What is media literacy?
According to Ofcom, the UK communications regulator: media literacy is the ability to access, understand and create communications in a variety of contexts.
For the Centre for Media Literacy in Los Angeles media literacy enables people to acquire skills which include the ability to:
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Access information from a variety of sources.
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Analyze and explore how messages are "constructed" whether print, verbal, visual or multi-media.
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Evaluate media`s explicit and implicit messages against one`s own ethical, moral and/or democratic principles.
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Express or create their own messages using a variety of media tools.
Media literacy is not a strategy to protect people, especially the young, from the presumed harmful or negative aspects of the media.
For example, there is increasing concern about how children and young people are being targeted by advertisers and marketers. Women have long been concerned with the ways in which they are stereotyped and portrayed in the media. And increasingly, members of faith communities often feel that the mainstream media are insensitive to their concerns and values and reinforce prejudice and misunderstanding.
These concerns cannot be met simply by more media regulation and self-regulation. Media literacy skills and understanding enable
children and adults to interact confidently and critically with the media, so that concerns about issues such as marketing to children can be better addressed.
women to challenge how they are portrayed and often stereotyped in the media so that healthier and more truthful images and stories are presented
diverse social, cultural and faith communities and groups to engage more effectively with the media so that their interests and views are taken properly into account