"Conspiracies and Culture Wars" is a media literacy inquiry project by Wesley Fryer of Matthews, North Carolina. For more background, see the February 2023 archived version of this page. Join the Facebook Group for Conspiracies and Culture Wars! Related resources organized by media type are available in Wakelet collections. These include videos, podcasts, articles, books, and student projects.
January 31 - March 6, 2024
Description: In this 6 week online course, participants will learn how the SIFT web literacy framework (Stop, Investigate the source, Find trusted coverage, Trace to the original”) paired with lateral reading, offers excellent strategies for interrogating online information to decide what is valid and trustworthy. Ongoing culture wars, rife with conspiracy theories and social media fueled “rabbit holes,” make our fractured information landscape challenging to navigate. We will use a lesson series focusing on the NASA Apollo moon landings, contemporary YouTube “hoaxers,” as well as “flat earthers” to develop better media literacy skills! We will also create a variety of media products together, including sketchnotes, interactive whiteboards, and narrated slideshows to demonstrate our learning. By the end of the course, participants will have the knowledge and skills to teach and facilitate media literacy lessons utilizing SIFT and lateral reading, helping develop resilient skills for informed citizenship.
Most Recent Presentation
The recorded webinar presentation and slides are available for my March 6, 2023, webinar "How to Teach About Conspiracy Theories without Getting Fired" for Teachers for an Informed Public.
