Assignment Prompt & Instructions
**175 words each**
Post 1
For my Week 5 Summative Assessment video, I am focusing on how contemporary media influences children and teenagers, specifically through social media. My presentation explains how social media affects young people’s behaviors, especially in the areas of nutrition trends and online challenges. I chose teachers as my audience because they interact with students daily and are in a strong position to help guide students in making safe and informed decisions about the media they consume. In my video, I will discuss how influencers and viral content can shape eating habits, sometimes promoting unhealthy or unrealistic diets. I also explain how social media challenges can encourage risky behaviors because many students want to fit in or gain popularity online. Another major focus of my presentation is the dangers of inaccurate media and the importance of fact-checking. I included strategies teachers can use to help students verify information, such as checking sources, reviewing credentials, and comparing information across reliable websites.
One reason I chose this topic is because social media is a major part of students’ everyday lives, and it can have both positive and negative effects. I think it is important for educators to understand these influences so they can support students’ health and decision-making skills.
One area I still have questions about is how schools can consistently teach media literacy across different subjects and grade levels. I am also curious about what specific strategies teachers can use to keep students engaged while teaching them how to fact-check online information.
Post 2
For my video for Week 5, I will be concentrating on the influence of modern media, especially social media, on culture and human behavior as it relates to nutrition content. The audience for my video is millennials because this generation often turns to social media for health, wellness, and lifestyle information. I selected the topics of nutrition, healthy eater culture, and its effects on children and teens because these are very prominent on social media sites and have the potential to greatly affect human behavior.
In my video, I will discuss how algorithms, repetition, and social validation affect our behavior, making us believe the viral nutrition trends even if they are not evidence-based. Studies have proven that being repeatedly exposed to idealized and false content shared on social media affects our beliefs and behavioral patterns over time (Fardouly & Vartanian, 2016). In my video, I will also discuss the risks associated with believing the false content shared in the media, especially regarding health and nutrition misinformation, which is highly shared online without verification (Waszak et al., 2018). The major part of the presentation includes teaching the audience how to effectively verify the facts.
Another area that I am not yet clear about is how social media sites can balance the fight against health-related misinformation with the need to respect freedom of expression. Another area that I would like to know more about is how media literacy abilities are developed across various age groups.
References:
Fardouly, J., & Vartanian, L. R. (2016). Social Media and Body Image Concerns: Current Research and Future Directions. _Current Opinion in Psychology_, _9_, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.09.005
Waszak, P. M., Kasprzycka-Waszak, W., & Kubanek, A. (2018). The spread of medical fake news in social media – The pilot quantitative study. _Health Policy and Technology_, _7_(2), 115–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hlpt.2018.03.002