What is media literacy?
This weeks guest was Julie Smith, who is a professor and facilitator for media studies at Webster University. She defines media literacy is the critical questioning of what media is today. The reading from Learning for Life in Our Times defines media literacy as a framework to access, analyze, evaluate, and create messages in a variety of media forms. (p. 69).
Why is it important?
Media literacy is imperative in today’s society. Media has become an integral part of education and learning, yet there is a vast amount of information circulating the web. It is important for learners and educators to be able to decipher between reliable and unreliable sources. Everyone should have the necessary tools to critically analyze information, otherwise the consequences can result in spreading of false information.
Why is it dismissed?
Julie touched on the difficulties with digital literacy. She used psychological theories, such as the social learning theory, to explain how people tend to hear only what they want to and they reject all other opposing viewpoints. Additionally, we have thousands of news sources we can pull information from, and people generally consume content that aligns with specific biases/opinions. People search for what they want to see. This causes a positive reinforcement loop of attitudes surrounding specific topics in the media.
News and other media platforms have incentivized on the human tendency to align with what makes us feel smart and correct. News is a business, so different outlets will give its viewers what they want, not necessarily what they need. This has been reinforced further with media platforms tracking user’s activity and curating their feed based ideas/opinions they interact with.
Why should you aim for varied views but the factual consensus in your PLN?
It is important to interact with several viewpoints in the media. Being able to look at both sides will contribute to a holistic and coherent perspective regarding important political and social issues. I think it is difficult to hold a “factual consensus” because biases have an exceptional impact on the way people deliver information. That being said, the best thing we can do in this day and age is to read multiple sides and perspectives.
Having a PLN with different viewpoints will encourage traffic from other users who follow similar principles in their online engagement. From here, you create an online community that fosters diverse perspectives and influences.
References
Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2009). 21st century skills: Learning for life in our times. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Media Literacy – Facts Matter – Course YouTube Channel https://youtu.be/57r3-aEnci0
edci338ziwang
November 18, 2021 — 11:57 pm
Hi Soleil,
What an amazing blog you wrote! I really like your discussion of the third topic, I think one problem with digital literacy is that we human has limited cognitive capacity to process information. Once the information has exceeds our capacity to understand, we might just take what ever opinion that is dominant. For example, we might just believe information published by big cooperation than what’s on the social media platforms or people’s personal blog account. So this lead to the issue where, even we have multiple information sources, we are still limited, and controlled by the big media companies. One line from Smith that really touched me, which is that “news is a business, rather than a public service”. Do media literacy really serve us? Or us serving them?
alisonneale
November 22, 2021 — 11:11 am
Hey Soleil,
I like how you said that we can’t really escape from bias. Whether we know it or not, we all take in and deliver information the way we want to which sometimes does not take into account multiple viewpoints. However, having a mindset and PLN that “looks at both sides” goes all the way back to the importance of PLN inclusion and diversity. It is one thing to have a PLN and another to have a PLN full of different viewpoints, thoughts, information, and individuals.
alisonneale
November 22, 2021 — 11:12 am
Hey Soleil,
I like how you said that we can’t really escape from bias. Whether we know it or not, we all take in and deliver information the way we want to which sometimes does not take into account multiple viewpoints. However, having a mindset and PLN that “looks at both sides” goes all the way back to the importance of PLN inclusion and diversity. It is one thing to have a PLN and another to have a PLN full of different viewpoints, thoughts, information, and individuals.
qiningliu
November 23, 2021 — 6:07 pm
Something I am wondering after reading your post is filter bubble. You have mentioned the difficulties of media literacy, and one of them is that people tend to listen to what they like. I have read before such phenomenon is called filter bubble. When we only embrace what we agree and shut outside what we disagree, it’s like we are trapped into a bubble. As a result, our opinions can be easily manipulated by the press as long as they feed us targeted information.
Lawrence He
November 24, 2021 — 2:46 pm
I am fully agree with your point on “people tend to hear only what they want to and they reject all other opposing viewpoints.” And another point is appealing to emotions and personal beliefs can influence public opinion more than objective facts. Audiences are easily held hostage by emotions and tend to choose facts they want to see and believe, seeking emotional resonance or catharsis. At the same time, based on the spiral of silence and herd mentality, group emotions are amplified and public opinion is determined by emotions and values rather than by facts themselves. The development of the Internet makes the power of group emotions grow, and the truthfulness of events may be ignored under the influence of emotions. Some audiences may put aside the event itself and abuse, curse, or even conduct flesh search or other illegal acts against the news subject, causing certain physical and mental harm to the subject, in which the emotional venting obscures the facts themselves.