The document discusses the importance of media and data literacies for education. It argues that education should empower students to critically analyze information from various sources, including mainstream media, social media, data, and how power structures influence information. When equipped with these skills, students can recognize stereotypes, fact-check claims, and participate in transforming society. The document advocates teaching students to use open data and multidisciplinary research projects to develop their research, literacy, and critical thinking abilities.

1. Open Data and Media
Literacies: Educating for
Democracy
Javiera Atenas
Leo Havemann
Andrea Menapace

2. Education either functions as an instrument
which is used to facilitate integration of the
younger generation into the logic of the present
system and bring about conformity or it
becomes the practice of freedom, the means by
which men and women deal critically and
creatively with reality and discover how to
participate in the transformation of their world.
(Shaull 1972, p. 13)

3. eg

4. Who needs media literacies?
Media studies as a discipline:
• often derided as useless
• ‘no jobs’
What is its purpose?
• critical analysis
• who’s telling the story
• form is content
• factual/fictional blurred
• examine operations of power

5. News media and news values
• what phenomena become ‘news’?
• ‘news values’ as selection criteria
From Harcup & O’Neill (2016)

6. There may be little doubt that digital media can help
challenge mainstream news agendas, but the most popular
stories do not reflect this democratic ideal. Rather, the most
common news value is entertainment; such stories seem to
be shared by online readers because they are fun, and
sharing them can brighten the day. This suggests a
possible new news value… : shareability.
... the most shared stories tend to be “stuff that makes
you laugh and stuff that makes you angry”
(Harcup and O’Neill, 2016)

7. so: mainstream media is
flawed...
now add into the mix:
the new diffusion of news
sources, including fake
news/alternative facts (boyd,
2017)
the impact of search and social
filter bubbles (Pariser, 2011)
and now the weaponization of
personal data

8. when equipped with a critical attitude, learners can become
agents of change who recognise and challenge stereotypes
and transform social structures. (Zembylas, 2012)
Learners must be capable of critically analysing information from
various sources and formats, including data, as capabilities in analysing
and interpreting raw data are becoming understood as increasingly
important both in and out of the workplace, contributing to a person’s
range of transversal skills, which are defined by UNESCO (2015) as
“critical and innovative thinking, interpersonal skills, intrapersonal skills,
and global citizenship”.

9. Students should be able to
critique and fact-check news.
One way of fact checking
news reports is to seek out
source data, e.g. open data.
But!
Data is not a flawless form of information, it is produced via a process of deciding what
questions to ask, and how. Who decides?
Data is a source for checking media narratives against but must also be questioned.
The growing importance of data makes data literacy increasingly vital. Open data
affords an opportunity for students to engage with real data and also raises their data
awareness.

10. The mainstream media spins stories that are largely racist, violent, and
irresponsible - stories that celebrate power and demonize victims, all
the while camouflaging its pedagogical influence under the cheap
veneer of entertainment. (Henry Giroux)

11. Although a lot of the emphasis in the “fake news” discussion focuses on
content that is widely spread and downright insane, much of the most
insidious content out there isn’t in your face (Boyd, 2017)
In academic studies, students are asked to research
and shape narratives in the forms of essays and
reports, to avoid plagiarism, to reference and think
critically. But generally speaking, they are asked to
engage with academic literature. Because of concerns
around ‘reliability’ of popular media sources, citing
them is often not recommended.
Engaging with and learning to understand the
academic literature on a topic is important, but it is as
if the information you consume in daily life is going on
in a parallel universe.

13. “statistics are quite the opposite of elitist. They enable
journalists, citizens and politicians to discuss society as
a whole, not on the basis of anecdote, sentiment or
prejudice, but in ways that can be validated. The
alternative to quantitative expertise is less likely to be
democracy than an unleashing of tabloid editors and
demagogues to provide their own “truth” of what is
going on across society”
(Davies, 2017).

14. Journalism, can be divided into
certain categories
(simplified version).
one is the traditional way of telling a story, reporting on a
fact with an independent (or not) perspective, the other
one is data journalism, telling stories using data and
numbers as principal characters giving the readers a
different view of a phenomena, and then we have the
corporate newspapers, serving their masters, and then,
we have media that is pure propaganda, just try watching
Fox news without being infuriated.

15. Data journalism is a journalism specialty reflecting the
increased role that numerical data is used in the production
and distribution of information
If we can ask student to apply data
journalism techniques to assess their
sources of information, to use storytelling
techniques combining data, media and
academic sources to represent a
phenomena asking them to observe and to
research their sources (who owns the
newspaper) to write their essays, we are
teaching them transversal skills that can help
them to understand and participate in the
society

16. Really??
Not according to
the CORE
(COntinuous
REcording of
Lettings and
Sales in Social
Housing in
England.)

17. “Open data and content can be freely used,
modified, and shared by anyone for
any purpose”

18. By using real data from research developed at their own institution,
multidisciplinary research projects enable opportunities to develop
students’ research and literacy skills and critical thinking skills by
establishing ways for collaborations amongst students, researchers and
academics.

19. it is wrong to assume that we are somehow
being liberated through improved media
technologies
(Jenkins, 2006)

20. With the rise of new technologies, media,
and other cultural apparatuses as
powerful forms of public pedagogy,
students need to understand and address
how these pedagogical cultural
apparatuses work to diffuse learning
from any vestige of critical thought. This
is a form of public pedagogy that needs to
be addressed both for how it deforms and
for how it can create important new
spaces for emancipatory forms of
pedagogy.
(Henry Giroux)