What Is Media Literacy and Why Does It Matter?

The media doesn’t confine itself to honest journalism as many think it does and is often entangled in a vicious circle of lies, mythmaking and manipulation. Journalists, for example, have often used sensationalism to increase their ratings while advertisements are created and published with the sole purpose of selling products or services and promoting a specific lifestyle that would benefit the capitalists. Hence, it can be assumed that every group or individual in the media world has their own set of opinions, values and aims. However, it becomes unacceptable for the public to believe and accept all pieces of information disseminated by these particular groups. This is why it is crucial for the public to be digitally and critically literate.

What Is Media Literacy?

In “The Changing Nature and Uses of Media Literacy”, the author defines media literacy as “the ability to access, analyse, evaluate and create messages across a variety of contexts.”

As per the Information Competence Project conducted at California Polytechnic State University, someone who is media literate is believed to:

• Have the potential to ensure the reliability and trustworthiness of a piece of information as well the information source,
• Have the potential to distinguish the truth from lies,
• Have the ability to recognize overt and covert appeals

In this contemporary world where lies are spreading faster than truth, media literacy has provided people with the right skills, knowledge and ability to understand how different media work and has created an awareness of the power of media. It gifted people the ability to think critically, and evaluate media content and has thus created responsible and well-informed citizens. It is important to note that media literacy is not “media bashing.” Media is a dominant and important force in society and is therefore being evaluated fairly, and not denigrated.

Importance of Media Literacy

Media literacy has made people acknowledge the effects of media content and has helped them to control their reactions in regards to these effects. For instance, people often relate to specific songs or grow closer to specific movies or tv shows. They even start caring deeply about their favorite television characters which gradually become a part of their everyday lives. However, what happens when these characters face a tragic end? It might seem absurd but there have been thousands of cases where people ended their lives following the deaths of their favorite fictional characters. For example, in Russia, in 2012, a 14-year-old boy called Leonid Hmelev jumped from the top of his apartment block after seeing the death of Itachi Uchiha, his favourite character from the Japanese series, Naruto. The father then said, “I always told him he spent too much time watching the TV – he didn’t know what was reality and what was fiction anymore.” Another example includes how after being heavily influenced by the suicide scene of the film “Ek Duuje Ke Liye,” many couples in India and Mauritius started committing suicide. These two scenarios explicitly describe how media content is consumed in a passive manner. In fact, an anonymous commenter once claimed that, “I used to believe that when someone died in a movie they really died. So after I saw Titanic I was completely dumbfounded when I saw Leonardo on tv again!” However, today high levels of media literacy have helped us in realizing that not all media content is true and that we shouldn’t let ourselves be controlled by such content.

Media literacy has changed how we consume media content by expanding our knowledge of genres (Baran). For example, a person is more likely to believe a documentary about the treatment of cancer rather than a movie that revolves around this theme. With this knowledge, the public is able to distinguish between trustworthy and untrustworthy sources of information.