As Digital Inclusion Exchange rolls on, Bruce, Andrew, and Maria, a current Knight School student, talk with special guest Rick Thames. Thames, former editor of the Charlotte Observer, is currently an Executive in Residence and Visiting Professor of Journalism at Queens University of Charlotte. 

The group discusses media literacy, with Thames providing valuable insight and advice about communication scholar Renee Hobbs’s five core concepts of media literacy: access, analyze/evaluate, create, reflect, and act. The COVID-19 pandemic, which Thames describes as the most impactful and “earth-shattering” event of his life, gives a valuable perspective to this conversation.

• 1:00 - COVID-19 pandemic from Thames’s journalistic perspective
• 14:20 - The importance of access to media literacy
• 20:43 - Thames shares best practices for analyzing, evaluating, and sharing news sources
• 28:45 - How technology connects us during quarantine and the digital divide this reveals
• 37:55 - Ways to take action in relation to media literacy
• 42:08 - Thames’s advice to students on learning from the COVID-19 situation and planning for the future

 

Check out Politifact.com, which Thames mentions as his go-to source for fact-checking news sources!

 

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Episode edited and produced by: Maria Jimenez, Juliana Amos, Will Martin & Paula Azuaje