Mind Over Media: Propaganda Education for a Digital Age
About this ebook
Propaganda is inescapable. It’s everywhere. Students need to analyze, resist, critique—and create.
Media literacy educators have always insisted that we are both creators and receivers of media messages. The truth of this is even more apparent in today’s digital environment, with children and adults alike participating in a ubiquitous, nonstop stream of social media. Clearly, students need the tools to interpret news and information critically—not just for school but for life in a “post-truth” world, where the lines blur between entertainment, information, and persuasion.
Renee Hobbs demonstrates how a global perspective on contemporary propaganda enables educators to stimulate both the intellectual curiosity and the cultural sensitivities of students. Replete with classroom and online learning activities and samples of student work, Mind Over Media provides a state-of-the-art look at the theory and practice of propaganda in contemporary society, and shows how to build learners’ critical thinking and communication skills on topics including computational propaganda, content marketing, fake news, and disinformation.
About the author
Renee Hobbs is an internationally-recognized authority on digital and media literacy education. She founded the Harrington School of Communication and Media at the University of Rhode Island and is Director of its Media Education Lab. Hobbs co-founded the NAMLE (National Association for Media Literacy Education), and is creator of the first national teacher education program in media literacy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She won the Media Literacy Education Meritorious Service Award from NAMLE in 2015, is the author of 10 books, and over 150 scholarly articles on digital and media literacy. Her book, Mind Over Media: Propaganda Education in a Digital Age, won the 2021 PROSE Awards of Excellence from the American Association of Publishers (AAP) in Social Sciences and Education Practice & Theory.
Douglas Rushkoff is professor of media theory and digital economics at Queens/CUNY. Named one of the world’s ten most influential intellectuals by MIT, he hosts the Team Human podcast and has written many award-winning books, including Media Virus, Program or Be Programmed, and Present Shock. He lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.