Week Seven: Media Literacy
As I've studied librarianship one of the concepts I have seen emphasized again and again is information literacy.
Information literacy covers many topics. Including evaluating if the information is based on facts and is from a trustworthy source. Media literacy is very closely tied to this. To me, media literacy is having the knowledge and tools to critically analyze the media you consume.
Renee Hobbs writes about digital literacy and its components. If you are interested in more details here is a link to a review of her book Digital and Media Literacy. Hobbs concludes there are five main components to digital literacy.
They are:
- Access
- Analyze
- Create
- Reflect
- Act
Here is a good resource detailing things to watch for when checking if images are AI-generated. It also discusses that text is particularly difficult to decipher if it is written by AI.
I do enjoy using Facebook which has become saturated with AI content. People often do not recognize the images as AI-generated. Earlier this year a clothing brand I like called Holy Clothing created an ad using AI art (see below).
(Image Credit: HolyClothing Facebook)
This caused outrage among many of their consumers who were drawn to the brand because of their authenticity. They then changed their stance and posted the following:
(Image Credit: HolyClothing Facebook)
One of the main problems here is they are a clothing brand and the AI images had clothes that the company didn't make. People in the comments who didn't realize the images were AI were confused and frustrated that they couldn't find the clothes from the images. This felt misleading and dishonest and people appreciated that Holy Clothing changed their approach but many people did lose trust in them.
On the AI ad they ran I saw people posting this:
This meme is now something I use when I see what I know is AI-generated images. Hopefully, it will help people think about what they are consuming. Even if it just causes them to reconsider what they are thinking for a second it could help them be more critical next time they see an image that could be misleading.
Hi Kira: Thank you for your post!
ReplyDeleteThis weeks readings are indeed challenging and I completely agree with the connection you made with librarianship.
We know that libraries are an universal educator, and now that our societies are going through a digital revolution, it become more and important to ensure that people analyze, reflect before they act on the digital information they have access to. Without a doubt, this places a burden on librarians. Ours is one of the few professions guided by ethics and values. Libraries ensure that people obtain the information they need without distinction regarding race, gender, age or economic status. I wonder though whether it is also our job to ensure that people use the information we provide in the right manner? Thank you
Hello Kira,
ReplyDeleteI really like your statement that "media literacy is having the knowledge and tools to critically analyze the media you consume". I think this is phrased accurately because it is important to have both the knowledge and tools to understand the message the media is trying to portray. I also like your poster. I think the library is a great place to start when learning about media literacy and it’s great that librarians allow people to make their own choices when consuming media but are readily available if they need information and/or help. It’s also concerning how AI is making it more difficult for users to decipher if what they’re viewing/reading is real or fake. I think this is going to be a major problem because AI is getting very good at creating fake images and it is getting harder to test for authenticity. Thanks for sharing!
There are some amazing resources out there to help start the conversation with students- especially involving AI. While I can't expect they would master all techniques I would hope that we could at the very least make them comfortable with questioning everything they see.
ReplyDeleteI agree working in a library I am always concern about how my patrons go about finding information. But I have to remind myself that I can lead a horse to water but I can't make it drink.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how people not notice AI art in the more photorealistic styles due to the unnatural glow around figures and backgrounds being nonsense blobs. But my bias might be due to me following a lot of artist and being friends with artists who point out the common flaws with AI art.