While new and digital forms of media had to wait for the development of new technologies before coming to life, old media can trace its origins back to the Gutenberg Press, invented around 1436, and the electrical telegraph, patented in the US around the 1840s. The broadcast media revolution can be said to have kicked off with the invention of the radio and television system. Even if the first printed newspapers and first broadcasted content were heavily censored by the government, there’s no denying that back then the media still had a significant impact on people’s lives. When people were suddenly exposed to the early forms of media, they started taking everything at face value and many scholars believed it to be a negative influence rather than a positive one.
With regard to politics, the same influence can be observed. According to Philo, electoral success was the aftermath of the thorough manipulation of media messages during political broadcasts of the 1970s.
The influence of the media on people was such that it used to dictate the way people looked at the world and used to set their expectations. However, today the media no longer holds the same great power because people are now aware of how the media operates, how media content is produced and who controls the media, thus limiting media’s influence on their lives. This is called media literacy.
Importance of Media Literacy
Sometimes, even credible news sources can disseminate biased information. For instance, there are several news channels that tend to represent a specific political party and make it look favorable as compared to others. For example, Fox News has often been referred to as a “conservative media” that has always sided with the Republican Party and Donald Trump, the former president of the United States. However, media literacy provides people with the necessary skills to detect bias in the news and be objective. This is the reason why many people today choose to remain unaffected by the news provided by politically-biased news outlets.
Moreover, media literacy is a type of education that provides an insight into how media content is usually produced. It helps people to understand that through the use of visual effects, also called VFX, digital concepts and elements like lighting, camera angles and text sizes, media aim at appealing to the audience. When people understand the “tricks” used by the media, they are not deceived.
Stereotypes, discrimination and ethnocentrism are some of the main factors that have created a divide in society and it is well-known that the media is partly responsible for spreading these perceptions. Several studies, for example, have found that stereotypical representations of women persist across a range of media. According to Laura Mulvey (2008), “feminist movies are essentially madefor male gaze and to fulfill a voyeuristic desire of men to look women as objects.” However, the intervention of media literacy has led people to dismiss such stereotypes and even sometimes stand up against them. For instance, the Twitter hashtag #OscarsSoWhite which was used to challenge racial stereotyping in Hollywood, went viral on social media platforms. In 2016, the #EverySizeIsBeautiful helped in raising voices against fat shaming. These are simple examples of how media literacy has convinced people that instead of being controlled by the media, they can control the media.
Furthermore, according to an online article written by Cynthia Vinney, many studies have proved that media literacy education can help in combating the spread of fake news. In layman’s terms, fake news can be defined as the intentional publication of false information with the intent to mislead people. With regard to this definition, it can be deduced that democratic societies can be crippled by the spread of such fake information. However, when a person is media literate, he/she will be able to use their skills to filter information and detect fake news.
