The perception of misinformation by young students from a Brazilian sociocultural context: reflections and clues for media education

Abstract

Based on a doctoral study developed in the Brazilian sociocultural context, the article reflects on the perception of misinformation among young students from public and private schools. In a society permeated by the digital world in the broader context of socio-materiality, the complexity of the terms Misinformation, Fake News, and Post-truth shows the difficulty of understanding true and false nowadays. In the capitalism of data, algorithms, control, and vigilance, misinformation is an increasingly discussed theme in digital culture due to the problems created in the political, economic, social, cultural, and political spheres. The implications of this phenomenon reverberate throughout the educational ecosystem, the teaching-learning interactions and relations in the school, and other informal and non-formal educational spaces. Grounded on the dialogue between cultural studies, media-education, and youth cultures, we seek to identify young students' perceptions of misinformation to create a formative path in the media-education perspective. The qualitative and exploratory research involved an empirical dimension conducted with young students from 14 to 21 years old in Curitiba and Colombo in Paraná, Brazil. We traced the group's profile through the European Framework for Digital competencies during workshops on media education, aiming to identify and reflect on how young students receive, understand, analyze, check, and share information. The workshop analyses suggested clues to build media competencies in the youth culture contexts and how schools can/should develop a work in the perspective of media education to build a better understanding of oneself, the other, and the world, producing and sharing messages and information with more responsibility in the perspectives of citizenship and belonging.