Who is Shaping the News?

Dhavan Shah, UW-Madison professor, brings things full circle to Katy Culver’s initial statement by posing the question, what can we do to see technology as more of a beneficial influence?

A suggestion of a national media literacy training program for children is met with approval by the panel.  Just as civic mindedness should be a desired goal, so should media-mindedness, allowing citizens to understand and utilize the media to their fullest potential.

What do you think? Would training our citizens in media literacy help solve some of the industry’s problems?  Certainly there would be a greater understanding of its strengths and weaknesses, of what actually constitutes bias and what goes into a story, but I’m not sure that would translate to a greater embrace of the media in its many forms.  Greater sympathy for the field, maybe (and that would be great), but that’s not the same thing.