Psychosocial Approaches to Media Education

How might your prior beliefs affect how you interact with media? A psychosocial approach to media education addresses both how our minds (psycho-) and society (-social) interact with and effect media experiences. This approach encourages students to reflect on feelings and recognizes that media content is often shared within networks, and by people, that affect how the media content is interpreted. For example, stories shared by friends with similar belief systems or politicians we support can be viewed differently than stories from people with whom we often disagree or politicians we dislike. This emotionally-informed approach can support other approaches aimed at analyzing information and determining whether sources are credible. Although informational approaches are important, they can be ineffective unless attention is paid to the many non-rational (i.e., emotional, embodied) aspects of engaging with media, for example:

• Emotions can prevent us from engaging with evidence that contradicts our opinions and beliefs (e.g., cognitive bias, motivated reasoning). In other words, information won’t necessarily change our minds and we can become distracted by confrontation or withdrawal (Crocco et al., 2018; Garrett, 2019, 2020; Garrett & Alvey, 2021; Lo, 2017).

• Emotions can lead us to justify our assessments of what makes evidence valid in favor of our already held beliefs (e.g., policy-based evidence making instead of evidence-based policy making) as well as our sociocultural positionality (Crocco et al., 2017, 2018; Middaugh, 2019).

• Emotions and unconscious processes can lead us to deflect information that challenges our opinions and beliefs and thus makes us feel vulnerable. For example, we might withdraw from a discussion, unknowingly experience decreased reading comprehension, insult or belittle other viewpoints openly or subtly, enacting violence (physical violence as well as miming violence), as well as incite us to desperately want to convert others to our own point of view and/or to repair a perceived rupture in the classroom community (Fairlamb, S., & Cinnirella, 2021; van Kessel, 2021; Tesser, 2000; Williams et al., 2012).

Before engagements with media:

• develop a common language for the variety of emotions students might experience

• develop a common language for the defenses that might emerge (e.g.,“motivated reasoning, cognitive bias, derogation, assimilation, appropriation, annihilation)

• strive explicitly for the classroom community to be more comfortable with discomfort

• consider what each of us brings to our media engagements (e.g., Whom do I follow? Students can pull up their social media feeds and see what pops up for them)

Immediately before engagements with media:

• remind students about the emotionality of engaging with differing perspectives

• bolster student self-esteem; e.g., asking students to write down a few examples of them being “good” people (this can be a private activity) before discussions about a piece of media about unintentional racism, sexism, ableism, anti-LGBTQ+, classism, etc.

• prime helpful aspects of worldviews if engaging with different cultural worldviews. Importantly, though, this action requires tapping into the positive aspects of worldviews that not only students might have, but also those of whomever you are talking about

During engagements with media:

• build background knowledge (e.g., carefully selected information packages) alongside practicing skills of credibility and discuss the ethics of information

• check in with students about how they are feeling, and why they might be feeling unhelpful emotions. Take time to feel and express those feelings.

• do not enforce a consensus of opinion

• emphasize that the ideal position is not neutrality but instead a higher-order of objectivity that recognizes our perspectives and investments and how they might affect our judgment

• hold each other accountable in non-derogatory ways for defensive behavior