The reading this week talked about media literacy. There are
many different kinds of media such as visual literacy, story literacy, and
computer literacy. The media can produce both beneficial and harmful effects.
There are three building blocks of media literacy: the personal locus,
knowledge structures, and skills. These building blocks are necessary to build
your perspectives on the media. The personal locus includes your goals, which
help you decide what information to pay attention to and what to ignore. The
more aware you are of your goals, the better you will be able to decide which
information to pay attention to. Increasing your awareness of your personal
locus increases your media literacy. Next are the knowledge structures. This is
your organized information that you have in memory. Knowledge structures are
constructed using skills. The article defines media literacy as the “set of
perspectives that we actively use to expose ourselves to the mass media to interpret
the meaning of the messages we encounter”. We do this by using the three
building blocks. I thought this article was interesting because I have never
really thought about how I decide which media messages to pay attention to and
which to ignore.
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I never paid attention to what influenced what media messages I listened to and which I didn't either. I tried to be an informed person and would usually read at least two articles about a topic before I made any conclusions. But this article made me wonder just how much companies influence and censor (kinda) our media message. The book example from the readings where the author states we were limited to less than one percent of our total media options just by shopping at certain stores is incredible to me.
ReplyDeleteAnd then our media messages are even further influenced by the virtual communities we are a part of. When we only receive news updates or messages from pages we like on Facebook, or groups we follow on Twitter we miss out on an entirely different perspective.