Media litteracy

Unit 1: The language of the media

Lesson 2

Look at the dictionary definition of literacy. Then, try to give a definition of media literacy.

Literacy

lit•er•acy /lIt r si/ noun [U] the ability to read and write: a campaign to promote adult literacy, basic literacy skills.

Now read the following text and check if your definition was right:

Text 1 – Eight Key Concepts for Media Literacy

a. All media are constructions

The media do not present simple reflections of external reality. Rather, they present carefully crafted constructions that reflect many decisions and result from many determining factors. Media literacy works towards deconstructing these constructions, taking them apart to show how they are made.

h. The media construct reality

The media are responsible for the majority of the observations and experiences from which we build up our personal understandings of the world and how it works. Much of our view of reality is based on media messages that have been pre-constructed and have attitudes, interpretations, and conclusions already built in. The media, to a great extent, give us our sense of reality.

b. Audiences negotiate meaning in the media

The media provide us with much of the material upon which we build our picture of reality, and we all "negotiate" meaning according to individual factors: personal needs and anxieties, the pleasures or troubles of the day, racial and sexual attitudes, family and cultural background, and so forth.

f. Media have commercial implications

Media literacy aims to encourage an awareness of how the media are influenced by commercial considerations, and how these affect content, technique, and distribution. Most media production is a business, and must therefore make a profit. Questions of ownership and control are central: a relatively small number of individuals control what we watch, read, and hear in the media.

e. Media contain ideological and value messages

All media products are advertising, in some sense, in that they proclaim values and ways of life. Explicitly or implicitly, the mainstream media convey ideological messages about such issues as the nature of the good life, the virtue of consumerism, the role of women, the acceptance of authority, and unquestioning patriotism.

g. Media have social and political implications

The media have great influence on politics and on forming social change. Television can greatly influence the election of a national leader on the basis of image. The media involve us in concerns such as civil rights issues, famines in Africa, and the AIDS epidemic. They give us an intimate sense of national issues and global concerns, so that we become citizens of Marshall McLuhan's "Global Village."

d. Form and content are closely related in the media

As Marshall McLuhan noted, each medium has its own grammar and codifies reality in its own particular way. Different media will report the same event, but create different impressions and messages.

c. Each medium has a unique aesthetic form

Just as we notice the pleasing rhythms of certain pieces of poetry or prose, so we ought to be able to enjoy the pleasing forms and effects of the different media.

[From Barry Duncan et al. Media Literacy Resource Guide, Ontario Ministry of Education, Toronto, Canada, 1989. http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/teachers/media_literacy/key_concept.cfm]

In summary, media literacy is a phrase that refers to an individual's ability to read, analyze, and evaluate the printed, auditory, and visual information presented to an audience by a variety of media forms (television, print, radio, computers, etc.). To be media literate implies that the individual recognizes the rhetorical arguments and techniques being used to persuade an audience to accept a specific political position, buy a specific product, or watch a specific program. And it's the instinct to question what lies behind media productions—the motives, the money, the values, and the ownership—and to be aware of how these factors influence content.

Comprehension

Exercise 1

What kind of text is this? What is its function? What is its message? Who is the addresser? Who is the addressee? What is the context? Which are the contact and the code used by the author?

Exercise 2

Read the article again and insert the headings listed below in the correct spaces before each paragraph.

• All media are constructions
• Audiences negotiate meaning in the media
• Each medium has a unique aesthetic form
• Form and content are closely related in the media
• Media contain ideological and value messages
• Media have commercial implications
• Media have social and political implications
• The media construct reality

Exercise 3

Decide whether the following statements are True or False according to the article.

1. Media literacy is the means by which we can take apart the messages we read, see, and hear, in order to understand them more fully.
2. Our sense of reality is formed entirely by the media.
3. The content of media...