About This Project:

Critical consumerism is the idea that we, as consumers of information, should examine the information presented to us to determine its factuality and think critically about the implications of this information. It stems from the business concept of the critical consumption of goods, where consumers ensure that products purchased over the internet will function as advertised.

As Web 2.0 has created a space where all users can be content creators, producers, and contributors, critical consumption has become increasingly important. People have the ability to manipulate facts to support false claims with virtually no accountability. With 39% of children choosing social media as their preferred news outlet (Commonsensemedia, 2017), it is becoming integral to their education for us to teach them to be critical consumers of information. In this episode, we explore the ways to become more critical consumers and how to educate others as to how to do the same.

This project was created for my Digital Literacies course, where we explore the changing definition of what it means to be literate. It was produced in collaboration with Jennifer Cunningham-Lozano, and edited by me.