Media Literacy

What is media literacy?

This website, http://www.ithaca.edu/looksharp/about_ml.php, Project Look Sharp (PLS) defines media literacy as "the ability to access, analyze, critically evaluate, and produce communication in a variety of forms."

PLS has six principles of media literacy:

1. Media literacy is an expansion of traditional literacy that includes both analysis and production of all mediated forms of communication, frombooks to Web sites.
2. Media literacy can and should be integrated across the K-12 curricula at all grade levels and in multiple subject areas.
3. Media literacy helps teachers to more effectively address existing learning standards and engage students with varied learning styles .
4. Media Literacy teaches critical thinking skills such as understanding bias and credibility through rigorous analysis of appropriate media documents.
5. Media Literacy empowers students to express and communicate their own ideas through multiple forms of media production.
6. Media literacy is essential for the development of informed, reflective and active citizens in a democratic society.

Renee Hobbs, author of Reading the Media, conducted a study testing the effectiveness of stressing media literacy in ELA classrooms. In her book, Hobbs states, "With an ever-increasing range of media messages in so many forms, students need to understand the process by which authors convey meaning about socially constructed experience. The use of digital media and popular cultural texts not only stimulates young people's engagement, motivation, and interest in learning, but enables them to build a richer, more nuanced understanding of how texts of all kinds work within a culture" (7).

Students need to understand the world around them by analyzing various texts. The majority of texts around people, currently and even more so in the future, is through media and technology. Analyzing various texts, from media-centered texts to literature, will help students become literate in all forms of texts they will encounter.

Previously, I spoke about Renee Hobbs who has contributed a lot to this push towards instilling media literate ELA classrooms. Hobbs constantly is publishing and creating various textbooks, lesson plans, teacher guides, and video tapes that teachers can use to promote media literacy. Through her continuous work towards her goal for creating more media literate classrooms, she certainly works for every principle outlined by PLS. PLS could even use some of Hobbs' guides, lesson plans, textbooks, etc. in their curriculum.