Understanding Media Literacy and the Challenges

Understanding ‘Media Literacy’ and the Challenges

Friends, Do we really trust the media,Today?

Do we believe the news we read in the newspapers, watch on television news channels, listen to on radio or flick through on our mobile phones more specifically Whatsapp?

Do we think the media is full of Fake News, controlled by big vested interests who are either spinning their version of the facts or suppressing the real story?

Modern forms of communication have made it easier for propagandists and mischief-makers to invent fake news stories or to create biased and incomplete versions of the truth and to pass them off as the real thing. And that’s why media literacy has become immensely valuable at a time when misinformation and disinformation abound.

We need media literacy to work out;

1.    Who is lying to us and who is not.

2.    To distinguish between fake news and real news.

There was a time when the means of communicating information to a mass audience were limited to Press, radio and TV. And those who couldn’t afford these mediums were almost left shouting on streets to be heard.

Now the means of communication have broken all the barriers and from street corners it has reached to everone’s palm through 4G mobile telephony.

The most intriguing world wide web, its fascinating social media like facebook, twitter, tinder, instagram, pinterest, wiki, blogs and above all the most provoking whatsapp are on our first finger.  

It’s hard to argue that the democratisation of information and the power of free speech is not a good thing, but if it has a downside it is that the liars and cheaters and deceivers have full rein to do their thing.

You would agree with me that new things need new skills, and so is media literacy, which is one of the foremost solutions to the changing nature of information in our society today.

The U.S. National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) defines media literacy as ‘the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication’.

It addresses the skills our youth need to be taught in schools and colleges, the abilities and competencies citizens of our great country should have as they consume information in their homes and or work places so that they are ready to face the challenges of a today’s communication process.

As communication technologies have transformed the society, impacted our understanding of ourselves, our communities, and our diverse cultures, the skillful application of literacy skills to media and technology messages help us in correctly decoding the message. Media literacy empowers us to be both critical thinkers and creative producers of an increasingly wide range of messages using image, language, and sound. Media literacy is about having the skills to access, understand, question, critically analyse, evaluate and create media.

Media literacy is also about finding the untold story beneath film clips, radio spots, and newspaper articles. Even corporate sponsored content has hidden messages that challenge us to think beyond what we hear and see. Media literacy has become a center of gravity for countering fake news, and a diverse array of stakeholders – from educators to legislators, philanthropists to technologists – have pushed significant resources toward media literacy programs. Media literacy, however, cannot be treated as a panacea.

Those who are media literate are more aware of the way media content is made, where it comes from and what its purpose is. They’re more confident about voicing their opinions about media. They’re also safer online and less likely to be manipulated by the media.

The Internet has democratized access to information but in doing so has opened the floodgates to misinformation, fake news, and rank propaganda masquerading as dispassionate analysis.” How does one engage online after discovering that a once trusted space can be a site for manipulation and disinformation?

The extent to which media literacy can combat the problematic news environment is an open question. It is crucial to examine the promises and limits of media literacy before embracing it as a counter to disinformation and media manipulation. Media Literacy is the ability to read and understand visual, aural and digital messages. It means having the skills to understand and interact with the media analytically, critically and knowledgeably.

Media literacy emphasizes the following elements:

a.    a critical thinking skill that allows audiences to develop independent judgments about media content; 

b.     an understanding of the process of mass communication;

c.     an awareness of the impact of media on the individual and society;

d.     the development of strategies with which to discuss and analyze media messages;

e.     an awareness of media content as ‘text’ that provides insight into our contemporary culture and ourselves;

f. .   the cultivation of an enhanced enjoyment, understanding and appreciation of media content;

Media literacy focuses on individual responsibility for discerning the truth or accuracy of messages. As platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp increasingly personalize information access, individual responsibility becomes more challenging, especially when methods for serving information are not transparent.

One great challenge is how an individual can assess the reliability of information when the breadth of the corpus, e.g., what is included and excluded and why, (and how it differs from information served to others) is neither visible nor accessible. It is necessary to re-think media literacy in the age of platforms. Future of Media Literacy, the current political and media environment is one of high stakes for media literacy efforts.

Globally media literacy is caught in a vicious circle; only the development of a systematic and cumulative body of research regarding the teaching and learning of media literacy can help clarify goals, define clear policies, identify effective teaching practices and teacher education and explain the educational process that pupils undergo when they study media, and to create such a body of research requires a sophisticated media literacy program which should focus on the following;

a. develop a coherent understanding of the media environment,

b. improve cross-disciplinary collaboration,

c. leverage the current media crisis to consolidate stakeholders,

d. prioritize the creation of a national media literacy evidence base, and

e. develop curriculam for addressing action in addition to interpretation.

Some questions need answers….

1. Can media literacy be successful in preparing citizens to deal with fake news and information?

2. Which groups should be targeted for media literacy interventions?  

3. Who would most benefit from training, and where have efforts been shown to be most effective?

4. Given the traditional use of age as a method of classification – different curriculam for youth and adults – is there value in using other criteria, such as occupation?

5. How can media literacy programs effectively address overconfidence in skills? This can manifest pre-emptively (individuals who feel they need no media literacy training) and reactively (individuals who overestimate the effectiveness of their media literacy training).

6. Are traditional media literacy practices (e.g., verification and fact-checking) impractical in everyday media consumption?

7. How can media literacy initiatives respond to the powerful systems of media il-literacy (e.g., clickbait, feed algorithms) which already condition individuals’ media behaviors?

8. How are groups committed to disinformation and propaganda able to harness the language of literacy and critical analysis to sow new distrust of media and establish adversarial political spaces?

9. What is the political identity of media literacy in during a hyper-partisan moment?

10. How will the overlapping efforts of media literacy stakeholders interact?

11. Will new signals for trustworthiness aimed at limiting ‘fake news’ backfire, producing new uncertainty around media messages?

The field of media literacy can capitalize on the ways in which the crisis of fake news has brought renewed focus to the field.  There is an opportunity to build greater coherence within the field as well as be a driving force for multi-sectoral, cross disciplinary collaboration.

This is a time for identifying what is known and unknown about the field, and where the gaps lie. It is also the time to develop a rigorous evidence base to show the efficacy of media literacy education in preparing our youth for the changing media environments. A robust evidence base is needed to demonstrate the value of media literacy education and to attract future resources and support from related sectors i.e. media owners and the Govt.

It would be a breach of our duties as teachers for us to ignore the rhetorical power of visual forms of media in combination with text and sound…the critical media literacy we need to teach must include evaluation of these media, lest our students fail to see, understand, and learn to harness the persuasive power of visual media.

Thanks

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