COM 125 (Campus) Dissecting Pop Culture
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The Shapiro Library Badge Guide lists the information literacy badges available through the Shapiro Library covering a variety of areas of information literacy from research and evaluation skills, to finding company information or primary sources. T
Research Expert 1 Badge
To earn this badge, you'll work through a scenario-based challenge that helps you understand and locate different types of information, including peer-reviewed resources, and how to cite sources to avoid plagiarism.
Research Expert 2 Badge
To earn this badge, you'll work through a scenario-based challenge that helps you develop the skills to create focused research questions, identify and locate relevant sources, refine your search strategies, and understand how to search databases effectively.
Library Navigator Badge
In order to be awarded this badge, you will complete a simulation in which you are given a scenario that requires you to access and use different features of the library website and engage your research skills.
Expert Evaluator Badge
In order to be awarded this badge, you will complete a simulation in which you are given a scenario that requires you to use various information literacy evaluation methods and critical thinking skills.
TruthQuester! Badge
We live in a complicated world, swirling with information from all angles. How do you navigate this world? From memes to social media, news websites to library databases, the TruthQuester! badge will give you the skills you need to parse through different viewpoints, narratives, and articles in a complex information landscape. Learners who complete the TruthQuester! Quiz with a score of 80% or more and create and submit an infographic poster earn the TruthQuester! badge. You'll know right away if you passed the quiz, but it may take up to 30 days for badges to be awarded. You can take the quiz as many times as you like. If you miss a question, review TruthQuester! and try again.
Welcome to COM-125: Dissecting Pop Culture
In this course students will:
- Examine the concept of media literacy & the history of communication industries
- Practice deconstructing pop culture & media messages to recognize their potential effect
- Understand how media literacy is associated with an individual's role as a consumer of, and participant in, media
- Recognize the role that media plays in creating and transforming cultural messaging
What is Media Literacy?
The Center for Media Literacy This link opens in a new window uses this expanded definition (reflecting societal changes since the original definition coined at the Aspen Institute in 1992):
Media Literacy is a 21st century approach to education. It provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate, create and participate with messages in a variety of forms — from print to video to the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.
Media Literacy Now This link opens in a new window operationalizes that definition as:
Media Literacy is the ability to:
- Decode media messages (including the systems in which they exist)
- Assess the influence of those messages on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
- Create media thoughtfully and conscientiously
Misinformation, Disinformation & Malinformation
When we search for information on the web and get zillions of results, it's very hard to know which might be truthful and which might be altered information. We are confronted daily by misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information. Below is a chart showing the different characteristics of the three types of dubious information.
Diagram based on Wardle and Hossein's 2017 Information Disorder report & definitions from Dr. Nicole A.Cooke 2021 LOEX keynote address.
Evaluating information for authenticity and validity is essential, not only for your coursework, but for your life as you seek to make evidence-based decisions that rely on accurate information.