Kozolanka, K. & Orlowski, P. (2018). Media Literacy for Citizenship: A Canadian Perspective.

Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars. Pages; 247. ISBN 9781773380797

Media Literacy for Citizenship; A Canadian Perspective is an educational review of the landscape of public and privatized media platforms, the governments that interact with them, and the citizenship involved with media consumership. Kristen Kozolanka and Paul Orlowski present us with core concept review in the concepts of democracy, journalism, types of media, and political structure, while setting up the reader for a pedagogically supported deep-dive into neoliberalism and its impact on civil society, the environment, and our communication practices as Canadians. The authors provide compelling arguments and supporting evidence to demonstrate that North American mass media has dramatically changed in the past 50 years, with private ownership, lobbyists, and ‘fake news’ driving what citizens are given as information.

Insights into Main Arguments

Neoliberalism is presented quite extensively in the first chapter as the primary assault on democratic citizenship and equality. This political ideology is strongly rebuked by Kozolanka and Orlowski, defined quite bluntly as ‘the corporate takeover of society’ (p. 2), and is referred to quite often as the source of the vast majority of today’s mass media misinformation and censorship. The authors start with the premise that ‘knowledge is socially constructed, and upon reflection it is not difficult to see the validity in this position, especially as it pertains to the media’ (p. 2). In order to prepare the average citizen for psychological warfare with mass media, the authors recommend that critical thought and media literacy is an individual’s fundamental layer of protection against the world. Without media literacy that focuses on understanding the political ideology behind corporate media, a citizen could fall prey to pro-hedgemonic ‘false political consciousness’ (p. 4), which explains ‘why some people (for instance, the working classes) consider themselves to be politically conscious and yet vote against their own best interests’ (p. 4). With corporate-owned mass media being able to control the message, average citizens are not given the unbiased, politically moderate information that was once standard until the mid 1970s. The authors provide exceptional supporting evidence to the development of this timeline, with the inclusion of employment data regarding the exponential increase starting in the 1970s of jobs for ‘spin doctors’ in the field of public relations (p. 16). There has also been an increase in the amount of new terminology and phrasing used to describe media manipulation. With more people employed to control the message, there will be a comparable effect on the information output received by the average citizen. Media literacy and active critical thought are the only ways to protect the individual citizen from consuming and distributing false information, or blindly accepting information at face value.

The authors spend some time reviewing the available media sources to Canadian citizens, in a systematic and valuable way. Starting with a review on page 25 of the ‘Media Giants’ who own 57% of the market, including Bell Media (26.7%), Rogers (15.6%), Telus (14.6%), and how they compare to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (the CBC) in terms of corporate structure, shareholders, and historical political leanings. Kozolanka and Orlowski spend a considerable amount of time educating the reader on the purpose of publicly funded media, and how the slow decline of funding from the federal government over the past 30 years has forced the CBC to take on a more corporate structure and rebranding, increasing advertising for revenue and pandering to more ‘clickbait’ style articles to improve readership. ‘In a postmodern media universe, (the) CBC and other public service broadcasters face a middle-age crisis. The same can be said for citizenship’ (p. 113).

In a surprisingly un-Canadian twist, there are a significant number of pages dedicated to the 45th President of the United States and the development of false information being presented as ‘alternative facts’ or ‘fake news’ (p. 71). The authors spend time reviewing the development of the terminology in the United States from propaganda and spin to completely fake news and the ‘post-truth world’ (p. 77). The administration of the 45th President did not create the concept of falsely reporting information, but they normalized the concept and used mass manipulation of corporate media to prevent any recourse from it. Kozolanka and Orlowski stress that it is the accelerated acceptance of news on social media that allowed authoritarian messaging to be embraced by the public so readily. We are presented with such a significant amount of information, filtered by algorithms designed to keep us engaged, which is then quickly shared through our social networks, so we are rarely critical in our processing. The volume of information creates a passive observer, and fact checking is not encouraged at any point. Kozolanka and Orlowski remain cautiously optimistic in the face of the ‘fake news juggernaut’ (p. 87), stating that many organizations are now developing ways to counter fake news using the same algorithms that perpetuate it, and ‘major Internet companies… are beginning to take the fake news threat to democracy seriously’ (p. 88). The best example of combating the fake news on a national level has been through the Finnish education system, which has explicit and active critical thinking and ethics built into their literacy development. The Finish concept of citizenship places the responsibility of combatting fake news on every individual, and they ‘have been able to deflect Russian propaganda and disinformation because of their strong public educational system’ (p. 89). To know that there is a national government that prioritizes truth in media and funding public education gives hope to the global stage and sets a high bar for the rest of the world.

Kozolanka and Orlowski give a few great Canadian examples of the systematically negative impact of the corporate-owned mass media on citizenship, but the best included Indigenous representation in the media, and the never-ending issue of climate change denial. The authors encourage the reader to focus on the intentions and self-interests of the owners of the media, and how that can dramatically shape the message received by the public.

Historically, Indigenous peoples are categorized in a consistently negative light in the media, with journalists using sweeping generalizations and stereotypes such as the term ‘trouble makers’ (p. 166). In the 21st century, there has been a major change in media use, with a significant increase of content development being created by Indigenous people for social justice and activism purposes. The 2012 ‘Idle No More’ social media movement to protect Canada’s waterways and protest the anti-democratic changes to the Environmental protection laws embedded in bills C-38 and C-45, became the ‘largest Canada-wide social action movements since the civil rights movement of the 1960s’ (p. 181-182). This Indigenous-led movement was misreported by all major news outlets, with some media focusing only on the drumming and dancing of the protests (not reporting the purpose), while other media outlets intentionally attacked the movement stating that this ‘Indigenist ideology (was) a direct challenge to the existence of Canada as a state’ (p. 183). The public was never given an Indigenous perspective of the movement, and media outlets only covered it through a negative lens, as has been done historically by every Canadian newspaper since 1867. The authors also review the use of media to cover the exposure of the Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls, which follows the same pattern of misrepresentation, obtuse generalizations, and a lack of journalistic integrity. The development of media that is written by Indigenous peoples and shared through an Indigenous lens has only recently become known as an essential part of citizenship equity, and Kozolanka and Orlowski show that there is an arc towards improvement.

The other behemoth example of systemic misinformation perpetuated by corporate mass-media is the ‘science’ of climate change. There is still a disturbingly high percentage of the Canadian population that question the authenticity of climate change, and the thousands of pieces of research to support it. This population of climate change deniers is dwarfed only by our American counterparts. Kozolanka and Orlowski walk the readers through the realities of climate change, and the many research-focused facts associated with the global issue. They also show how limiting access to research has been used by the Canadian and American governments to prevent the knowledge of this change from reaching the public. Under Prime Minister Harper, the Canadian government forbade its scientists from speaking to the media about their research unless they obtained government approval first, and permission was very rarely granted (p. 134). This is an extreme example of government censorship of an entire scientific community. Many of the privately-owned media distribution companies are affiliated with lobbying groups that support the fossil fuel industry. Kozolanka and Orlowski shed light on the 2007 investigation done by George Monbiot that found that there is a list of websites actively publishing fake data that focuses on the positive sides of the oil and gas industry, and actively aim to discredit genuine science. Monbiot ‘made the very disturbing discovery that all of these groups have been funded by Exxon’ (p. 127). Climate change data is against the corporate interests of the oil and gas industries, and there have been billions of dollars invested in discrediting or rejecting the information publicly. It is the public’s responsibility to apply media literacy strategies and think critically about the information they receive. As citizens, we cannot accept information at face value when it has been distorted or blocked by corporate lobbyists, especially when it includes the essential science we need to save the planet.

Implications

Kozolanka and Orlowski present a considerable amount of evidence to support the argument that media literacy is needed for every individual, and it is an essential skill for the informed citizen. There are a few key pieces of information that they could extrapolate on, in order to provide more support for their readers. The concept of media literacy is explored as a briefly, but there is very little explicit instruction on how to apply media literacy techniques. Media literacy should be explored from the applicable perspective, especially when introduced next to complex concepts of intersectionality, race theory, fake news, and neoliberalism. There was room for more detail on how to apply media literacy pedagogy, especially from the perspective of showing an educator how to improve a critical lens for their students. The readers could have also benefitted from more detail around the role of a citizen from the different lenses of their community, their country, globally, and digitally. There is an opportunity to explore more depth on the role of a digital citizen, with Kozolanka and Orlowski’s focus on social media as a tool for activism.

Additionally, the readers could have benefitted from more Canadian-centric content. There are several chapters where the authors completely focus on the American landscape, and in some cases the Canadian content is sectioned off in an info box in the corner of the page. One of the most exciting aspects of this book is the promise of a Canadian perspective for media literacy and citizenship. The authors may consider a reduction in non-Canadian material, or at least maintain a consistent balance through the book. Many Canadians are tired with having their citizenship curriculum filled with American-centric material, and with these two Canadian authors, the reader should be able to expect a consistent standard.

General Value for Canadian Scholars, Students, and/or Educators

The authors of this book have created an educator’s dream tool in this publication, by providing outstanding resources, reference lists, and extension activities throughout. Each chapter comes with topic-specific highlighted material, pre-written questions for discussion, recommended assignments to further knowledge, and a well detailed citation list. Kozolanka and Orlowski have deliberately made all educators’ practice easier, and have offered an option for the reader to activate their newly learned information in a constructive way. The suggested extension activities are well thought out and show that there was clearly a larger amount of information available that was considered for this publication, but the authors made some hard decisions of what to include and leave out.

Conclusion

Kozolanka and Orlowski’s Media Literacy for Citizenship: a Canadian Perspective compiles a vast amount of evidence to support their argument that mainstream media is evolving rapidly, and that it is our responsibility as citizens to practice media literacy and critical thinking when consuming news and content. Their focus on the changing landscape of the corporate and public media platforms within a Canadian context gives the reader a deep understanding of the mass-media industry and the political ideologies that influence them. The examples given throughout the book are tangible and highly relevant, and each chapter provides the reader with a perfect resource to explore media literacy to the fullest.