COM2740 chp 2: How to think about Media Literacy

To strengthen your media literacy, you need knowledge structures in five areas. These areas will be discussed in the coming chapters of the text.

1. Media Industries 2. Media Audiences 3. Media Content 4. Media Effects 5. The Real World NOTE: These cannot be taught. They have to be built by each person from their own experiences. Best way to learn about political campaigns is to run for something, etc.

Taking out the trash

Clearing Away Faulty Beliefs About Media Literacy

A new medium often faces public scrutiny.

Negative: a. John Sutherland (English professor at the University College of London) Facebook makes people more narcissistic. Twitter has shortened people's attention spans, and hurts people's ability to write in long form. Positive: b. Andrea Lunsford (professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University) New technologies have increased literacy. Younger people are more expressive writers and more aware of their audience.

Skills help you construct knowledge structures

a. Analysis is the breaking down of a message into meaningful elements. b. Evaluation is making a judgment about the value of an element Evaluation involves comparing messages with standards. People accept opinions they hear in media Faulty beliefs are self-reinforcing. People do not want to hear criticism of their beliefs. Over time, they are less tolerant of other beliefs. c. Grouping is the skill we use to put elements into categories These categories are determined by comparing and contrasting elements. Need to determine which elements are different (contrasting) Need to determine how the elements are similar (comparing) Classification rules help us organize content. The media tell us what classification rules are. We still have to interpret those rules and accept or reject them. d. Induction is inferring from a small number of elements a general pattern. Media present sensationalized events rather than typical events. If we assume that what we see in media is a general pattern, then we have a faulty belief. People overestimate the amount of violent crime in the United States. 1. If it bleeds, it leads... 2. Less than 20% of crimes in the USA are violent in nature. e. Deduction is using general patterns to explain specific events. When we have faulty general principles, we will explain specific events in a faulty manner. f. Synthesis is the assembling of elements into a new structure. Allows us to take new info and refine what we already know. g. Abstracting is creating a brief, clear, and accurate description of a message. When we describe a media message and use our own words, this is what we're doing. You want to capture the "big picture" or central idea as concisely as possible.

Your personal locus is composed of goals and drives

a. Information-processing tasks are shaped by our goals - which determine what info gets filtered in, and what gets ignored. b. The more you engage with your locus, the more you will be increasing your media literacy. You'll have stronger drive and more awareness of your goals. If so, you'll direct more to information seeking and expend more on attaining knowledge When you aren't driven to seek out info or attain the related knowledge on something, the media has more influence on you in that area.

Knowledge structures are sets of organized information.

a. The structure of the information allows us to create patterns Where facts come together, carefully, to form an overall design. The patterns we see, we then use as maps for more information. b. Not all information is useful for the creation of knowledge structures. Non-useful information asks "what"? Useful information addresses "how" and "why"? More deep and comprehensive. NOTE: We DO need to know some amount of the "What" first, as a foundation.

Media are harmful.

a. There are risks with media exposure. b. The trap lies in thinking the media are only harmful. c. Being media literate means recognizing the difference in messages between harm and benefit.

Media literacy will destroy my fun with the media

i. Media literacy does not involve a lot of dry analysis. ii. Media literacy focuses on digging below the surface. a. This may actually make people appreciate media more.

Media literacy requires too much effort.

i. Media literacy is a continuum, not a category. a. We all have some degree of media literacy. b. There is always room to improve our individual media literacy.

Media literacy requires the memorization of a great many facts

i. Media literacy is more focused on knowledge than facts. a. Facts become outdated quickly. b. Media literacy helps turn information into knowledge structures. c. You don't MEMORIZE knowledge; you CONSTRUCT it.

Media literacy is a special skill.

i. Media literacy is not the same as "critical thinking." a. Critical Thinking is too broad a term, with too many personal definitions. b. Critical thinking is a skill. c. Media literacy consists of a cluster of skills. Analysis Evaluation Grouping In/Deduction Synthesis Abstraction

The Big Three

i. Your personal locus is composed of goals and drives. ii. Knowledge structures are sets of organized information. iii. Skills help you construct knowledge structures

What is media literacy?

set of perspectives we actively use to interpret the meaning of the message we encounter. a. We build perspectives from knowledge structures b. Skills are the tools that we use. c. Our drive to build these knowledge structures comes from our personal locus.