Media Literacy

Citation

Keary, M. (2010), "Media Literacy", Online Information Review, Vol. 34 No. 5, pp. 816-817. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684521011084654

Now in its fourth edition, this is a guide for students on how to be media literate, but what does it mean? “Media literacy is a set of perspectives that we actively use to expose ourselves to the media to interpret the meaning of the messages we encounter”. To gain power over the media and to achieve your own goals, you need to become more media literate, by understanding how the media operates and its effects on you. We live in a message‐saturated world where there is too much information for us to take in, so we have to be selective. Using the media literacy approach, you can begin to build knowledge structures that are sets of organised information in your memory, for which you need to develop specific skills.

You have to understand how audiences are constructed from individual and industry perspectives and children as a special audience. You need to know about media effects and when to be proactive or reactive, by recognising what these effects are and how to control them. Mass media industries grew out of a combination of technological and marketing innovations to create new channels of communication. They are in strong competition with each other and rely on audiences for their profit motive, but they are currently in a state of massive change.

Mass media is all about content and reality, and one must be careful not to be “sucked in”. Take for example “news” – it is not a reflection of actual events, but merely a construction by journalists who are subjected to many influences and constraints. In “media entertainment”, content follows standard formulae containing messages, which depart from the real world. “Advertising” is a powerful and pervasive medium that influences us all.

The book raises a number of issues for media literacy that can cause controversy. The first is “ownership and control of mass media”; the competition is between two strong values – localism versus efficiency. Second is the matter of “privacy” – the need to become more informed about the risks to your privacy and to be able to control it. “Piracy” is rather similar, as it is a threat to ownership and a real problem in the digitisation of information. “Violence” in the media is analysed from the perspective of effect and the nature of violence, as there are public complaints about its increase. Mass media has changed “Sports”, but have we benefited? It has become more exciting and entertaining, but also more mercenary and breeds the celebrity culture.

This textbook and workbook provide a useful analysis of the media world, with additional chapters on ways to increase your media literacy personally, appendices on long‐term effect, profiles of mass media industries, useful contacts, bibliographical references and a helpful index.