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This study focuses on how four U.S. History textbooks portrayed the COVID-19 pandemic as a recent historical event. The findings from the study suggest that the textbooks provided a disjointed narrative that did not fully explain aspects of the pandemic, such as why COVID-19 caused so much societal upheaval. The textbooks also often dodged significant questions about the origin of the virus and societal lessons learned from the U.S. pandemic response. As such, the article concludes by arguing that these "first drafts of history" will do little to help future generations think critically about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Much has been written about the potential civic ramifications of online misinformation, and scholars have identified many useful strategies for helping students discern fact from fiction on social media. However, those strategies make an assumption, which is that consumers of digital media have a desire to identify and share accurate information. In this article, I argue that media literacy efforts should also require students to be retrospective and grapple with their own motivations and biases that may make them more susceptible to believing inaccurate or misleading information. Drawing on theories from political psychology, namely motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, as well as psychosocial research that explains the role of affect on individuals' decision-making, I identify implications for K-12 media literacy education.