The media literacy activities in this section investigate topics where state and local government actions impact people and where people impact state and local government policies, including Native American mascots and logos, individual rights and privacy online, military recruitment, state-sponsored lotteries, COVID-19 pandemic and environmental protection policies, campaigns for public office, and digital democracy at state and local levels. There is a critical media literacy digital choice board about the roles of state and local government in our political system.
If “all politics is local,” as former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill among others once said, then it is vitally important to understand the functions of state and local government. Such governments are the ones closest to where people live and their policies can have the greatest impacts on people’s daily lives.