• Media Literacy is a 21st century approach to education. • It provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms - from print to video to the Internet. • Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.
Media literacy, therefore, is about helping students become competent, critical and literate in all media forms so that they control the interpretation of what they see or hear rather than letting the interpretation control them.
With todays media being controled by a "left" or "right" leaning point of view. We need to learn to be able to take an objective point of view when consuming information. Especially in the news today.
To become media literate is not to memorize facts or statistics about the media, but rather to learn to raise the right questions about what you are watching, reading or listening to.
media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and produce communication in a variety of forms.1
Advocates of media literacy emphasize five basic principles for critical analysis of media messages:2
Media messages are constructed.
Messages are representations of reality with embedded values and points of view.
Each form of media uses a unique set of rules to construct messages.
Individuals interpret media messages and create their own meaning based on personal experience.
Media are driven by profi t within economic and political contexts.
We must learn how to analize all forms of media that we are exposed to. In doing so we can better understand where it is coming from, and effect it was intended to have on us.
