My degree is in history from California State University, Long Beach, but being only thirty minutes south of Los Angeles, I discovered a passion for filmmaking alongside my academic studies. By nineteen, I was working nights and weekends as a production assistant on Hollywood lots. The most fascinating aspect of seeing movies made is the hundreds of careful, deliberate decisions that turn hours of footage into something concise and watchable. For those watching, movies and television arrive fully formed, polished to perfection for the big (or small) screen. But I learned on set that every camera angle, dialogue bit, music note, even makeup and hairstyles were intentional, predetermined choices made by a team of people to convey a certain tone, theme, and message.
Single scenes take hours to shoot, and even more to edit. Technology such as ADR (automated dialogue replacement) can change or replace actors’ lines after the fact. CGI can “de-age” an actor or even bring the dead back for one more movie (Peter Cushing, who passed away in 1994, was “in” the 2016 film Rogue One as a CGI recreation. Studio Lucasfilm is currently being sued over it.) An assistant director once remarked to me, “There is no such thing as a coincidence in this work.” What he meant was, everything seen on screen is exactly as someone wanted it to be.
The Power and Danger of Digital Media
As a history teacher, I see and hear students absorbing information from digital media and accepting it at face value. When speaking to students about events past, present, and future—to no one’s surprise—they have many misguided if not downright untrue beliefs. A majority of these fallacies are influenced by online videos, where students are internalizing misinformation, peer pressure, consumer culture and even blatant propaganda.
Research conducted by Reuters Institute and Oxford University in 2024 found that social media users overall are driving a “strong shift towards video-based networks.” Pew Research Center’s recent poll of American teens discovered that YouTube is the most popular site among 13-17 year olds, with 90% surveyed having an account, and 73% visiting the site daily. It is clear that the young minds we have been entrusted to help grow are consuming far more videos – especially shock-based content meant to generate views and cause posts to go viral – than any generation prior. How do we keep up with helping students develop the skills of digital literacy, when they’re consuming media at such a rapid rate?
The most obvious solution to this is restricting or outright removing access to digital media. This is something I am a proponent of, and is backed by research and even my state’s governor signing a bill to limit smartphone use in schools. However, in my opinion, restricting consumption alone is not the ultimate answer. Education on digital literacy is essential. For one, educators cannot control what students are watching outside of classes. Furthermore, restricting video-watching without helping students build the skills to analyze media only postpones the issue.
As educators, it is our responsibility to prepare our students for the world after school ends. Once students enter college and beyond, a sense of how to navigate the world of social media and content standards is imperative. How will they differentiate a video made by a scholar versus a politician? Will they understand the mechanisms that drive viewer retention and keep them glued, promoting virality over truth? I believe that unless we teach digital literacy as we teach our mandated curriculum, we are not preparing our students for the future.
Educating for Digital Literacy
Film production has been the vehicle I use to teach about content consumption and digital literacy. Video and content creation techniques, the creative processes, digital video editing and publishing are a hands-on method of bringing the discussion into my curriculum. Students are expected to not only create films but be cognizant of the choices they are making when doing so. How students assemble their videos is just as important as the finished product, because it illustrates to them how something as simple as music choice or a filter can change the mood and visual appeal of the finished product.
My logic is this: a student who does not understand the process behind what they are being shown will accept what they watch at face value, because they have no reference otherwise. A student who knows how the media is produced will have the tools to analyze what they are seeing and will be an active, rather than a passive, viewer.
This brings us to the “smallest” of the screens, the phone, where the consumption of videos on social media platforms is at the forefront of the experience of young people in our classrooms today. Now, by comparison to traditional media, TikTok and YouTube’s “production value” (i.e. quality and “polish”) is significantly lower than that of Hollywood films. Many would assume that videos on these user-driven platforms are simply shot in the moment, uploaded for posterity. Some are. And yet, their power over viewers remains the same if not more.
The “authentic” portrayal is precisely what draws young viewers in. Common searches confirm this: “Get Ready With Me” is a popular genre where creators show viewers what their morning routine is in carefully chosen snippets; “What I Eat in a Day” catalogues the user’s meal choices; “vlogs” are digital diary entries that give viewers a peek into the creator’s thoughts and feelings. The format of social media videos is different from traditional filmmaking, but the goal remains the same: engage the audience, make them feel something, draw them in, keep them watching.
And this is accomplished by film techniques: filters, cuts, music choices, sound effects—just for a 30-second clip instead of a two-hour movie. Creators are incentivized to carefully edit their videos to drive views, push their narrative, and gain money and a following. The flashier the edits, the catchier the music, the more potential for a clip to go viral. This is what has made social media videos influential in politics, news, and world events.
Capital Tech University notes, “TikTok’s highly visual platform fuels misinformation, as content often leverages eye-catching visuals and captivating soundbites to elicit emotional responses. A user’s more visceral response may cloud their judgment and lead them to avoid critical thinking. Similarly, catchy phrases and soundbites are commonly used to embed misinformation in the user’s mind.” YouTube has faced similar issues with antisemitic, homophobic, and white supremacist channels flourishing on the platform despite criticism from many, including Columbia Journal Review, the Anti-Defamation League, and London’s Institute for Strategic Dialogue. USA Today quoted writer Bridget Todd as saying that YouTube’s algorithm (the way it recommends videos to users) is “serving up more and more extremist content to people who are already consuming extremist content…further radicalizing people and minors on YouTube.”
Learning by Making
Back to the question of how to combat this cycle of misinformation and prepare our students to be informed viewers. I introduced filmmaking projects in my history classes. Students’ smartphones and laptops have built-in video editing software with free libraries of sound effects and music. Applications like iMovie, Google Photos, Windows Video Editor and Samsung Video Editor are all tools that students have access to, that they can learn how to use responsibly to become quality content creators.
Tutorials for filmmaking are found online at NoFilmSchool, StudioBinder, Script Magazine, or the plethora of how-to videos from professional filmmakers on YouTube. I have students create and edit their own videos to respond to a theme or prompt, while explaining basic filmmaking concepts. Many students had already been using these techniques for their own social media accounts but lacked the vocabulary to explain their use of industry standards. In their completion of my class assignments, students are experiencing making decisions that go into filmmaking in an educational setting.
Student discussion surrounding any video activity is both about the academic content and the film production itself, the process. I ask students to analyze their own work from a media literacy standpoint: “How did you decide what history should be in the completed video?” “What made you choose the music?” “Was there a specific point where you wanted viewers to feel an emotional connection to your topic?”
“Pearl Harbor was frightening, so I added tense music,” one of my tenth graders said recently after completing an assignment to make a World War II-style newsreel. Another recognized that they were using filmmaking techniques to appeal to viewers’ emotions: “I opened with ‘The Star Spangled Banner,’ because this newsreel is for Americans. The song would make them feel patriotic about going to war.” Students begin to understand that elements of a film are chosen to elicit specific audience reactions.
After a few exercises in filmmaking, I then flip this back on them: I show news clips, YouTube videos even TikTok reels and have students analyze them. Suddenly, they have the vocabulary and context to name what they’re seeing. They point out edits, music choices, special effects and information within this media, the media that influences them. They become active audiences who are aware of what they are watching and reflective about those who have created content and why.
This is not a perfect solution by any means, but through their discussions, my students have shown that when given the tools and context, they’re able to analyze films and videos on a deeper level. They engage in a way that was not possible before understanding basic filmmaking. I would encourage every educator, whether they have a background in filmmaking or not, to utilize the resources available for filmmaking to build this skill in the classroom. While fun and engaging for students, it promotes a deeper understanding of the video-driven world we are all living in.
