News Co / Lab wants to increase reach with a Spanish version of its media literacy course
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From Lisa Diethelm
The News Co / Lab at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication has launched a Spanish version of its free media literacy course, Mediactive: How to Participate in Our Digital World.
The three-week Mediactive course started last August and has since taught students basic principles that help people take control of their digital media experience. The Mediactive project is sponsored by the Facebook Journalism Project, which aims to strengthen connections between journalists and the communities they serve.
To reach even more audiences across the country and other parts of the world, the News Co / Lab, in collaboration with ASU en México, translated and updated the course’s videos, modules and materials with content relevant to topics outside of the US
Students can learn how to:
- Recognize misinformation
- Access credible sources and claims
- Understand how new media work
- Get involved in the community
The Spanish course, launched on May 20th, provides the same self-paced experience of navigating and understanding the digital world of health, politics and more, not just in the US but Mexico as well.
Kristy Roschke, General Manager of News Co / Lab, said working with ASU en México on creating the Spanish-translated version was a way to expand on the already successful course.
“The Cronkite School invests heavily in promoting its media skills and we think it is important to reach people in multiple languages because we live in a diverse state and country,” said Roschke. “Ultimately, we want this to be more global as there is a need everywhere,” she added.
As with previous virtual events for the Mediactive course, students are invited to attend live webinars and events with Mexican journalists and experts to discuss communications in Mexico for the translated course. The webinar that opened the course, entitled “Informando tu voto: Un taller interactive sobre cómo descifrar el discurso político”, invited Fernanda Caso from latitude 3 ° 12, Grisel Salazar from Periodismo CIDE, Rafael Cabrera from the Universidad Iberoamericana and Andrés Martinez and Roschke from ASU to discuss polarization and distrust of digital media and communication in politics.
Mia Armstrong, the coordinator of ASU’s Convergence Lab (part of ASU en México) said translating the course and hosting events with partners from ASU en México such as Periodismo CIDE or Universidad Iberoamericana for the first webinar helps address challenges facing both the US and Mexico.
Uncovering misinformation and improving media literacy, for example, is an opportunity for both labs to come together and explore innovative solutions with the course.
“We hope that participants will find the course content useful to them and their respective context. In addition, it is very important to bring people from the US and Mexico together to have these conversations as we can all learn a lot from each other, ”said Armstrong.
“We hope to give people tools that are useful for their particular situation, to put these problems in a broader context and simply to create spaces for cross-border discussions on these topics.”
The registration for both versions in “Mediactive: How to participate in our digital world” is open to everyone who has an e-mail address for further education and training at the ASU.
