The Media Literacy Service-Learning Project
Media Literacy
The term "media literacy" has gained prominence since the late 1980s. Just like service learning, media literacy means different things to the groups, authors, and organizations using it. In general terms, it could be defined as the ability to critically analyze, interpret, and evaluate messages that are created and disseminated by mass media. Baran has provided a more proactive definition, which includes not only the ability to "effectively and efficiently comprehend" mass media content, but also the ability to properly "utilize" those messages (1999, p. 48).
In the document known as "The People's Communication Charter," the Cultural Environment Movement (CEM), a group concerned with issues of media ownership and control, offered a political-economic definition of media literacy as "the right to acquire information and skills necessary to participate fully in public deliberation and communication. This requires facility in reading, writing, and storytelling; critical media awareness; computer literacy, and education about the role of communication in society" (1996, p. 1).
Watson and Hill, among other authors, have emphasized the importance of media literacy in the classroom. According to them, media literacy, which they call "mediacy," will be as important in the academic curriculum of the future as "literacy and numeracy are today" (1997, p. 138). Silverblatt (1995) identified several essential elements of media literacy; Baran (1999, p. 49) added a few more and produced a list of "fundamental" steps, which I have summarized as follows:
- Being aware of the impact of the media;
- Understanding the processes of mass communication;
- Developing strategies for interpreting and discussing media messages;
- Understanding media content as text that provides insight into culture and life;
- Understanding ethical and moral responsibilities of media practitioners;
- Developing adequate and effective production skills.
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