Renee Hobbs explores algorithmic personalization and propaganda with educators at the Minnesota Council of Teachers of English.

1. Renee Hobbs
Harrington School of Communication and Media
University of Rhode Island USA
Email: Hobbs@uri.edu
Twitter: @Reneehobbs
Web: www.mediaeducationlab.com

2. Media Education Labhttps://mediaeducationlab.com

3. ACCESS
WORKSGHOP MATERIALS
http://bit.ly/HobbsMCTE

5. What are the Implications of our
Increasingly Personalized
Media Worlds?

8. Web Historian

9. Heighten Awareness
of Media
& Technology
Use in Daily
Life
“diary”
“fast””

10. Media literacy is
responsive to
people’s lived
experience with
digital media,
mass media &
popular culture
RELEVANCE

11. MEDIA LITERACY IS….
 a type of education designed to
protect people from potential harms
of media exposure
 a critique of media’s institutional and
social power
 a social movement empowering people
to create media
 a type of education that advances the
capacity for lifelong learning
 a dimension of democratic citizenship
 an expanded form of literacy

12. October 21 – 25, 2019
digital literacy visual literacy
information literacy
digital citizenship
media education

14. WHAT GOOGLE KNOWS
ABOUT ME

15. WHAT GOOGLE KNOWS
ABOUT ME

17. Algorithms enable personalization of
information, entertainment & persuasive content

19. WILLFUL
IGNORANCE?
What is consent?
What does it mean
to “be informed”?
Clicking “I agree”
when you don’t
understand what
you are agreeing to

20. PEER-TO-PEER FILE SHARING
This Session
Many different forms of media literacy
education are needed to respond to the complex
digital environment of today
To explore algorithmic personalization,
dialectical thinking strategies are effective
Critical questions and media analysis activities
help to deepen and transform emotional
responses to contemporary propaganda

21. KeyFive Key Concepts of Media Literacy

22. Representation
Media Effects
Interpretation & Meaning
Semiotics
Political
Economy
KeyFive Key Concepts of Media Literacy

26. Turn & Talk
Reflect upon and discuss
these quotes with your
partner

27. “Increasingly online, it’s becoming
impossible to escape your own point of
view.”
-Eli Pariser
“A squirrel dying in front of your
house may be more relevant to your
interests right now than people dying
in Africa.”
– Mark Zuckerberg
“It will be very hard for people to
watch or consume something that
has not been tailored for them.”
-Eric Schmidt
Turn & Talk
Reflect upon
and discuss
these quotes
with your
partner

28. COMPARE & CONTRAST
GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE
RESULTS PAGES
Students share screenshots of search activities
using the same keywords on the same day

29. Comparison
Contrast
Reveals
Patterns

30. “In mathematics, the art
of posing a question
must be held of higher
value than solving it.”
- Georg Cantor, creator of Set Theory
(1867)

31. Question: Why do the shoes I was looking at
on Zappos follow me from one website to
another?
Question: Why do some FB friends
never show up on my News Feed?
Question: Why go Google search results seem
so different when I use my Grandma’s
computer?

33. The Economic Value
of
“DATA EXHAUST”

34. www.grandparentsofmedialiteracy.com

35. www.grandparentsofmedialiteracy.com

36. www.grandparentsofmedialiteracy.com

37. www.grandparentsofmedialiteracy.com
Audiences are a type of commodity
that is produced, sold, distributed
and consumed.
By using media and viewing
advertising, workers end up
participating in capitalism even
when they’re relaxing at home.

38. The Product is You (1999)

44. A majority of students ages 14 - 23 prefer learning from
YouTube videos over other activities including in-person
group activities, learning apps, games, or reading from
printed books.
SOURCE: Pearson (2018). Beyond millennials: The next generation of learners. Global Research &
Insights and Harris Polling.

45. Turn & Talk
What are the potential
benefits and harms of
YouTube as a tool for
learning?

47. Dialectics is a method of
philosophical argument that involves
some sort of contradictory process
between opposing sides.
Knowing is something
you do, an action that
requires heightened self-
awareness and reflection.
Dialectic reasoning generates
contradictions that are replaced
but still preserved over time.

50. Turn & Talk
Share your
interpretation of
this video with the
person sitting next
to you

51. Analyzing Media
with the
MEDIA LITERACY
SMARTPHONE

52. Instead of mining the
natural landscape,
surveillance
capitalists extract
their raw material
from human
experience.

53. The ability to
reliably predict
your behavior is
profitable.
The ability to
reliably control
your behavior is
a gold mine.

54. Companies are investing heavily in facial recognition and
sentiment analysis in order to identify people’s emotional
responses

56. Why are
all the
Google
Apps for
Education
offered for
free?

57. Ed Tech Venture Capital in 2018
K-12 Focus: $511 million
Higher Ed Focus: $590 million
Total: $1.45 billion

58. Propaganda about
educational technology in
education

59. Turn & Talk
How have you
experienced
propaganda about
educational
technology?

61. Hoaxes
Parody/Satire
ACTIVATE STRONG
EMOTIONS
ATTACK
OPPONENTS
SIMPLIFY
INFORMATION
RESPOND TO
AUDIENCE NEEDS
KEY FEATURES
OF CONTEMPORARY PROPAGANDA

62. Hoaxes
Parody/Satire
ACTIVATE STRONG
EMOTIONS
ATTACK
OPPONENTS
SIMPLIFY
INFORMATION
RESPOND TO
AUDIENCE NEEDS
KEY FEATURES
OF CONTEMPORARY PROPAGANDA

63. JOURNALISM AND
PUBLIC RELATIONS
ADVERTISING GOVERNMENT AND
POLITICS
ENTERTAINMENT EDUCATION ACTIVISM

65. Teachers need to learn
more about contemporary
propaganda and
algorithmic
personalization in
education

67. www.mindovermedia.tv

70. https://mindovermedia.e
u

71. https://mindovermedia.tv

72. Learning about Global Propaganda Can
Activate Intellectual Curiosity

73. October 21 – 25, 2019
Digital Citizenship & Media Literacy Bill
#S2240

74. Professor Renee Hobbs
Harrington School of Communication and Media
University of Rhode Island USA
Email: hobbs@uri.edu
Twitter: @reneehobbs
Web: www.mediaeducationlab.com
SLIDES
http://bit.ly/hobbsnysca2019