Graduation Year

2021

Graduation Month

May

Document Type

Thesis

Faculty Mentor

Phyllis Ngai

Keywords

GLI, social media, misinformation, polarization, prejudice, ethnic minority

Subject Categories

International and Intercultural Communication

Abstract

We’ve determined that information collected and distributed by and on news and social media outlets has manifested in political biases of its users. It is clear that this issue has subsequently led to political polarization and ethnic prejudice. To combat this problem, we have devised an online informational package and an interactive experience to teach people how to use it. Our website provides the resources to check personal biases and recognize ethnic prejudices. The seminar encourages people to apply and spread their newfound knowledge. We conducted interviews with experts, surveys, and an extensive literature review. Through our research and feedback from over 40 partners, we have found that access to social media literacy education is virtually non-existent — hence the need for a comprehensive, easily digestible informational package. It's not enough to create a package, we also need people to see it. Our interviews with experts tell us that the best way to engage students is through interactive experiences. Therefore, we supplemented these educational tools with an experience that consists of a community group and the extensive use of partners to promote our package to their respective networks. Our resources use text, visuals, videos, conversation, and other interactive elements to educate users on how the use of media can exacerbate ethnic prejudices. To measure the attitude change of our viewers, we created a set of surveys concerning media usage and its relationship with bias. We also tracked the attendance of the seminar so that we could understand how widespread our message is. Hundreds of people have accessed our website with an accumulation of over 2,000 views. We expect this to continue growing exponentially as word of its existence continues to spread. Our project has a global reach with at least 15 countries and 25 states reached.

Honors College Research Project

1

GLI Capstone Project

yes

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