You won’t get optimistic by reading this piece by Luke O’Neil in Esquire, but you should read it. I felt also a bit guilty, as I also reacted on Facebook on the in flight hoax, not knowing it was a prank. A prank to the world, that is.
In fact this piece is besides a plea for media to rethink their approach, it’s also a clear plea for much needed media literacy on the other side of the communication scheme.
“The media has long had its struggles with the truth—that’s nothing new. What is new is that we’re barely even apologizing for increasingly considering the truth optional. In fact, the mistakes, and the falsehoods, and the hoaxes are a big part of a business plan driven by the belief that big traffic absolves all sins, that success is a primary virtue.”
“Actually, don’t trust me—that’s the entire point. We the media have betrayed your trust, and the general public has taken our self-sanctioned lowering of standards as tacit permission to lower their own.”
Hi Pedro,
Interesting Thoughts, i need to write paper about central theme of media literacy but i have difficulty with understanding definition of media literacy because most definition of media literacy comes in very complicated definitions to understand can some one define me with easy words the meaning of media literacy or give me link which clearly and easily describe the meaning of media literacy >!
Thanks
Indeed not an easy question, check this article for a good starting point. Livingstone and the EU Kids consortium are doing good work. Still even in a recent conference they had a big definition-discussion.
In Dutch we also use ‘mediawijsheid’ roughly translated as ‘media wisdom’ with a pretty useful definition “Mediawijsheid is het geheel van kennis, vaardigheden en attitudes waarmee burgers zich bewust en kritisch kunnen bewegen in een complexe, veranderende en gemediatiseerde wereld. Het is het vermogen tot een actief en creatief mediagebruik dat gericht is op maatschappelijke participatie” (Nederlandse Raad voor Cultuur, 2005)., which could be translated as “the set of knowledge, skills and attitudes that citizens can use to live well aware and critical in a complex, changing and mediatized world. It is the capacity of people to use media in an active and creative way so they can participate in present society”.
[…] In Dutch we also use 'mediawijsheid' roughly translated as 'media wisdom' with a pretty useful definition “Mediawijsheid is het geheel van kennis, vaardigheden en attitudes waarmee burgers zich bewust en kritisch kunnen … […]