#digital literacy

[kenyatta]

The video starts with bold red letters blaring: “2016 Democrat Primary Voter Fraud CAUGHT ON TAPE.” A series of blurry security footage follows, showing blatant instances of ballot stuffing. The only problem: The clips actually depict voter fraud in Russia. A quick Google search would have easily revealed the dubious source of the video, along with news articles debunking its claims. But when researchers from Stanford studying young people’s media literacy — the ability to accurately evaluate information in the wilds of mass media — showed the video to 3,446 high school students, only three succeeded in identifying the Russian connection. “There is this myth of the digital native, that because some people have grown up with digital devices, they are well equipped to make sense of the information that those devices provide,” says Joel Breakstone, who led the 2021 study. “The results were sobering.” It’s a startling reality about Gen Z, backed up by multiple studies and what we can all see for ourselves: The most online generation is also the worst at discerning fact from fiction on the internet.

also:

While social media may make news more accessible, there’s also little quality control to the information on the platforms. And although people of all ages are bad at detecting misinformation — which is only getting harder amid the rise of AI — members of Gen Z are particularly vulnerable to being fooled. Why? There’s a dangerous feedback loop at play. Many young people are growing deeply skeptical of institutions and more inclined toward conspiracy theories, which makes them shun mainstream news outlets and immerse themselves in narrow online communities — which then feeds them fabrications based on powerful algorithms and further deepens their distrust. It’s the kind of media consumption that differs drastically from older generations who spend far more time with mainstream media, and the consequences can be grim.

and one more bit:

Young people aren’t solely to blame for their lack of digital literacy. In school, students are taught to read closely and carefully — which misinformation researchers say has unintentionally enforced the idea that students should drill into a single video and determine its accuracy with their eyes, rather than leave the page and open Google. The technology of misinformation is advancing rapidly, and it is becoming impossible to differentiate what’s true from what’s false with mere observation. For older generations, who came to the internet later in life, there’s still at least some natural skepticism toward what they see online. For the youth, it must be taught. Gen Zers are uniquely vulnerable to misinformation compared to older age groups not just because of their social media habits, says Rakoen Maertens, a behavioral scientist at the University of Oxford, but because they have fewer lived experiences and knowledge to discern reality.

[jstor]

What can early museums teach us about modern literacy? 💭

Whitney Barlow Robles' latest piece for JSTOR Daily, "The Age of Wonder Meets the Age of Information," takes us back to the cabinets of curiosities from the 16th-18th centuries–perhaps original examples of information overload.

These "cabinets" were rooms outfitted with items like narwhal tusks, ivory carvings, and even (alleged) unicorn horns. Like today's average social media experience, collections like these overwhelmed the senses and raised questions about power, knowledge, and representation.

In this piece, Robles explores how these early museums can help students develop digital and visual literacy today, offering lessons in interdisciplinary thinking and grappling with colonial legacies.

(P.S.: JSTOR's Artstor collection features stunning images of these cabinets!)

[kemetic-dreams]

Anti-literacy laws in many slave states before and during the American Civil War affected slaves, freedmen, and in some cases all people of color. Some laws arose from concerns that literate slaves could forge the documents required to escape to a free state. According to William M. Banks, "Many slaves who learned to write did indeed achieve freedom by this method. The wanted posters for runaways often mentioned whether the escapee could write." Anti-literacy laws also arose from fears of slave insurrection, particularly around the time of abolitionist David Walker's 1829 publication of Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, which openly advocated rebellion, and Nat Turner's Rebellion of 1831.

The United States is the only country known to have had anti-literacy laws.

Significant anti-African laws include:

1829, Georgia: Prohibited teaching Africans to read, punished by fine and imprisonment

1830, Louisiana, North Carolina: passes law punishing anyone teaching Africans to read with fines, imprisonment or floggings 

1832, Alabama and Virginia: Prohibited Europeans from teaching Africans to read or write, punished by fines and floggings

1833, Georgia: Prohibited Africans from working in reading or writing jobs (via an employment law), and prohibited teaching Africans, punished by fines and whippings (via an anti-literacy law)

1847, Missouri: Prohibited assembling or teaching slaves to read or write

Mississippi state law required a white person to serve up to a year in prison as "penalty for teaching a slave to read."

A 19th-century Virginia law specified: "[E]very assemblage of negroes for the purpose of instruction in reading or writing, or in the night time for any purpose, shall be an unlawful assembly. Any justice may issue his warrant to any office or other person, requiring him to enter any place where such assemblage may be, and seize any negro therein; and he, or any other justice, may order such negro to be punished with stripes."

In North Carolina, African people who disobeyed the law were sentenced to whipping while whites received a fine, jail time, or both.

AME Bishop William Henry Heard remembered from his enslaved childhood in Georgia that any slave caught writing "suffered the penalty of having his forefinger cut from his right hand." Other formerly enslaved people had similar memories of disfigurement and severe punishments for reading and writing.

Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee were the only three slave states that did not enact a legal prohibition on educating slaves.

It is estimated that only 5% to 10% of enslaved African Americans became literate, to some degree, before the American Civil War

[thoughtportal]

also muting words and names on all social media will help to avoid all the shock and awe crap that keeps you from being actually informed

[aisyalas-diary]

i hate people with no literacy skills y tf r you in comments asking for explanations for the most simple thing that’s perfectly laid out for you in the video.

“i’m confused? what happened?” GIRL ITS RIGHT THERE ??? JUST LOOK AT IT ???????

“why didn’t you just do _____ instead?” did the video not just say that that was the only option ???????????? y r you suggesting things when clearly they just stated that they couldn’t do it ???

“wdym you hate dumb people? what if they’re neurodivergent?” then clearly that’s not who we’re referring to like my god

[foranassignment]

Literacy

Before I go into a glossary of Tumblr literacy let's define and discuss why and how it's used. Literacy is how words used in a particular environment as well as which words are used in that context. It is required to understand basic social media literacy, such as likes/shares/follows/hashtags/etc., but there is some site-specific language. A low amount of fluency is required because the site’s design makes the links between Tumblr’s literacy and other social media’s literacy simple to connect, such as:

The number of Notes a post has is the total engagement number including Likes, Comments, and Reblogs. Unless you open the Notes section you will only see the hashtags, engagement buttons, and the number of notes. Once you open the Notes section you will see the detailed version of where the number of notes have been allotted to. See photo below from my personal tumblr as example.

Accounts are called Blogs

Reposts are called Reblogs

Communities are spaces dedicated to a certain topic where people can talk about that more specifically, almost like a chat room.

Hashtags (or tags) essentially work the same way they do on any platform but Tumblr gives you columns with top posts, latest posts, and communities with that hashtag. People often use hashtags are a more "lowkey" form of writing as well, there can be full sentences in hashtags which is not common on other social media sites that limit the number of characters.

Blaze is a way to narrow down who you want your post to reach and hopefully receive more engagement.

In the Site Design and Blog Parts sections there will also be according vocabulary but they will be explained within the context with their own visual aids.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------Masterpost

[antares07]

Laugh,

and the world will laugh with you;

Weep,

and you will weep alone..

[dipsticky]

are you angry about ads? then you'll probably also be angry about data brokers (who make money milking you for data) and real time bidding (where bots look at your data and bid on ad space as your web pages load so 'relevant' ads go in front of your eyeballs). many of us know the easy way to get back at those fuckers is to install ad block and turn off location tracking.

but if you REALLY want to get back at them, or you want to be a safety advocate, then teach your grandma and your dad about this stuff too. if they pay attention to any news they probably understand that their privacy is compromised every time they use their phone if they haven't taken any steps to protect themselves. they may even be understandably paranoid about it.

the easiest way to support family that isn't as digitally literacy is to install and set the Brave browser as the default on all devices. it does all the ad-blocking and anti-tracking out of the box, (no need to explain and install extensions or extra apps) and it takes only two clicks to turn ad-blocking off. because the default is protection, mom doesn't have to worry that she's leaking data every time she logs in. until we get better policy protecting our data in the u.s. (looking at the bullshit that happened with CFPB earlier this year) then we have to protect ourselves (and gramma and poppop!)

[phrogarmyinvasion]

it's not entirely fair to blame folks for their difficulties with media literacy because the main culprits are the companies, organizations and key figures that benefit from everyone's "lack" of media literacy. critical thinking exists, it just gets shoved under the carpet by billionaires trying to play house

[musings-of-a-lit-student]

Allegorical Alpines

Allegories are typically used to depict, and represent ideas symbolically not explicitly discussed in the content.

Example: The best example would be MAUS, given the use of a cat and mouse dynamic emphasises the unfair power dynamic, and predatory environment they were in.

Word of the Week

perfidy

Deceitfulness, untrustworthiness; breach of faith or of a promise; betrayal of trust; treachery

Lands of Literature

[nnaref]

i hope I'm not the only one 😭🤯🫠😔🤧 so i js scrolling thru tumblr and suddenly there's like a headcanon that has a TWITTER LINK, well i thought it was like a different kind of hc since they put description in every link, like "when he calls her cute on their first date" AND IT FLASHES ME SO GODDAMN MUCH, IT'S LITERALLY A CORN LINK WTH😔 thank god i leave the app immediately cz who knows what i might be if i really watch it. should've stay curious guys, and please read the tags anytime ur reading a fanfic or hcs❤️❤️

[marmalade-and-daisies]

if anyone reads fanfic and wants to contribute to a literacy studies project, please do this survey!! https://forms.gle/SPCtMmSe3NThwfBs6

[eldritch-bf]

Parents when I was a kid: don’t believe everything you read online.

Parents now that I’m an adult: I read online that 5G is a communist plot by China to send transgender beams into our kids brains and also democrats are harvesting brainjuice from tortured children to gain immortality

[lunion]

For all the shit neurotypical people give about autistic people not being able to read social cues, the internet's levels of media literacy and people's general incapability of reading an isolated event with a specific context behind it without trying to apply universally tells me that a lot more neurotypical are just assuming things out of their ass tham actually knowing what's going on.

It's not hard to read folks, I just beg you to take a second to think about what you just read instead of assimilating like a mindless rpg slime eating food

[cryptidize]

Yall are gonna love the site im making. All the links in my Internet Guide have been personally vetted by me, but I am currently lovingly writing descriptions for each site, as well as adding more links. I will also have some info about myself, my art, my commissions, and later- a site dedicated to digital literacy for the common user!!!!!

A whole webbed site all about how to stay safe online, my personal recommendations, knowing your personal tools (like your computer and phone, their Operating Systems, the internet, HTML, and more!), common terms and what to do when you failed step one (like how to reinstall an operating system, backup your files, and clean out any malware you might have) will be made soon because I fucking HATE every site out there already since they're lacking incredibly important info (not to mention most of them are NOT up to date, nor do they have any info on VPNs and how to stay safe from things like.... the govt? Or your internet provider?)

If you'd like to help out, or just wanna talk to me about digital literacy and what you'd like to learn, my messages and ask box are open ^^

[blogvalen]

Apa Itu Kemanan Digital?

Keamanan digital adalah upaya untuk melindungi identitas online, data, maupun aset digital lainnya, termasuk foto, kata sandi, nomor pin, hingga data layanan website.

Apakah keamanan digital sama dengan keamanan siber? Sebenarnya, makna kedua istilah ini sama saja. Namun, lingkup keamanan digital lebih luas dibandingkan keamanan siber yang terbatas pada jaringan komputer dan teknologi informasi.

Keamanan digital melindungi data dan informasi digital, seperti dokumen, gambar, video, dan suara. Sementara itu, keamanan siber melindungi seluruh aspek keamanan yang berkaitan dengan teknologi informasi dan jaringan dari ancaman yang berasal dari internet. Meski begitu, keamanan digital dan cyber security sama-sama penting dalam melindungi informasi digital.

Ini dia jenis informasi digital yang seringkali diincar penjahat cyber:

Data identitas pribadi: foto, nomor telepon, alamat, akun email dan password, nomor jaminan sosial, dll.

Data finansial: nomor kartu kredit, nomor kartu debit, kode PIN, dll.

Data kesehatan: riwayat kesehatan, resep obat, nomor asuransi, dll.