It might have begun as a self-soothing exercise in blame-shifting, but the crisis of confidence in America’s few remaining gatekeeping institutions has become the sincere preoccupation of Democratic elected officials. Gone are the disingenuous admonitions directed at elderly Facebook users who supposedly were bamboozled by amateurish Russian memes into voting for Donald Trump. Today, it’s America’s supposedly gullible youth that takes up disproportionate space in Democratic imaginations. The concerns Democrats have expressed about the plague of miseducated young people, though these may be as politically motivated as ever, are sober and earnest. And yet, while they have accurately identified the symptoms of the malady they seek to address, they cannot discern its cause.
This week, New York governor Kathy Hochul announced a plan to direct the state’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services to develop a “media literacy” curriculum for K–12 students in public schools. “This will help students and even teachers to help understand how to spot conspiracy theories and misinformation, disinformation, and online hate,” she said. By giving young people the “tools” to discern what is “digital fact and digital fiction, we can better inoculate them from hatred and the spread of it.”
Comments