Delivering the navigate strand | Youth group

Key topics

• Social and political issues.
• Misinformation, disinformation and fact checking.
• News sources, media and bias.
• Social media and algorithms.

Why the Navigate strand matters in youth settings

Young people are accessing media all the time and may have already developed skills and habits for navigating it. Youth spaces are ideal for exploring those habits in greater depth, while allowing young people to lead conversations about recent issues, trends and events.

A fast-changing and increasingly algorithmic media environment creates particular opportunities:

• Young people may understand that algorithms shape their feeds, but have fewer opportunities to explore how and why.
• Exploring why particular content reaches them can help young people recognise when platforms, creators, advertisers or others are trying to influence them.
• Supporting young people to shape their feeds can help them recognise that they have some agency over what they encounter.
• Discussions can start from young people’s own experiences and respond to emerging stories, trends and platforms.

As more news organisations and other media outlets use social media to reach young people, this is an exciting time to support media literacy. Youth spaces are particularly well placed to do this responsively, grounding discussion in young people’s real experiences while adapting to a rapidly changing political and media landscape.

My approach

Navigating media and information is something young people already do every day, and youth spaces are perfect for letting them lead conversations about online spaces.

Start by establishing what young people are already seeing and experiencing:

• What issues have they noticed lately, and where have they encountered information about them?
• Have they come across misleading stories or AI deepfakes? How did they identify them?
• What kind of sources might they trust or not trust, and why?
• What skills already exist within the group, and where is there room for peer-to-peer learning?
• Explore different sides of an issue, including the difference between legitimate disagreement and false or misleading narratives.

From here:

• Establish what misinformation and disinformation mean, why people spread them and how to identify them.
• Explore the concept of algorithms and echo chambers and how these might influence the information people see in their feeds.
• Compare different sources and perspectives, and consider how to judge whether information is reliable and accurate.
• Explore how the information young people encounter shapes the opinions they form.

If young people bring misinformation or disinformation into a session, avoid leaving harmful or discriminatory claims unchallenged. Be clear when something is false, misleading or risks causing harm, without shutting the young person out of the conversation. Where possible, investigate the claim together: where has it come from, what evidence is there, and what trustworthy sources could help check it? This is an opportunity to model the behaviour we want young people to take into the wider world.

If you can only do one thing...

Get young people into the habit of questioning the information they come across and the motivations behind those sharing that information. Use something they are actually seeing and explore who made it, why it was shared, what evidence there is and where else they could check it.

Where this fits into youth settings

There are plenty of natural opportunities to build media literacy into existing youth work:

• Informal conversations: Show genuine interest in where young people are getting their information. Ask how they decide whether something is trustworthy without making it feel like an accusation. Treat them as knowledgeable, ask what they are seeing in their feeds, and explore what happens when other people do not recognise false videos, posts or information.
• Research and looking things up: Any time young people are researching something or reaching for their phones to find out more is an opportunity to ask how they judge what they find. Build on their existing skills and experiences. In many ways, they are already the experts in online spaces.
• Games and activities: Simple games can show how quickly information changes as it spreads. Even whispering a phrase from one person to the next can result in something completely different. Link this back to how information is shared online.
• Social action and campaigning: Creating videos, flyers or posts is a good opportunity to think about the audience, how messages are communicated, and the pitfalls of online communication young people may want to avoid.

Key resources

If you have 30 minutes or less…

• Mini-lesson 1, The Electoral Commission and Shout Out UK. - Use this to explore misinformation, disinformation and the challenges they pose to democracy.

1 hour…

• Dismiss campaign, Shout Out UK – Use short videos on topics such as deepfakes, bots or echo chambers, then apply simple questions to familiar online content: Who made this? What evidence is there? Is anything missing or out of context? Can I check it somewhere else I trust? Why was it made or shared?

1–3 hours…

• Move from checking individual pieces of content to exploring how the media can shape what we know and believe.
• What do politics and democracy mean? The Politics Project - From the At the Table Toolkit uses images to uncover young people’s existing ideas about politics. This can lead into discussion about where those ideas came from and how the media shapes what we know and believe.
• Dismiss campaign, Shout Out UK - Alternatively, investigate examples of misinformation and disinformation. Ask who created the content, what it claims, what may be missing and why somebody might want people to believe or share it. These accessible resources provide an overview on misinformation, bots, echo chambers, deepfakes and data manipulation.

If you have 4-6 hours…

• Be internet citizens community toolkit, UK Youth – Use the Fact vs Fiction and Three Sides to Every Story sessions to explore misinformation, bias, filter bubbles and different news sources. Build on the activities by comparing how different sources cover the same issue and helping young people identify trustworthy sources that suit their interests and routines. The toolkit is from 2021–22, so use its activities and facilitation structure but update examples, platforms and statistics to reflect what young people are seeing now.

6 hours plus…

• Begin by using Dismiss campaign, Shout Out UK – Use short videos on topics such as deepfakes, bots or echo chambers, then apply simple questions to familiar online content: Who made this? What evidence is there? Is anything missing or out of context? Can I check it somewhere else I trust? Why was it made or shared?
• Then, have young people work in small groups to identify a key social or political issue to research and find how different media outlets, newspapers, news channels and social media accounts have presented the story. Use the BBC’s headlines as a starting point for topics.
• Misinformation toolkit, Full Fact - Learners can use this to further support their research.

Considerations for learners with additional needs

• A useful starting point is the media and information young people already interact with every day.
• Start with advertising: Its purpose is often relatively easy to identify. Look at an advert together and ask: who made this, what do they want you to do, and how are they trying to persuade you? Compare a straightforward advert with an influencer promotion, sponsored content or something where the advertising is less obvious. Using familiar, concrete examples can make abstract ideas like persuasion and bias easier to explore.
• Move into social media: Start with clear examples before moving onto more ambiguous content or different perspectives. Look at examples where the purpose or reliability is harder to spot, such as a misleading headline, edited image, missing context, obvious AI-generated content or something designed to provoke a strong reaction.
• Break questions down: Is somebody trying to sell me something? Persuade me of an opinion? Present something as fact? Is there a reason they want me to share it? Using the same small set of questions repeatedly can help young people build a routine for judging information.
• Use real examples: Sorting adverts, opinions, factual claims and misleading content, comparing different versions of the same story, or looking closely at clues within a post can help young people build confidence in judging what they see online. Where helpful, use sorting, matching, symbols or discussion rather than relying only on reading and writing, and make clear that different opinions can be valid even where factual claims can be checked.