Global News uses on-line English language newspapers and news services from around the globe as a key resource to help students develop critical thinking and questioning skills both on the media itself and on key global issues.
Developing the skills to think and question critically can help students to challenge the attitudes and behaviours which lead to racism, sexism and the abuse of human rights or which perpetuate inequality and poverty. Ultimately it can inspire action for positive change.
Principle educational aims:
- To explore the ways in which the press and media represent events, people and places, particularly in countries in the South.
- To explore how the press and media influence public opinion by selective reporting of events, people and places and the way in which this information is presented.
- To learn about alternative sources of information and to encourage students to look beyond the commonly recognised sources of news.
- To encourage critical thinking on key global issues such as aid, trade, debt, conflict and sustainable development.
- To enable young people to consider what might be the most effective positive actions they can take on key global issues.
- To ensure that Global News teaching programmes and activities meet the requirements of the citizenship curriculum and also aspects of the IT and geography curriculum.
A skills based programme:
The Global News teaching programme and activities focus on developing skills. While enabling students to gain greater insight into global issues, Global News primarily seeks to help students develop skills by:
- Being pupil-led in terms of interests and topics explored
- Drawing on students own experience and awareness
- Using and developing questioning and thinking skills
- Using and applying enquiry approaches]
- Encouraging self reflection on personal attitudes and values and how these impact on others locally and globally
- Using discussion and debate
- Helping to develop communication skills and collaborative working
- Encouraging individual concerns or outrage to be harnessed through community involvement and positive action for change
Click here to find out about the learning process adopted for the Global News activities.
The internet and media literacy
The Internet is now a major source of news, information and entertainment for most young people in the developed world. Given the wide range - and often questionable validity - of information available through the internet it is vital that young people develop the skills to navigate critically through the information available to them. As with traditional press and media sources they need to be aware of what lies behind media productions - the motives, the money, the values and the ownership - and to be aware of how these factors influence content. They need to ask from whose perspective the story or information is told; whose voices are heard, and whose are absent. Ultimately media literacy can empower young people as citizens and transform a passive relationship to media into an active, critical engagement.
