Using Democracy Now! video clips
Teaching Materials
Democracy Now! en español for bilingual education
Get students involved
Invite Democracy Now! to your institution
Reuse Democracy Now! content
Democracy Now! clips lend themselves well to exploring academic subjects and connecting them to current events. The following step-by-step outline is one way to introduce Democracy Now! to your students.
Browse our extensive topics listing or search our archive to find a relevant clip. Links to related reading materials are often available with Democracy Now! clips and are found on the left sidebar.
What is the purpose of the lesson? What will students learn?
Before beginning a conversation around a Democracy Now! clip, put the information into historical context.
Watch DN! clip ahead of time to determine which part(s) best fit your education goals. Utilize a short clip to introduce an event or prompt students to begin thinking about a topic. Or show a full episode with in-depth interviews to foster a debate among students. All DN! clips can be found at our indexed archive, or searched by topic or by date and most segments are accompanied by printable transcripts.
Should your classroom have no internet connection, podcasts are available to download audio and video files onto computer desktops.
Offer students a specific lens with which to analyze the news clip. Keeping your objective in mind, assign students questions to consider while viewing the clip. Or compare the Democracy Now! clip to a corporate news clip on the same event. Introduce the concept of framing to indicate how different media outlets focus on different aspects of the same story to frame their own narrative.
To view episodes fostering debate, simply type “vs.” in the search tool on our website to locate past debates on Democracy Now!
Consider the following questions with your students as you compare a Democracy Now! clip to a commercial media clip on the same event:
Our Democracy Now! en español program translates each day’s headlines into Spanish in transcript and audio form.
The Destacados section features “Reportajes,” Democracy Now! interviews with Spanish transcripts and video subtitles, as well as “Originales en español,” Democracy Now! Spanish-language interviews.
There are many ways to engage your students with Democracy Now! content. Here are some ideas to get you started.
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The Zinn Education Project provides teaching materials that incorporate Democracy Now! content. Browse their resources for inspiration.
Democracy Now! Host and Executive Producer Amy Goodman gives speaking events across the country. Invite her to speak at your institution.
Our Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License allows you or your students to republish Democracy Now! content in your non-commercial blog, website or student newspaper as long as you clearly credit democracynow.org.