Media Literacy

What is Media Literacy?
- Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate information in variety of forms. User of media should learn to digest all the content in the media, understand and interpret the use of each element in the media, then analyze the truthfulness of the information.

Why is Media Literacy Important? 
As technology advances, more people are able to contribute information, knowledge and ideas to the internet. A media literate person will have the ability to think and analyze which information is true and which is false. By this way, false information, for example fake news phenomenon can be decreased as people will think twice before receiving the information.

Types of Media
- traditional media: television, books, newspapers, magazines, radio, etc.
- new media/ digital media: e-books, e-news, social media, video games, computers, etc.

Old Media Vs New Media

Old Media	New Media
A bit more expensive than the new media Able to reach a broad target audience. One-way communication Geographically limited Providers control what the audience receive Longevity: one time	To target a more specifically audience Allows businesses to track the activity of audience (able to analyse audience) Inherently two-way communication Unlimited with the internet connection Anyone can produce/ deliver content to public Longevity: cumulative (build over time)

Media is changing constantly but new media does not replace old media. In fact, new media is just the transformation and improvement of old media.
For example: cable or broadcast television → DVRs → online television shows

People still use old media nowadays although new media are advancing.

The most dominant form of media: television and computer.

9 major mass media industries:

Book, newspaper, magazine, film, recording, radio, broadcast television, cable television, and computer. 

---
Building Blocks of Media Literacy 

1. Personal Locus 
2. Knowledge Structures 
3. Skills 

Theories in Media Literacy 
- Potter's Cognitive Theory
- Social Cognitive Theory
- Social Construction Theory
- Spiral of Silence
- Lasswell's Model of Communication
- Shannon and Weaver Communication Model

Learning Ladders in Media Literacy (By W. James Potter) 

1. Cognitive – awareness, understanding, evaluation, appreciate (the more elaborate a person’s knowledge structure is about the media industries, the more the person will be able to appreciate how difficult it is to produce certain messages.

2. Emotional – low levels of emotional development, people’s emotions control them; High levels of emotional development, people can use the media to shape and control their emotions. (depressed people use television to escape unpleasant feelings and real-world stimuli that could exacerbate those feelings.)

3. Moral – requires the development of opinions about the acceptability of shows, people and situations.

Low moral: develop your moral opinions based purely on intuition or because someone else, if there is a fit you are happy, if no fit you have a negative reaction.

Middle: make a distinction among characters on their values and find yourself identifying with those characters who have the same values you do, if those characters are portrayed positively (rewarded, successful, attractive, etc) then you are happy.

High: you think past individual characters to focus your meaning making at the overall narrative level. You separate characters from their actions so that even if you don’t like the particular character, still you like his or her actions in terms of fitting in with (or reinforcing) your values. You are able to assume different moral perspectives and more fully appreciate the action from all participants’ point of view.

4. Aesthetic Appreciation – this development is oriented toward the cultivation of enhanced enjoyment, understanding, and appreciation of media content.

Low AA: people have a very simple categorical opinion (good or bad) with not much reasoning

Middle: people are able to distinguish acting from writing and directing. They have the ability to perceive that one of these might be good while another is bad. They are able to compare an artist’s performance within this message with past performances and infer a trend in the artist’s work.

High: there is an awareness of media content as a “text” that provides insights into our contemporary culture and ourselves. An awareness of artistry and visual manipulation is also needed. This is an awareness of the processes by which meaning is created through the visual media. Including the ability to detect artifice (in staged behaviour and editing) and to spot authorial presence (style of the producer/director). 

Further studies recommendation: 

Media Literacy 2Ed. by W. James Potter, 2001

Media literacy is a sub under Mass Communication. You may refer to Mass Communication study for more information about media literacy.