By Lisa Diethelm
The News Co/Lab at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication has launched a Spanish version of its free, self-paced media literacy course “Mediactive: How to Participate in Our Digital World.”
The three-week Mediactive course was launched last August and, since then, has immersed students in basic principles that help people take control of their digital media experience. The Mediactive project is sponsored by the Facebook Journalism Project, which aims to strengthen the connections between journalists and the communities they serve.
To reach even more audiences across the country and in other parts of the world, the News Co/Lab in collaboration with ASU en México translated and updated the course’s videos, modules and materials with content relevant to issues outside of the U.S.
Students can learn how to:
- Spot misinformation
- Access credible sources and claims
- Understand how new media operates
- Participate in the community
The Spanish course, which launched May 20, offers the same self-paced experience of navigating and understanding the digital world revolving around health, politics and more, not just in the U.S but in Mexico as well.
Kristy Roschke, managing director of News Co/Lab, said working with ASU en México to create the Spanish translated version is a way to expand the already successful course.
“The Cronkite School is heavily invested in helping people grow their media literacy skills and we think it’s important to reach people in multiple languages since we live in a diverse state and country,” Roschke said. “Eventually, we’d like this to be more global in scope because there is a need everywhere,” she added.
Like past virtual events for the Mediactive course, students are welcome to join live webinars and events with Mexican journalists and experts to discuss the communications in Mexico for the translated course. The webinar that launched the course, titled “Informando tu voto: Un taller interactivo sobre cómo descifrar el discurso político,” invited Fernanda Caso of Latitude 3° 12, Grisel Salazar of Periodismo CIDE, Rafael Cabrera of the Universidad Iberoamericana, and Andrés Martinez and Roschke of ASU to discuss polarization and mistrust in digital media and communication in politics.
Mia Armstrong, the coordinator for ASU’s Convergence Lab (a part of ASU en México), said translating the course and hosting events with ASU en México’s partners, such as Periodismo CIDE or Universidad Iberoamericana for the first webinar, helps address challenges that affect both the U.S. and Mexico.
Spotting misinformation and enhancing media literacy, for example, is an opportunity for both labs to come together and explore innovative solutions with the course.
“Our hope is that people can find the course content useful for them and for their particular context. Beyond that, bringing people together from the U.S. and Mexico to have these conversations is really important because we can all learn a lot from each other,” Armstrong said.
“We hope to provide people with tools that are useful to their particular situation, put these problems into a broader context and just create spaces for conversation across borders about these topics.”
Enrollment for both versions in “Mediactive: How to Participate in Our Digital World” is open to anyone with an email address through ASU’s Continuing and Professional Education.