Media Literacy and Education

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Media Literacy is the utmost need of today’s world. It deals with Media literacy education which provides tools to help people develop receptive media abilities to critically analyze messages, provide opportunities for learners to broaden their media experience, and help them be creative in developing their media messages. Creative media helps to develop competence to enhance skills.

Critical analysis may include identifying the author, purpose, and point of view, examining construction techniques and styles, examining patterns of media representation, and detecting bias in propaganda, censorship, and news and public affairs programming. Media literacy education can explore how structural features – such as media ownership, or its funding model affect the information presented.

The main objective of Media literacy education is to help individuals of all ages develop the questioning habits and skills of expression that they need to become critical thinkers anddevelop effective questioning of concepts and texts.  As students who grow and enter adulthood, the use of media literacy learning will be effective in identifying ethical and technical standards in the media as well as understanding how the media is linked to their cognitive, social and emotional needs.

 We can say that today we are living in a post-truth time where unaware people do not give priority to truth and fact but rather give priority to emotional appealin media. Underdeveloped and less educated society becomes its easy target. It is very important to provide media literacy training programs to such a society. It may be inculcated since childhood with school education and training.

Media literacy education is not yet as widespread or advanced in Asia as compared to the US or Western countries. Since the early 1990s, there has been a shift towards media literacy in East Asia. In recent years, media literacy education has been on the rise in Asia, with many programs running in countries throughout the Asian Pacific region.

It is important for us to learn as a society and make our upcoming generation learn about the fact that more awareness about the fact checking and media literacy is required. They need to understand about the information bombarded to them through multiple media channels and it will become possible only through constant training programs.

There is mobile phone or a portable internet device in almost every hand these days and people rely upon the information served to them on different media platforms without giving a second thought that whether it’s a true or false information. There is no limitation upon information spread,receiving or sending process. Therefore the only option we see is to learn how to filter the information we receive as a general citizen.

Stanford History Education Group in 2016 revealed that 80 percent of the students using different social media platforms failed to differentiate between news and advertisements. It denotes that school going students are unable to identify the true and false information on the media platforms. It is a worrisome situation for current and upcoming generations. Finland came up with a campaign against misinformation and false news in 2014.  A bill was introduced in the US to increase media literacy in US public schoolswhich was approved by California Governor Jerry Brown in September 2018 to increase media literacy among students and adults and also to provide training to the teachers.Such campaigns and training sessions are required in India also for both students and teachers and also for adults or parents.In India, students rely upon their family members and parents more for information verification, due to this cultural difference it is important to run such training programs or awareness campaigns in India also.

In a critical meta-analysis of more than 50 studies published in the Journal of Communication, media literacy interventions were found to have positive effects on cognition, criticism, perceived realism, affect, behavioural beliefs, attitudes, self-efficacy, and behaviour. Media literacy also encourages critical thinking and self-expression, helping citizens to exercise their democratic rights decisively.Media literacy enables the public to understand and contribute to public discourse, and ultimately, make sound decisions when choosing their leaders and decision-making. People who are media literate can take rational decisions when decoding media messages, regardless of their views.

 

Tanvi Tyagi

Assistant Professor

Department of Media and Communication Studies

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