Educationally and pedagogically written and reviewed by Academic Writer and Researcher Alex Genik, MA and Academic Writer Maryna Polishchuk, MA.
What is Media Literacy
Media literacy can be defined as an educational discipline that aims to promote understanding, reception, and production of media content. As the Internet has an increasing number of creators and content producers, it becomes difficult to disentangle the variety of opinions and ideas. Unlike the structured and evidence-based content of the general educational curriculum, the content found in mainstream media may contain strange, violent, and incompetent narratives, which may leave vulnerable social groups frustrated or disappointed.
To avoid confrontation with issues of power and inequality, the general K-12 North American educational programs usually contain a media literacy course. The course equips students with the tools to discern and understand racial, sexist, and other forms of malicious prejudices in digital media, how to confront them and maintain information hygiene. As shown by Koltay (2011), different definitions of media literacy put an emphasis either on the ability of students to disentangle the meanings in the culture of words, sounds, and images or to simply increase understanding and enjoyment of the media. Either way, UNESCO considers media literacy a basic human right, making this subject even more important for modern students and educators.
Media Literacy Benefits & Drawbacks
Media Literacy Benefits
The main benefit of media literacy is that it provides tools to address social imbalances of the media in educational settings. Through the means of critical pedagogy, media literacy helps teachers address social injustice and other forms of power imbalance in common media. These issues become especially important since the United States and the world are not “post-racial” and since racial hierarchical systems continue to put emphasis on human differences, especially in the media.
Likewise, media literacy seeks to provide a perspective on the production and distribution of media conducted by large big-tech companies, with near-monopoly status, such as Google, Amazon, and Apple. The main benefits that arise from the introduction of media literacy courses is that educators can provide students with a more nuanced view of the questions of racial and gender equality, as well as the ability to overcome the negative portrayals of marginalized groups, by relying on evidence-based counter-messages.
Media Literacy Drawbacks
Although media literacy helps to cope with information uncertainty and fighting racial prejudices, it also has certain drawbacks. For example, since media literacy is frequently a part of the regular K-12 curriculum, the students who attend the course may enact resistance, cynicism, and backlash as a part of teenage angst psychology, trying to confront and challenge the opinions of their teachers. This may result in desensitizing the messages that a course conveys and decreasing its overall effectiveness.
For this reason, it is important to address resistance to the course if it arises in a timely manner and communicate the importance of media literacy themes and the benefits that they may provide for a more pleasant online experience. For example, if resistance among boys arises when the issue of responsibility for patriarchal relationships is raised, it is possible to fix the problem by empowering the boys to challenge inequality.
Another drawback of media literacy is that it may be difficult to choose the extent of explicitness, to which its ideological and political agenda should be articulated. In this case, the drawback can be counterbalanced by referring to the best practices and trusted sources.
Media Literacy Examples
The examples of having good media literacy include:
- Feeling comfortable with all existing media and actively using it, for example, through participation in virtual communities, accessing cultural artefacts, and engaging in intercultural dialogue.
- Having a critical approach to the accuracy and quality of content displayed in the media.
- Using media creatively.
- Understanding the ownership structure of media, as well as legal repercussions linked to certain copyright issues.
Examples of teaching good media literacy include:
- Using factual language to provide evidence-based perspective on the events frequently referred to in the media.
- Addressing possible power imbalances displayed in media, by providing historical checks and ethical recommendations;
- Dealing with possible resistance, by empowering rather than victim blaming.
Media Literacy: Teach Simple’s Perspective
In the world of digital technologies, media literacy has become an important element of Internet presence and also the inalienable right of the netizens. While being recognized as such in most North American schools, teachers have yet to find unique approaches to the possible resistance that may arise when teaching this course. Since media literacy is a part of the usual K-12 program, its students may manifest anger and teenage angst when confronted with the new approaches the course brings. In these cases, empowering students rather than blaming them is important. Following these simple instructions makes media literacy a useful tool for any curriculum.
References
· Cubbage, J. (2022) Critical Race Media Literacy: Themes and strategies for Media Education. Milton Park: Routledge.
· Koltay, T. (2011) ‘The media and the literacies: Media Literacy, Information Literacy, Digital Literacy’, Media, Culture & Society, 33(2), pp. 211–221.