Sunday, January 30, 2011

What is Media Literacy?

Media Literacy might have many definition and we can see that from our reading. Media literacy is the understanding of the message that is being conveyed to the public as well as the understanding of where the message comes from and awareness that media is all around us.
Mass media is all around us-the internet, the radio, the TV, magazines, newspapers, etc. Sometimes we don’t even realize that we are media-multitasking by having the TV on and the radio or reading a magazine all at the same time and by doing that, we tend to overlook the messages being sent to us by the media. Being media literate is all about understanding the messages being sent to us and the reason behind it. It is important that we are just blankly accepting everything we hear or read from the media. We need to be active in receiving the information and thinking about how it relates to our lives and how it affects our everyday life.
Another aspect of media literacy is being curious about who is sending the message to us using media. It is important that we show interests in the sender of the message so that we understand the point of view that the message is coming from. For example, a news story about a republican candidate reported by a liberal reporter will be viewed differently than the same story covered by a republican reporter.
Media Literacy is an important aspect of our everyday life and we tend to not really think about it just as we don’t really think about writing or reading literacy but media literacy is just as important.

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