Reading Newspapers for Their Shock Value

“[Newspapers] too frequently provide a mode of entertainment to enliven lessons, entice students to a subject, and stimulate their interest. They give teachers a sense of modernizing instruction and relating the curriculum to students' lives and interests. However, as long as these sources of information are not subjected to critical scrutiny for their role as producers of knowledge, the prevailing view of media as natural and neutral conveyors of reality 'will have been smuggled in under the guise of educational progressivism and relevance.'” p.92

Segall, A., & Schmidt, S. (2006). Reading the newspaper as a social text. The Social Studies, 97(3), 91-99.

     This quote begins to describe some of Segall and Schmidt's criticism of the way that newspapers are used in classrooms as they will go on to describe how to correct this. Newspapers are not always used in classrooms, but when they are they are only used at a minimal surface level. They are often used as an example of truth or to back up a commonly help conception about a theme or topic. Segall and Schmidt have found in their research that newspapers are usually used as a way to increase student interest in a topic. It is not entirely clear how newspapers have this affect on students, especially students of the 21^st century who tend to give the newspaper little credence as an interesting medium to begin with, unless there is a current “hot topic” discussed in the newspaper. The only other logical interpretation of this motivation portion of the passage would then be the connection between newspapers and truth, the idea that newspapers present the facts and the facts are good. What teachers fail to do is have students really think critically about what's in the newspaper, how it is presented, what is left out, the balance of so called fact and opinion, and other areas of inquiry that get beyond the face of the source. This is a dangerous possibility as students will subtly and gradually learn that newspapers always tell the truth and that there is even one truth to be learned. In the course of doing this they will learn that are being educational or scholarly in doing so.

     Where I see this as having the greatest impact on students in practice (depending of course on the degree to which your particular students believe in the absolute truth of the newspaper) is using historical newspapers in conjunction with discussion of formerly controversial issues. These could be things like women's suffrage or the slave trade (applicable in both US and World History), or topics like racial segregation (especially applicable in US History). The lesson would teach content as well as skills, but would be particularly skills-focused. Assuming that students have little experience with newspapers or critically examining them the teacher could ask something to the extent of “What do the newspapers report?” or a similarly non-leading question. Once students generate answers (news, truth, facts) the teacher would then pass around a news article on the relevant controversial issue from a well respected local or national paper, but an article which has a different perspective (such as supporting segregation) than it would have today. Depending on the age and level of the students it would take differing amounts of structure for students to come to the realization that perspectives change and newspapers report someone's perspective. This could be paired with a more recent article relating to the issue to show how that perspective has changed, but in any case it should be accompanied by a discussion about how and why we look at newspapers with a critical eye. A perspective which seems so obviously “wrong” today seems like it would provide the appropriate amount of shock value to have students on their own come up with the idea that newspapers display one perspective. This would hopefully lead to a habit of healthy criticism when approaching newspapers in the future, if not sources in general.