Gourt > News > Media > Media Literacy (1)
Around the world, the most common definition of media literacy is the ability to “access, analyse, evaluate and use” media. However, media literacy is so much more. It’s the ability to elicit critical thinking and appreciation of media as familiar and global culture through discourse and discovery. Its purpose is to create active participants who are aware of the potential for bias and misrepresentation, recognizing that media forms are used as tools in constructing reality.
Mass media has been defined as “the methods of communication used to reach large numbers of people at the same time---TV, newspapers, radio, films, books and the Internet.” Through accelerated advancement of communications technology, modes of communication are becoming more sophisticated every day making access to ideas more immediate than ever. As global corporations reach further into the world and communications technologies evolve, it is difficult to control people’s access to the media. There comes a responsibility to educate and create media-literate citizens.
For more detail on the topic of Media literacy, see media awareness site
Major topics
- Understanding the processes involved in critically analyzing and creating media messages
- The business aspects of mass media such as broadcasting
- In particular, this includes the business and function of advertising
- The interaction of media and government
- The nature of journalism and the problem of media bias
- The sociopolitical nature of the media's content such as the depiction of social stereotypes and violence.
- In countries such as Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, the development of knowledge related to these topics is often described as understanding key concepts associated with: media languages, media institutions, media representations, media audiences and media technologies.
- The Scottish Film Council uses a triangle for deconstruction of media texts into three main areas. One side represents text as the product (graphics, written text, sound, or visual),as well as the codes, conventions, values and ideology, and story. Another side of the triangle represents the study of audience; audience perception and appeal. Another side of the triangle represents production; purpose and commercial interests and how the text is constructed.
Alternative News
Critical Thinking :: Skeptical Inquiry
Media :: Activism
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Alternative Media Watch - A set of links to most of the alternative and/or radical newspapers and publications operating today.
Brainshrub - Morning News Scan - Posts headline summaries with brief commentary and counterpoint links.
Meta Description: [ Brainshrub - Political community. ]
Center for Media Literacy - National advocate for media literacy education. Develops and distributes books, videos, teaching materials and other programs that promote critical thinking about the media.
Meta Description: [ The Center for Media Literacy provides you with a wide selection of teaching tools, carefully evaluated for their quality and importance to the field. ]
Children's Media Project (CMP) - A non-profit art and education organization focusing on giving children and youth, parents and teachers, artists and media makers a space to use media critically and creatively.
Christian Media Literacy Institute - Equipping parents and teachers to teach media evaluation from the point of view of Christian values.
Commercial Alert - Helps families, schools, and communities defend themselves against commercialism, advertising, and marketing. Campaigns focus on culture, education, government, and economy. Includes ideas for action, mailing list, news, and research library.
Emigre Design - Articles by or about Emigre, an experimental type foundry in Berkeley, CA. Emigre has had an unprecedented theoretical and real-world effect on the look of advertising around the world.
Meta Description: [ Emigre Essays ]
Harper's Magazine - The online version of the magazine: Harper's editors sift through the culture's vast output of information, searching for gleaming points of significance, and each month present their findings via such original journalistic devices.
Meta Description: [ Harpers.org is the website of Harper's Magazine, an American journal of literature, politics, culture, and the arts published continuously from 1850. ]
Jesuit Communication Project - Guides and resources to encourage, promote, and develop Media Education in schools across Canada.
Just Think Foundation - A media literacy organization for teachers, parents, and children teaching basic, visual, and technological literacy and encouraging young people to think critically.
Meta Description: [ Just Think provides media literacy education and media production training to youth and teachers. ]
Marshall McLuhan - A short overview of the place and influence of Marshall McLuhan in media studies.
Meta Description: [ A short overview of the place and influence of Marshall McLuhan in media studies. Biography of Marshall Mcluhan (1911-1980). ]
Marshall McLuhan Archive - This official not-for-profit web site is maintained by the estate of Marshall McLuhan to ensure the integrity of his name and legacy.
Meta Description: [ This official not-for-profit web site is maintained by the estate of Marshall McLuhan to ensure the integrity of his name and legacy. It provides a reference point for legitimate sites and information about Marshall McLuhan. ]
Marshall McLuhan Links - Professor Bernard Hibbitts selected links to biographical material as well as links to journals, papers, projects, courses, research centers and new releases relevant to the life and work of the late Canadian communications theorist Marshall McLuhan.
Meta Description: [ Marshall McLuhan links recommended by Professor Bernard Hibbitts of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. ]
Master New Media - Know-how, resources and tools to facilitate one's ability to learn, communicate and collaborate effectively with new media technologies.
Meta Description: [ Independent Publishing News, e-Marketing Articles, Online Collaboration Reviews by Robin Good ]
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Media Education Foundation - A nonprofit organization devoted to media research and the production of resources to aid educators and others in fostering analytical media literacy.
Media Literacy - Presents educational information and resources focusing on the United States.
Meta Description: [ Featuring the Media Literacy Speakers Bureau and hundreds of resources for media literacy education in school, home and community. ]
Media Literacy Clearinghouse - A web page designed for K-12 educators who want to learn more about media literacy and integrate it into classroom instruction.
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Media Literacy Online Project - Biannual online publication focusing on media literacy and the influence of media in the lives of children and youth.
MediaLiteracy - Research, information and materials by media literacy speaker and consultant Peter DeBenedittis, Ph.D.
MediaStudies - Helps advance research and education in media studies and critical thinking. The site serves as a hub providing links to international news and media studies sites.
Nat Whitten - Seminal Influences in Modern American Advertising. An online essay on generative influences in advertising projects from creative director copywriter Nat Whitten.
Meta Description: [ An online portfolio of creative director and copywriter
Nat Whitten, featuring luminaries of stage, screen, music, and fashion. Among others. ]
National Institute on Media and the Family - A national resource for research, education and information about the impact of the media on children and families.
Meta Description: [ Providing education and awareness on Media Violence, Video Game Violence, Media Usage, Addiction, Internet Safety, Health, Adolescents, Teens and Children ]
New Mexico Media Literacy Project - Provides training programs and materials in support of media literacy, especially in children. Products include examples of the use of subliminal messages and other forms of manipulation.
Noam Chomsky - Chomsky's home page at MIT. Contains a list of his publications on topics relevant to mass media.
Over the Rainbow - A free online magazine dedicated to media literacy for the entire family. Works to help children and adults not perpetuate stereotypes and generalizations about people of different backgrounds. Provides tips and activities that may help children and their parents become more open-minded media consumers.
PBS Teacher Source - Media Literacy - Features related activities, classroom resources, and professional development information.
Meta Description: [ PBS Teachers provides PreK-12 educational resources and activities for educators tied to PBS programming and correlated to local and national standards and professional development opportunities delivered online. ]
Pop Politics - Explores why people are turning away from traditional news sources for political coverage and turning to pop culture for information.
Popular Culture and American Culture Association - The PCA and ACA are two academic organizations that focus in part on media studies as well as culture. Open to a very wide range of investigations on scholarly topics.
Project Literacy Among Youth (PLAY) - A not-for-profit sponsorship of media literacy among youth. A scholarly yet practical experimentation with the ways in which all communication technologies can and do shape the education of youth.
PRWATCH - A nonprofit, public interest organization dedicated to investigative reporting on the public relations industry.
Techknowledge: Literate Practice and Digital Worlds - Master thesis by Bonnie Stewart. An exploration of knowledge, technology, and truth as cultural practices. Analyzing the ways knowing, being, and doing are constructed and re-constructed through cultural discourse.
Meta Description: [ Bonnie Stewart, Techknowledge: Literate Practice and Digital Worlds. An exploration of knowledge, technology, and truth as cultural practices. Analyzing the ways knowing, being, and doing are constructed and re-constructed through cultural discourse, the thesis considers how the technologies of a... ]
The Foucault Pages at CSUN - A good place to start if you want to apply the thinking of Michel Foucault to any study of mass media.
The Frankfurt School - A good overview of the cultural critics and theorists of The Frankfurt School. Marxist derived ideas led to concepts of historical materialism, and the culture industry. Strong criticisms of the media within modern industrial society.
The Media Awareness Network - A bilingual, Canadian educational web site containing a wide range of copy-right cleared resources to help teachers integrate media literacy and web literacy into their classrooms.
Meta Description: [ Site dedicated to promoting critical thinking in young people about the media. Media education and information literacy resources for teachers, parents, librarians and researchers. ]
The Validity of Anti-War Criticism - In defense of anti-war criticism by Tim Wise.
Transparency - Essays and media criticism intended to reveal the hidden meanings in TV, film, science fiction, theme parks, virtual realities, politics, advertising and news.
Meta Description: [ Transparency tries to make all of popular culture transparent to our understanding. It reveals the hidden meanings in TV, film, sci-fi, theme parks, virtual realities, politics, advertising and news. ]
Umberto Eco - Links and content referencing the Italian semiotician Umberto Eco's work and ideas.
Meta Description: [ Anthony Burgess: Biography and Reviews at the Bohemian Ink ]
Virginia Polytechnic Institute - Critical Media Literacy in Times of War - Engages users in critical examination of how the media covers US foreign policy focusing on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Visual Culture - Richard Griffith's short lecture on TV wrestling summarizes many of the main theoretical points in contemporary media and the culture of spectacle.
Meta Description: [ Welcome to the Sociology Department at The University of Auckland, New Zealand, with links to information about the Arts. ]
What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream - Noam Chomsky - From a talk at Z Media Institute in 1997.
Z Communications - The Spirit of Resistance Lives - Offers a variety of critical writings and essays on culture and the media.
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