Abstract

Strengthening critical thinking abilities of citizens in the face of news published on the web represents a key challenge for education. Young citizens appear to be vulnerable in the face of poor quality news or those containing nonexplicit ideologies. In the field of data science, computational and statistical techniques have been developed to automatically collect and characterize online news media in real time. Nevertheless, there is still not a lot of interdisciplinary research on how to design data exploration platforms supporting an educational process of critical citizenship. This article explores this opportunity through a case study analyzing critical thinking ability of students when facing news dealing with the social mobilization “No+APF”. From data collected through 4 online exercises conducted by 75 secondary school students, 55 university students and 25 communication specialists, we investigate to what extent young citizens are able to classify news headlines and ideological orientation of news media outlets. We also question the influence of the media’s brand name and the subjectivity of each participant in regards to the social mobilization “No+APF”. The results underline the importance of group work, the influence of the brand name and the correlation between criticalthinking abilities and having a defined opinion.

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There is today a great deal of controversy over digital and social media. Even leaders in the tech industry are beginning to decry the time young people spend on smartphones and social networks. Recently, the World Health Organization proposed adding “gaming disorder” to its official list of diseases, defining it as a pattern of gaming behavior so severe that it takes “precedence over other life interests”. At the same time, many others have celebrated the positive properties of video games, social media, and social networks. This paper argues that a deeper understanding of human beings is needed to design for deep learning. For the purposes of this study “design for deep learning” means helping people matter and find meaning in ways that make them and others healthy in mind and body, while improving the state of the world for all living things, with due respect for truth, sensation, happiness, imagination, individuality, diversity, and the future. In particular, fifteen features related to human nature are suggested based on recent scientific developments to answer the question: What is a human being? Consequently, proposals that are linked to learning and transformation, as well as social improvement, should fit with the ways in which humans, as specific sorts of biological and social creatures, learn best (or can learn at all) and can change for the better.

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