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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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
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