Media literacy campaign tackles the challenge of determining what’s true online
Media Decoded pledge cards sit ready at a table at a December film festival at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, California. Media Literacy Ambassadors for the project talked to attendees at the event about media literacy and handed out information. The filled-out pledge cards are now on display in Danner Hall at Delta College. Photo courtesy of Tara Cuslidge-Staiano
Stocktonia
Andrea Rivera remembers when a friend told her that the state of California was planning to become its own country.
“I was like, ‘We have to fact-check this,’” Rivera said, “It was obviously something he found on TikTok.”
She quickly searched through state government web sites, finding clarification for the post her friend had seen.
“It was actually about how this man in Fresno was trying to get signatures,” she said. It was a first step to creating a ballot initiative – but one that, even if it passed, would be a symbolic vote, not actually change the state or federal government.
Rivera, a student at San Joaquin Delta College and Sacramento State, is a student journalist (she also freelances, including for Stocktonia). She was used to checking for authoritative sources to clarify things she heard. She knew the same wasn’t true for her friend.
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