Collectively, Alan Berry and Olga Polites have decades’ worth of experience teaching, studying, and advocating for media literacy education. They both serve as their states’ advocacy leaders and recently have stepped up to lead our coalition of State Advocacy Leaders across the country. With their leadership, they bring a wealth of knowledge, legislative wins and setbacks, and most importantly — the tenacity and creativity this work so often requires. We asked them a bit about their work and what they’re seeing from their grassroots advocacy perspective, read on!
Alan and Olga, we’re so pleased to have you serve as our new State Advocate Leads! You both have been a part of our state advocacy for years and have such great insight to the work our State Advocates do on behalf of Media Literacy Now and how we can best support them. Can you give folks a little background about yourself and how you found your way to Media Literacy Now?
Olga: I was a high school English teacher for 40 years, and an adjunct instructor at Rowan University (New Jersey) in composition and rhetoric for 26 years. When Facebook began to share news on their platform, I began teaching a short unit on media literacy to my high school students because I found they were unsure about how to verify the information they were consuming. The proliferation of social media sites accelerated the need for these skills, and that’s when I began advocating for media literacy education in New Jersey. During COVID, I joined the New Jersey Association of School Librarians to pass a bill that includes learning standards for all K-12 students. In February 2021, I wrote an editorial on the need for media literacy education, and I reached out to the organizations that I mentioned in the piece. Erin (MLN’s founder) contacted me, and we began corresponding. When she asked me to be New Jersey’s state advocate, I was thrilled to be a part of an organization that supports media literacy education.
Alan: I’m a media literacy educator and researcher with 15 years of experience designing and implementing media education programs in New York, Maine, Pennsylvania, and internationally. I most recently spent two years as a Technical Advisor at IREX, supporting their global media and information literacy programs and managing projects in Mali, Kenya, North Macedonia, and Slovakia. My interest in media literacy developed as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali and continued as a media production teacher for local youth in Brooklyn and Queens. I then developed my approach to media literacy as a facilitator and then Education Director for The LAMP, a New York City nonprofit delivering hands-on critical media literacy programs to citizens of all ages in schools, libraries, and community and workforce development centers. My practice inevitably pushed me into research and advocacy. After spending a year in Kosovo as a Fulbright research fellow, I began my doctoral studies at the University of Maine, where I’m currently a PhD Candidate finishing my dissertation which examines adult media literacy education as a tool for addressing issues around misinformation, polarization, and trust. I joined Media Literacy Now in 2017 as State Advocacy Leader in Maine, and I now serve as Pennsylvania’s State Advocacy Leader since moving to the state in 2022. My research has been published in the Journal of Media Literacy Education, The Media Education Research Journal, Teaching Media Quarterly, Javnost – The Public, and The Journal of Media Literacy, as well as in edited books for ALA and Routledge.
You both advocate in your respective states — New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maine — what challenges and success have you experienced? What are our other State Advocates experiencing around the country?
Olga: In 2023, Governor Murphy signed an information literacy law that will provide school districts with learning standards for all K-12 students. In the last six months, three new bills have been proposed around cell phone and social media issues, so there is still a great deal of interest on the part of legislators to continue to provide educators, students, and parents with tools to navigate our digital lives. I’ve been very fortunate to live in a state where the challenges have been few and far between, where legislators support well-written, common sense bills and vote in a bipartisan manner.
Alan: Working in your state and then speaking with advocates from other states, I’m always so surprised by how different all the state legislatures are, in both makeup and process. So, the biggest challenge is understanding how your state legislature actually works and what are the best times and best ways to connect with legislators and advocate for media literacy. And then, of course, understanding that advocating for and passing legislation requires patience and dedication, but also a lot of resilience, as legislative processes and timelines are not easy. However, we’re seeing a lot of success on the ground in states across the country – students and teachers want media literacy! But we’re also hearing from teachers that they need support and resources to implement media literacy, because they already have so much to do and very little time to do it all. What we talk about with advocates is that we need both a bottom up and top down approach to growing the media literacy movement – we need evidence and success stories from schools, as well as strong coalitions of students, educators, and parents, but also support from the state to develop standards, resources, and assessments, and to also provide funding and training for teachers. Ultimately, it’s about making quality media literacy education available to all students, and we can’t do that without support from schools, communities, and state legislators.
“What we talk about with advocates is that we need both a bottom up and top down approach to growing the media literacy movement – we need evidence and success stories from schools, as well as strong coalitions of students, educators, and parents, but also support from the state to develop standards, resources, and assessments, and to also provide funding and training for teachers.” – Alan Berry
How would you suggest individuals get started if they’re interested in advocating for media literacy education?
Olga: I have shared the Advocacy Toolkit with every contact I’ve had–it’s incredibly comprehensive and flexible. This includes state legislators since it gives them a roadmap on how to craft their own policies. Another document that I send often is the Cell Phones and Social Media Toolkit from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office. I think more and more states will be looking for the kinds of guidelines that both of these documents provide.
What are you most excited about as you look to the months ahead?
Olga: I’m really excited to work with the new crop of state advocates who have joined MLN. They ask great questions and are eager to try some of the suggested strategies with their legislators. I’m also thrilled that we have a few high school students who have reached out: two from California, one from Texas, and two in New Jersey. I believe their input is going to help us think about how best to establish peer to peer communication. As more states consider including cell phone and social media guidelines for students, more discussion around media literacy skills will inevitably follow. And we will be there to offer guidance!
Alan: We’re seeing a lot of momentum in Pennsylvania, as Governor Shapiro has openly discussed the need for media and information literacy education. That has led to the DOE developing an Information and Media Literacy Toolkit for educators, and provided some additional urgency around legislative efforts, as we’ve also seen the House and Senate introduce media literacy bills. We’re also seeing the national conversation around youth digital wellbeing lead to a number of bills across the country addressing harmful content online and smartphones in schools where there are opportunities to increase awareness around media literacy education and hopefully push for the integration of media literacy education in these bills and in schools.
“As more states consider including cell phone and social media guidelines for students, more discussion around media literacy skills will inevitably follow. And we will be there to offer guidance!” – Olga Polites
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