Page 259 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

| Med a L teracy: Creat ng Better C t zens or Better Consumers?

Media literaCy: Creating Better Citizens
or Better ConsuMers?
Since the 1930s there has been a small but growing movement of educators
who stress the importance of media literacy. Media literacy has been broadly
defined as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and produce messages in many
forms of media. While it is the most media-saturated society, the United States
lags behind other industrialized nations in media education. Media education is
still not a regular feature of the U.S. educational system and there are many dif-
fering perspectives over precisely what constitutes media literacy. At the heart of
these debates is the question of whether media literacy should be about teaching
people the skills and knowledge they need to be more sophisticated consumers
of media or the skills and knowledge they need to be more engaged and critical
citizens.
Advocates of media education argue that we must all learn how to make
sense of electronic and visual media just as we have to learn traditional literacy
skills such as comprehension, interpretation, and evaluation of written texts.
Educators take it for granted that students must be taught how to interpret and
produce texts such as poems, stories, and essays. From a media literacy perspec-
tive, we should also be students of the media and learn how to critically engage
with advertisements, television programs, films, and new media forms as well.
Although most of the 50 states now include some mention of media literacy
in their educational standards, media education has yet to become a full part
of the curriculum in most schools. Only a small percentage of students in the
United States participate in any focused media education. The move away from
educational practices that encourage critical inquiry and the increased empha-
sis on standardized testing that emerged at the beginning of the twenty-first
century has stalled attempts to advance media literacy in the nation’s schools.
However, a growing media literacy movement composed of educators, activists,
independent media practitioners, and concerned citizens is fighting to estab-
lish the importance of media education in a world that is saturated with media
images and stories.

mEDia saTuraTion anD ThE nEED For mEDia LiTEraCy

For the citizens of industrialized nations media are inescapable. In the United
States, for example, virtually every home includes at least one television, and
two-thirds of households have three or more. In these homes, the television is
on for almost seven hours a day and the average American watches over four
hours of television daily. Television is, of course, only one of many media tech-
nologies that compete for our time. Use of the Internet and other new media,
such as video games, is rising every year. As new forms of media are introduced,
however, television viewing is actually increasing rather than declining. People
are simply adding to their overall electronic media exposure every year. Because
we live in media-saturated environments it is essential that we engage in critical
reflection on the media that are so much a part of our daily routines. This will