The State of Media Literacy

Abstract

Media literacy is a term that means many different things to different peoplescholars, educators, citizen activists, and the general public. This article reviews the variety of definitions and presents a synthesis of commonalities that most definitions of media literacy share. The review presents an overview of how media literacy has been treated as an issue in curriculum design within the institution of education, and then how it has been treated as an intervention by parents and researchers.A relatively new topic, media literacy is popular not just among media scholars but among the general public of educators, consumer activists, and parents concerned about their children's risk of media exposures. ''Media literacy'' as a keyword in a Google search yields 765,000 hits, and using that same keyword in a narrower search within Google Scholar still yields a substantial literature of more than 18,700 articles. These articles were produced by scholars as well as concerned citizens from almost every part of the world. Almost all of the writing about media literacy was published in the past three decades. With mass media changing in the past two decades with digitization of information and convergence across channels of transmission, more scholars were attracted to this topic.The vast size of this fast growing literature and the wide range of backgrounds and interests of the scholars writing about media literacy make it challenging to review the ideas expressed. This state-of-the-scholarship essay focuses on three general issues: definitions, curricula, and interventions. It is more concerned with raising questions than with arguing fordefinitive answers, and it is more divergent in its attraction to many different sub-topics and approaches than it is convergent toward a single definition or set of best practices.

School-context videos in Janus-faced online publicity: Learner-Generated Digital Video Production Going Online

“…Still, an aspect emphasizing online safety has been included in digital literacy (Buckingham, 2006): basic technical skills are not enough, but it is crucial to learn how to protect oneself against harmful content. Whereas the restrictive approach to media education considers the learners as media consumers who need to protect themselves from potentially harmful effects (Potter, 2010), the empowerment approach (Hobbs, 2011) may enable them to counteract the risks. The latter relies on young people's capability of gaining online success (Lange & Ito, 2010).…”

Digital Media Platforms and Education: The Uses of Social Networking in the UAE and China

“…Second, an operative definition of 'literacy' must be provided. As reported by Potter (2010) "some regard media literacy primarily in terms of increasing skills. Still other scholars regard media literacy as an activity or as a political, social and cultural practice" (Potter, 2012, p. 677).…”

Sobre la necesidad de desconectar: algunos datos y propuestas

“…por qué educar para el uso de las tecnologías de la información y de la comunicación, y sobre cómo y quién lleva a cabo este cometido (Campuzano, 1992;Sancho, 2001;Potter, 2010;Naval y Arbués, 2012. Es fundamental que los ciudadanos aprendan los nuevos lenguajes y adquieran la capacidad de discernir y valorar críticamente la gran cantidad de información disponible.…”

“…Los educadores que se ocupan de estos temas comparten en gran medida currículos, investigación y estrategias, y la competencia mediática es un objetivo educativo cada vez más presente en distintos países (Martens, 2010); sin embargo, el concepto media literacy sigue siendo una cuestión debatida y controvertida (Potter, 2010). Los currículums formulados en términos de competencias se refieren a este aspecto de la educación como competencia mediática y audiovisual, sin embargo en las últimas décadas se han utilizado diversos términos.…”