together, in this highly interactive session, we looked at classic and contemporary examples of political communications and helped attendees to build their political advertising literacy.
Media Matters in the Classroom (Amanda Ciafone)
Tools for Teaching 2023 Conference, Marian University – Indianapolis, IN
August 15, 2023
Invited to the Tools for Teaching Conference as a keynote speaker, Dr. Ciafone discussed ways to build media literacy in our classes by helping students understand the impact of media texts and technologies, as well as how they are constructed, through examples such as news feeds, social media, and large language models/AI.
Context Matters: Teachers Talk Media Literacy in the Classroom (Sakshi Bhalla, Michelle Nelson, & Michael Spikes)
International Communication Association 2023 Conference – Toronto, CA
May 25-29, 2023
Research on media literacy has predominantly focused on pedagogy or interventions. Our study offered a departure from this earlier work by examining how social structural aspects such as age and socioeconomic status shape the teaching and understanding of media literacy and media. Through 20 semi-structured interviews, this study explored the lived experiences of teachers and educators actively engaged in teaching media literacy across the US state of Illinois. Two major themes emerged from the data. First, teachers and high school students live in completely different media worlds, uniquely shaping their understanding of media and media literacy. Second, the socio-economic context of the school shapes the kind of media literacy that is taught. How teachers cope with these distinctions in the classroom suggests the need for developing bottom-up media literacy approaches that speak to the contexts in which individuals experience media. Given that media literacy has become a weapon of choice in a polarized media environment, this study offered implications for how media literacy is understood by a young and emerging adult population, as well as for the study of how this shapes their media use.
It’s the (unfunded!) Law: How High School Teachers Define and Teach Media Literacy (Michael Spikes & Michelle Nelson)
National Communication Association 2022 Conference – New Orleans, LA
Session title: Media Mastery: Redefining Media Literacy in the Digital Age
Nov 18, 2022
This panel aimed to exchange ideas on redefining media literacy to better reflect the contemporary media landscape. Not only were new definitions of media literacy proposed, but the way in which media literacy is valued and applied given various political, economic, educational, and technical developments was also discussed. Submissions included in-depth interviews with teachers and students, along with leading scholarship on navigating and classifying media in a tumultuous political landscape. This panel focused on creating an objective conceptualization of media literacy that can be used as a guide, given the demands of the rapidly unfolding digital age.