Media Literacy

What is Media Literacy?

Media Literacy is a relatively new term, however it is widely used by educators, policymakers, regulators and media producers.

It is described in three main ways:

1. Some people see it as a competence: you are media-literate or media-illiterate

2. Some see it as a social practice: how we read and make media

3. While others see it as entitlement: to protect us from danger associated with new media in particular.

Where as Senior examiners describe Media Literacy as:

Donner Cooper Clifflords - Media Literacy is the ability to create, use, analyze and moderate media products within audiences and institutions.

Pete Fraiser - A broader version that includes all oral, visual and digital forms of making people mere thoughtful towards the production of the media.

Jasin Mazoki - The ability to read a media text in visual and audio forms.

James Baker - The ability to understand how media texts are constructed and its meaning and content.

Wayne O'Brian - Being able to engage and apply knowledge to institutional factors that have an impact on the messages and values. Media Literacy also involves the understanding of how different audiences in different times and places may interpret the text in different ways.

Media Literacy has been defined in many different ways and by the five senior examiners. But the definition always incorporates the visual and oral sides of media, creativity and the understanding of media texts through several audiences.

My Definition of Media Literacy: Media literacy is the understanding of how a media text is processed by different audiences and the ability to be able to read a media text in different forms, oral and visual.