It would be a stretch to suggest that the death of juvenile rapper Lil Tay left the world mourning. Most people met the news with a collective: “Who?” This wasn’t an unreasonable response as it was only in death that Lil Tay proved newsworthy. But even then, it was a death that wasn’t.
It took a full day for the media to report that the supposed death of Lil Tay had never taken place. The truth was revealed thanks to the reporting of gossip site TMZ, while other more reputable outlets simply reported the false news as fact and enjoyed the web traffic.
It is important for people to be better informed and educated about the media they consume. This is vital if we want to live in a functional democracy. The story of Lil Tay may not have great consequence in many of our lives, but it provides a great case study in understanding what is flawed about the media we consume and how we can all improve our literacy.
Lil Tay was declared dead. What happened?
On Thursday last week the Instagram account for 14 year-old Lil Tay (real name Tay Tian) reported that the young supposed rapper had died suddenly. The implication of the post was that she had committed suicide following the recent similar death of her brother. The story immediately garnered global attention with a sense of operatic mystery surrounding it.
The text on the Instagram account purported to be a statement from her parents, erroneously naming Lil Tay as “Claire Hope”:
“It is with a heavy heart that we share the devastating news of our beloved Claire’s sudden and tragic passing. This outcome was entirely unexpected and has left us all in shock. Her brother’s passing adds an even more unimaginable depth to our grief.
“During this time of immense sorrow,” it continued, “we kindly ask for privacy as we grieve this overwhelming loss, as the circumstances surrounding Claire and her brother’s passing are still under investigation.”
The Canadian Lil Tay became Internet famous as a nine year-old child for videos posted to Instagram where she was seen bragging about the millions of dollars that she earned. In reality, the houses and car she bragged about were not hers. Her mother worked as a realtor and the car belonged to her boss.
The Instagram account was followed by 3.2 million people, but went quiet back in 2018. This coincided with a custody battle over Tay Tian between her parents.
Bad media reporting
It should not have taken so long for the hoax to have been uncovered.
BBC reporter Daniel Rosney posted a Twitter thread about reporting on the death. Unlike many news outlets, it seems, Rosney conducted an investigation.
In the Twitter thread, Rosney detailed the process that led to the BBC making the right call not to publish the news. Rosney explained that the story didn’t ring true to him as it had been dormant for five years, so he contacted her management who didn’t reply. Rosney then spoke with police in the US and Canada who were unaware of the supposed death. Because he could not verify the death of either Tay Tian or her brother, BBC news wouldn’t report it.
Better media literacy
Media consumers, which accounts for every person who ever turns on a computer, TV, radio, or opens a newspaper (remember those?) or magazine, needs to become better at discerning what is and is not legitimate information. Media is on the cusp of an AI revolution which will not only make the spread of fake news and information easier to spread than ever before, but it will also lower the quality of the news reporting that we consume.
Teachers already face a challenge in educating students on media literacy. They are often resource-poor and aren’t adequately educated themselves on what is an increasingly complicated, ever-evolving subject.
In a research study by Dr Jocelyn Nettlefold from the ABC-UTAS Media Literacy project and Dr Kathleen Williams from the Media School at the University of Tasmania on media literacy education in Australian schools, it was found that:
- Almost a quarter of teachers did not feel equipped to guide students on whether a news story is true and trustworthy.
- 24 per cent of teachers said that while they view critical thinking about media as important, they rarely turned it into a classroom activity.
- The teachers, largely over 35 years-old, said they trusted the ABC greatly, and tended to trust other local newspapers, TV, radio, and mainstream news websites. They had a low level of trust in social media.
- Many teachers are concerned about student’s reliance on digital and mobile media for news.
More can obviously be done to better resource and train teachers in high schools today on how media is constructed and disseminated as a vital part of the curriculum.
Outside of educational facilities there are bodies like The Australian Media Literacy Alliance (AMLA), whose membership comprises museums, archives, libraries, public broadcasters, schools, and universities.
The AMLA prospectus outlines why it is important to improve media literacy for our citizenry: “A healthy democracy requires that citizens have the skills, knowledge and capacities to use media to engage with politics, policies and world events. It also requires that citizens can recognise when information is misleading or deliberately deceptive. In addition, media production skills are now critical for full participation in society, whether for work, strengthening family and social relationships, advancing health and education goals.”
Among the members of AMLA, however, is the ABC, which was itself among the media organisations that failed to report on the Lil Tay story adequately – declaring her dead and only correcting its published story once a US gossip website diligently investigated the story.
That is the difficulty of being a literate media consumer – we are at the whims of respectable media to conduct their work in a way that is befitting of the trust that we place in them. Because the truth is that most people don’t have enough time in their day to invest in every story they read.
And in this case, for even the savviest media consumer who puts faith in mainstream, trusted publications, it was difficult to determine just how real the story was without putting in the work to uncover the truth.
