Media literacy across the curriculum

by David M. Considine

If we regard truth as something handed down from authorities on high, the classroom will look like a dictatorship. If we regard truth as a fiction determined by personal whim, the classroom will look like anarchy. If we regard truth as emerging from a complex process of mutual inquiry, the classroom will look like a resourceful and interdependent community.

From The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life, by Parker Palmer.

Exactly two decades ago, in his book Megatrends, John Naisbitt presented a compelling argument that challenged the business and education communities to respond meaningfully to America's transition from an industrial society to an information society. Despite a potentially revolutionary wave of hardware and software, Naisbitt argued that we were, as a nation and a society, "drowning in information but starved for knowledge."

Twenty years later, we live in a media-saturated society. Young people in the United States have access to more forms of information and entertainment than any culture in the history of the world. The information contained, carried and conveyed in traditional and emerging media formats may either support or subvert children and young adults on their odyssey to adulthood.

If they are to fully harness the power and potential of exciting new technologies and multimedia, our students must be offered the critical criteria and information skills necessary for them to become intelligent, competent consumers and creators of media messages. In short, they must become media literate.

The ability to access information does not make one media-literate. Knowledge and information should not be confused. Knowledge implies critical awareness: the ability to comprehend, evaluate, verify, validate, compare, contrast, accept or reject information based on clearly defined critical criteria.

It also includes the ability to recognize and understand patterns, themes and relationships, whether manifested in a novel, a play, a motion picture or in the ebb and flow of political discourse and debate that marks a healthy democracy.

While more young people have access to the Internet and other media than any generation in history, they do not necessarily possess the ethics, the intellectual skills or the predisposition to critically analyze and evaluate their relationship with these technologies or the information they encounter. Good hand/eye coordination and the ability to multitask are not substitutes for critical thinking.
 

Literacy in a multimedia age

The move toward computer literacy and information literacy has often obscured the connections to media literacy. In reality, educators, librarians, media specialists and students need a common set of skills that will enable them to access, analyze and evaluate information in any form. Teaching young people to think critically about the Internet is only part of the picture. Those skills need to be applied to all their sources of information, including newspapers, magazines, radio, television, advertising and film. These media are all part of the communication culture we live in.

Any attempt to prepare young people for responsible citizenship must surely include consideration of the way the media depict the political process, the work of our legislatures, the person and office of the presidency and the political parties--including respect and equal time for minor parties. With more and more Americans identifying themselves as political independents, rather than as Democrats or Republicans, state and national media have an obligation and responsibility to recognize alternative voices in the political landscape.

Used ethically, the mass media can play an important role in preparing young people to be productive workers and informed, responsible citizens. Misused, the media can be a source of misinformation and manipulation from which our children need to be protected. They are also, one should never forget, a source of pleasure, escape, fantasy and engagement that enriches our lives.

In the open marketplace of ideas represented by a democratic capitalist system, we witness a precarious balance of rights, roles and responsibilities. As our world faces an uncertain future and our global connectedness plays itself out in the struggle to form international coalitions of concern, there is already a debate about the public's right to know and the government's need for security and secrecy.

If our democracy is to avoid entropy and decay, we as citizens and consumers must be conscientious about the role the media play in our lives. In short, to be literate in a multimedia era raises complex questions about our dependence upon, our independence from, and our interdependence with the media. How we formulate and answer those questions might well determine not only the safety and health of ourselves and our families, but also the health, vitality and strength of our democracy and the body politic.