1 / 8

Implementing Media Literacy

Implementing Media Literacy. Media Literacy: Key Debates and Current Issues Presentation to the Westminster Media Forum October 2005 Professor Sonia Livingstone s.livingstone@lse.ac.uk. Literacy – a concept with a history.

edward
Download Presentation

Implementing Media Literacy

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Implementing Media Literacy Media Literacy: Key Debates and Current Issues Presentation to the Westminster Media Forum October 2005 Professor Sonia Livingstone s.livingstone@lse.ac.uk

  2. Literacy – a concept with a history • Long history of ‘literacy’ – hotly contested, especially in relation to critical literacy – ‘knowledge is power’ • Short history of ‘media literacy’ – erratically supported, mainly via media education for children • Gains new importance in today’s complex, converging, ubiquitous environment of modern media, information and communications

  3. A concept whose time has come Multiple literacies abound e.g. Health literacy: “the capacity of an individual to obtain, interpret and understand basic health information and services in ways that are health-enhancing” (NCC for DoH) Also – * Financial literacy * Environmental literacy * Political literacy * Emotional literacy And now: Information literacy, visual literacy, digital literacy, cyber-literacy, internet literacy, network literacy . . .

  4. Converging literacies Converging technologies, industries, spheres of activity Media literacy: “The ability to access, analyze, evaluate and communicate messages in a variety of forms” Information literacy: “The ability to identify, locate, evaluate, organize and effectively create, use and communicate information to address issues and problems at hand” Parallels: core – access, understand, create Contrasts: critical literacy, standards/progression

  5. What is media literacy for? Need clarity over purposes: • Against which to evaluate implementation • Multiple stakeholders with multiple expectations? • Define narrowly or broadly? • Define negatively (prevent harms/costs) or positively (enable benefits)? Suggest: • Democracy, participation and active citizenship • Knowledge economy, competitiveness and choice • Lifelong learning, cultural expression and personal fulfillment

  6. Implementing media literacy Possible analogues – • Public understanding of science: focus on disseminating facts and stimulating interest through ad hoc public campaigns, evaluated through surveys • Health campaigns: focus on raising awareness and changing behaviour among vulnerable target groups, evaluated through changing health practices • Adult (print) literacy: focus on remedial and continuing education among excluded groups, evaluated through educational testing

  7. Persistently tricky issues • Media literacy – where is it to be found? (an individual skill, a societal competence, or a matter of design/marketing?) • Relying on the public to gain in media literacy (campaigns have uneven, unequal, short-term take-up; digital exclusion maps onto social exclusion) • Media literacy – in whose interest? (or, who/what suffers the costs of illiteracy? what happens if we get this wrong?)

  8. Questions? Contact Sonia Livingstone s.livingstone@lse.ac.uk www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/whoswho/sonialivingstone.htm Note Livingstone, S., van Couvering, E., and Thumim, N. (in press) Converging traditions of research on media and information literacies: Disciplinary, critical and methodological issues. In D.J. Leu, J. Coiro, M. Knobel and C. Lankshear (Eds.) Handbook of Research on New Literacies. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Available on request.

More Related