Teaching media in a 'post-truth' age: fake news, media bias and the challenge for media/digital literacy education

Digital literacy is often proposed as a means of dealing with the problems apparently caused by 'fake news'. This positioning article considers some of the difficulties with this approach. It argues that fake news is not an isolated phenomenon, but one that needs to be understood in a much broader social, economic and cultural context. It also addresses the practical possibilities and difficulties of teaching in this area. The notion of 'digital literacy' appears to define the phenomenon in technological terms. By contrast, this article suggests that we need a broader notion of media literacy, which is based on critical thinking about the economic, ideological and cultural dimensions of media. Even so, the article suggests, the broader problems that are at the root of the problem of 'fake news' are unlikely to be solved very easily.