Media Literacy. A Thought

Stop for a moment and think… how much time do you spend consuming media?

This topic and question about Media Literacy has been on my mind for a while. Unfortunately, the distractions of life have delayed my progress with this subject. Fortunately, the silence of a Caribbean island has provided me the space to start.

Here you will find an opportunity to start learning about this topic too, and read my preliminary thoughts – (and see a few travel picture to browse along the way)

Definition – Media Literacy is defined as the ability to access, analyze and evaluate media.

The importance of this topic should seem self-evident, considering our global situation and the recent explosion of information technology that has to lead our generation to information gluttony. However, Media Literacy is NOT exclusively about social media, the internet, and all the wonderful bits that let us access the bytes… It’s about how humans access, analyze and evaluate ALL media; books, movies, music, podcasts, applications, television, news and yes, of course, social media.

Now, considering the possibility that we consume hours of media daily doesn’t it make sense to learn more about this topic. Don’t be fooled, just because we consume luxurious amounts of media doesn’t make us media literate. Compare media literacy to eating. Just because we’ve eaten food every day multiple times a day does not make us nutritional experts.

Without this knowledge, people are hiking through the media-saturated world with limited knowledge about anything they see or do in this realm. Whether it’s browsing social media, updating your “story” or reading an investigative journalism piece. We all lack the awareness of the global media illiteracy problem. We are eating bullshit (quite literally) and cannot thoughtfully evaluate it because we don’t have the skillset to engage this realm.

You can speak, you can read and you can write – so you’re literate… but are media literate?

99% chance the answer is no – so watch this video and get learning now.. then talk about it with your communities.

1% chance the answer is yes – share this post so our media illiterate world has an opportunity to learn.

This FREE course this provided by Crash Course. It’s a wonderful way to start learning more about media literacy. Don’t be daft – make time to learn now, or keep hiking blind.

This is only the beginning.