I often see the term “media literacy” used when someone doesn’t understand the message a story is trying to convey, and they’re described as “lacking media literacy”. What does it mean, why is it important, and how do I know if I have good media literacy or not?
(Edit: I should specify that i’m using the term “story” to refer to fictional stories rather than news stories/articles)
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You know when you comment a sarcastic joke and some redditor replies to you absolutely fuming because he thought you were a literal Nazi calling for the genocide of an entire people because being clever is apparently a dog whistle for the alt right?
Lacking media literacy is like that.
It the skill of determining whether news or information is from a reliable source or not… you see a story about some topic and is it coming from the New York Times or RacistRicksMAGABlog.com, is a tweet on Teitter from a member of Congress or some random old guy yelling at clouds.
Media literacy is basically the idea that you’re capable of approaching a text in more than just a superficial way. For example, in the original series of Star Trek, there’s an episode called “Let This Be Your Last Battlefield” which features a species of aliens who have divided their society by the color of their skin: half the population has two toned skin that’s white on the right side and black on the left, and the other half has two toned skin that’s vise versa. This is a (rather on-the-nose) metaphor for the arbitrary stupidity of racism. The story is ultimately about the absurdity of racism, and posits that a society obsessed with perpetuating such hate is ultimately destined to wipe itself out. We as an audience are meant to consider how this can apply to our lives. Someone with poor media literacy, however, might think that the story can’t possibly apply to us in the modern day because humans aren’t black on one side and white on the other*. They’re incapable of or unwilling to make that jump.
As for how you know if you “have” media literacy it’s not exactly like you can just follow a rubric and be solid. There are also multiple ways to interpret a story beyond the text (or indeed an author’s intention—the “death of the author” is part of this discussion) and if you can back it up with sound reasoning and can base it off examples in the text, you’re pretty well off.
It’s important because it flexes your critical thinking skills and keeps you from just absorbing content mindlessly, instead you interact with a work on a deeper level.
Like most skills, it’s a muscle that gets stronger the more you use it, so you can “practice” by flexing it often. Discuss with friends, read up on alternate interpretations, look into the history surrounding a work’s publication and the context in which it was created.
*this particularly becomes important when people act as though “wokeness” (read: the inclusion of sexual and racial minorities) is new to Star Trek, as if the whole premise of an optimistic future isn’t based on the idea of progressivism
You’ve got the basics. When someone lacks media literacy, it basically means that they don’t get the message that the piece of media was attempting to convey. To be media literate, you need to be capable of reading a text beyond the surface level; to be on the lookout for metaphor, symbolism, references to other works, and other kinds of non-literal writing.
For a basic example, Animal Farm by George Orwell is about animals rebelling against a farmer and seizing control of his farm. You can read it at the surface level and understand the narrative and the characters. But it is also an allegory for the Russian Revolution. Specific characters in the book correspond to historical figures. If you read it with that in mind (and with the knowledge that Orwell was a socialist who opposed Stalinism), you will have a much better idea of the message Orwell was trying to convey.
Now imagine having a conversation with someone about Animal Farm and hearing them say that they thought it was just about pigs. You might say that person lacked media literacy with regard to Animal Farm, because they completely missed the deeper meaning of the work. But, does that person lack media literacy generally? Its hard to know. Maybe they just don’t know much about the Russian Revolution, so the parallels went over their head.
Animal Farm is an extreme example because its one of the most famous allegories in western literature. But basically everyone will at some point encounter a book / film / TV Show / etc. that they miss the point of because they lack some information required to understand it. The best way to be “media literate” is just to read a lot, read carefully, and read commentary / criticism, because even if you miss something, others will be happy to explain it to you.
Reading between the lines. You’re picking up the inferences the author left but didn’t actually write.
It’s basically about knowing not to be a sucker. Propaganda is alive and well and not knowing when you’re being straight up lied to is not just naive but also dangerous. Knowing how to filter and interpret information in an age where we’re constantly inundated with it on all fronts is essentially media literacy. Knowing the power of words and how they’re used to affect how we think.
So, it’s sort of in the title: media literacy is how to ‘read’ (or be literate) of media.
What that means really is understanding the symbolism and structures that are present in the story. This could be as simple as a man holding a knife threatening is going to hurt another character or as complex as specific shots used in sequence can build emotional tension.
Practically though, when people talk about media literacy they are discussing critical thinking around the piece of media and asking why it is doing what it’s doing.
So, for example there are many American films that focus on military, or military like tactics. Why do they do this? What could it mean when we take into context the wider US militarism? What message is that sending to the audience? Asking questions like that builds your media literacy as it is practicing ‘reading’ media and attempting to understand the messages that the media is giving to the audience.
To add to the comments: a great example of this was The Colbert Report. He was very clearly satirizing right wing TV pundits, particularly Bill O’Reilly. But some people truly thought he was conservative and was just being funny about it. Those people lacked media literacy.
I would like to point out a commonly overlooked aspect of media literacy, which is understanding the separation between fiction and reality. There are certain unrealistic tropes that get repeated in fiction frequently enough that people often tend to believe that they have a basis in reality. For example, the way in which weapons are frequently depicted in popular media has led to a plethora of common misconceptions about how these things work, what they are really capable of, and how they are actually used.
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