More than 100 students showed up to the latest Teach-In on “Reclaiming Democracy: Mass Media and Democracy” at Cal State Long Beach.
The political science department organized the third session of the series at Speaker’s Platform on Tuesday afternoon.
“The idea is for faculty members to share their experiences on various topics related to the subject of democracy with students and wider campus community,” said Teresa Wright, department chair of political science at CSULB.
This series started from conversations among several faculty members within the College of Liberal Arts at CSULB, Wright said.
The event was organized to “empower, teach and to explain” the importance of healthy democratic society to the students who are not politically involved in the system.
“Part of our investment in education is to cultivate this democracy. To be more democratically aware is a pre-condition to that,” said Kevin Johnson, a professor in the communications department and a panelist at the event.
Other panelists were Pamela Roberts, professor in the human development department, Christopher Karadjov and Teresa Puente, both professors in the journalism department.
“This event made me aware of everything that’s going on, and I think more people should come here to hear the speeches,” said Yadira Pineda, a fourth-year double major sociology and physiology student.
Puente gave several tips on how to identify between real and fake news to students.
“In journalism, we have a saying, ‘If your grandfather says he loves you check it out.’ Be reporters, call on officials, go to a location, report on it, look up original documents such as court cases, or police reports, and try to find the source material.” said Puente
During the speeches, the speakers also threw quiz questions for the students to keep them engaged and focused.
“This Teach-In event has really good points, how we as Americans become more involved in our democratic society and be little more critical of our news sources,” senior chemical engineering major Nicolas Amyx, said.
The pizza was served in a refreshment for the participants of the session.
The Teach-In Series session ended with a discussion group activity on the topics covered during the event and was facilitated by various faculty members.