Media literacy helps people explore human relationships and experiences as represented through stories and symbols.
For 2,500 years, there has been a debate on whether new media and technology emancipate or control people.
This debate started with the transition from oral to written culture.
People worried about the democratizing effects of writing and the displacement of memorization.
In the 20th century, critics recognized that films conveyed values and ideologies that could impact moral and ethical judgments.
Each generation grapples with rapid changes in media and technology, affecting what Bill Moyers called "the public mind."
During the mid-20th century, the rise of television led to growing interest in analyzing media.
Exploring language, images, and symbols could shed light on the economic and political power of media industries.
In the 1990s, people grew up in a 500-channel universe with the commercialization of the internet.
In the 21st century, there is a confrontation with weaponized information, algorithmic personalization, social media influencers, and fake news.
Media literacy can help people prepare for an unknowable future.
Expanding Literacy
Media literacy involves interpretation, meaning-making, and creative expression.
It is an expanded conceptualization of literacy.
Literacy includes social practices like reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
It is defined as the sharing of meaning through symbols.
Concepts like author, text, audience, message, meaning, and representation help analyze all forms of expression.
Related types of literacy emerged in the 1960s to incorporate different types of media and technology.
These terms emerged because people value new competencies for navigating the media-saturated society.
Related terms include:
Visual literacy: Understanding and creating photography, images, and graphic design.
Information literacy: Searching for, finding, and evaluating information sources.
Film literacy: Understanding narratives through images, dialogue, and sound effects.
News literacy: Analyzing and judging the credibility and reliability of journalism.
Digital literacy: Skills for using the internet and social media.
Data literacy: Knowledge for using data visualizations, AI, algorithms, and databases.
All these approaches are integrated into a coherent whole.
Sharing meaning through symbols is expanding because it involves making sense of and using medium-specific features.
Skills of reading and writing in print differ from skills of viewing or creating a video documentary.
Editing a print document and editing a video documentary both involve reading, analysis, organization, and strategic thinking.
Reading from a smartphone differs from reading from a laptop screen or a printed page.
Each form of media places different expectations on the reader, viewer, listener, or user.
In the information age, expectations regarding literacy are high.
Reading comprehension and good writing skills help advance in careers.
Protecting Against Harmful Media
Media literacy has been examined as an intervention to address problems caused by media, an approach called protectionism.
Parents may provide informal media literacy learning experiences at home after observing behaviors from media.
It is difficult for children to detach from absorbing viewing activities.
Parents set limits on screen time and encourage educational programs, books, and unstructured activities.
Some parents model talking back to media, commenting on problematic content like violence or stereotypes.
Media literacy offers protection from harms associated with media culture.
Media effects researchers study the impact of media on attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
Social science researchers conduct empirical investigations of media literacy interventions.
Researchers have explored how media literacy education may help people make decisions about dietary supplements and performance-enhancing substances.
Researchers developed a school-based program where students talked about sports and body image.
Experts described the effects of supplements, focusing on persuasive information on television and social media.
Dialogue with athletes and psychologists explored the moral implications of doping and offered mental strategies to counteract temptations.
Students created antidoping public service messages.
The health media literacy program contributed to attitude changes and decreased use of legal dietary supplements (Lucidi et al., 2017).
Other work has shown the value of media literacy in addressing issues like nutrition, sexual behavior, and substance use (Kistler, Kallman & Austin, 2017).
Some audiences are vulnerable to negative messages because they develop expectations from media.
This idea is sometimes called expectancy theory.
Media literacy can provide protection if people have more awareness, knowledge, and control over their interpretations.
They are less likely to see media representations as useful for forming expectations about real life (Pinkleton et al., 2012).
It can minimize negative consequences of violence, depictions, cyberbullying, stereotyping, or consumer culture.
Media literacy is associated with increased resilience of children and youth.
Media literacy has proven effective in various contexts.
Some programs focus on one issue, while others address many topics.
Some involve only one or two sessions, while others are semester-long (Martens, 2010).
Adolescents with higher media literacy show lower levels of smoking behavior.
Children's fears about terrorism can be reduced by parental media literacy programs.