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By California Black Media
Legislation establishing safeguards as young people grow more reliant on the internet and social media as a source for news and information has been approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Assembly Bill (AB) 873, authored by Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), was signed on Oct. 14.
By integrating media literacy instruction into the four core subjects that all students learn from kindergarten through 12th grade in California, AB 873 will bring California in line with a small but growing number of states teaching media literacy in grade school.
“As we’ve seen too often in the last decade, what happens online can have the most terrifying of real-world impacts. From climate denial to vaccine conspiracy theories to the Jan. 6 attack on our nation’s Capitol, the spread of online misinformation has had global and deadly consequences,” Berman stated.
“We have a responsibility to teach the next generation to be more critical consumers of online content and more guarded against misinformation, propaganda, and conspiracy theories.”
According to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), full digital access remains lower among Black (71%), Latino (63%), and low-income households with school children (59%).
AB 873 directs the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC) to incorporate media literacy content into the English language arts/English language development, science, mathematics, and history-social science curriculum frameworks when they are next revised.
Generation Up (GenUp), a student-led nonprofit that sponsored AB 873, praised Newsom for his decision.
“We want to again thank our community partners for their support and look forward to continuing to advocate for California’s students alongside them,” stated Nicholas Harvey, K-12 policy director at GenUp.
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