The Information Ecosystem Depends on News
This poster uses the rich analogy of an ecosystem to help students understand today’s information landscape. Much of this ecosystem depends on news reporting as a foundation for understanding current events.
By analyzing this poster, students can:
- Learn how the news-driven ecosystem forms an information web (similar to a food web);
- Identify how content about news — including posts from social media influencers — largely couldn’t exist without standards-based journalism;
- Reflect on what makes an ecosystem healthy;
- Consider how journalism is the keystone species of the information ecosystem.
This resource can help students recognize that everyone has a part to play to keep the information ecosystem healthy.
Note for printing: This poster’s full size is 22 x 28 inches. Educators can print it as a single large poster or use the tiled version of the PDF to print in smaller sections on standard paper and assemble the pieces together.
Acknowledgment: The News Literacy Project would like to thank Courtney C. Radsch, Ph.D., whose work on information ecosystems played a key role in helping inform this resource.
