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What is news literacy?. News literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and contribute to news in a variety of forms and means and an understanding of why this ability matters. Why news literacy?. Reason #1.
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News literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and contribute to news in a variety of forms and means and an understanding of why this ability matters.
Reason #1 We are so immersed in news and media that we don’t even notice “the media” anymore. To be literate, we have to see our environment.
We are We are swimming in media
Reason #2 The media is an institution with tremendous power. To be ignorant of power is to be in danger of being used by it; to understand and to participate in its power it to increase and strengthen your own power.
The Media Cultural power Political power Economic power
These six corporations dominate media globally. Together, they are worth more than $275 billion.The Big Six
Reason #3 Yet, even as corporations dominate, digital technologies are facilitating a shift in communication power from hierarchical, concentrated media organizations to distributed, horizontal, mobile, accessible, participatory socially driven communication.
News media is a subset of “the media” Mainstream news media influence, but no longer control, the public agenda, the means of production or the distribution of news and information.
Reason #4 This change in communication structure doesn’t lessen the need for journalism, but increases it. Journalism is a check on governmental excess, corporate corruption and individual injustice. It is a witness to our collective stories, a public conversation about who we are.
Reason #5 With so many sources of information coming at us 24/7, unfiltered, direct, incessant, we must now be our own editors. WE decide what to pay attention to, what to believe, what to care about.
Reason #6 This is the time to reinvent journalism, make a difference, be creative, join a movement, build new tools, design, photograph, shoot, write, draw, mashup, mixup, invent, discover, create. Being news literate is the first step in this process.