WHAT Is Media Literacy and HOW Can Simple Shifts Center It | PBS Education (2024)

Think of all the things you read in a day—emails, books, and the news. What about Facebook posts, Instagram captions, Tweets, editorials, ads, and subtitles? How about maps, memes, and infographics? Do you read each in the same way?

Likely, you employ a certain set of skills and strategies when you engage with each piece of media. But given the new and ever-changing ways we use technology to receive and communicate information, to be literate in today’s constantly connected world involves skills beyond simply reading and writing in the traditional sense.

THE WHAT

Literacy is the ability to encode and decode symbols and synthesize and analyze messages. But what, exactly, is media literacy then? The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) defines media literacy as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication. It is a broadened definition of literacy that includes media beyond text and promotes curiosity about the media we consume and create.

As NAMLE puts it, media literacy provides us with the skills necessary to “both comprehend the messages we receive and effectively utilize these tools to design and distribute our own messages. Being literate in a media age requires critical thinking skills that empower us as we make decisions, whether in the classroom, the living room, the workplace, the boardroom, or the voting booth.”

In effect, media literacy is a modernized approach to literacy—how we consume media and information differently than, say, 15 years ago. The context has shifted dramatically. What we read and how, plus how we find what we read are remarkablydifferent. Media literacy education brings our understanding of literacy into the 21st century.

THE WHY

So, why teach digital and media literacy in an already jammed-packed content-filled curriculum with limited time? Well, for starters, media literacy is literacy. Media literacy doesn’t need to be “another thing” to teach. Instead, I see it as another way to teach. It’s not another thing to teach, but a redefinition of something we all know and are most likely already addressing in the classroom. We simply need to be more intentional in doing so.

Teaching media literacy can help combat the current misinformation epidemic and empower students. Being media literate empowers studentsto ask questions, make sound judgments rooted in fact and evidence and, in the words of researcher Sam Wineburg, “derive truth from falsehood, bias from reality, and promote values steeped in objectivity instead of emotion.” By developing students' media literacy skills, teachers help strengthen our citizenry and, in effect, our American democracy.

The cross-curricular skills inherent in media literacy prepare students how to know what to believe in the digital age, imparting skills they need to become smart, active consumers and creators of information and engaged, informed participants in civic life.

THE HOW

Are you new to media literacy or unsure where to continue? I’ve found that these three easy-to-implement, simple shifts in my lesson and unit planning help to center media literacy in my classroom.

1.Choose Content Standards AND Media Literacy Concepts When Lesson Planning.

When planning, choose your content standards AND a media literacy “standard”/skill to focus on. With this approach, you can teach content while focusing on a media literacy skill. Will you examine a primary source or look at a map or data set? Perhaps you’ll read an excerpt as part of your lesson plan. All of that is media. So while you read and examine, ask students to consider a media literacy concept through content-related questions, like “What is the author/creator’s purpose? What information/perspectives are included? Whose perspective is missing? Is this information/perspective fact, opinion, or something else?”

Need help? Take a look at Project Look Sharp’s four-point approach:

1.Key Questions for Decoding Media

2.6 Key Concepts of Media Literacy Analysis

3.Media Literacy Objectives

4.Demonstration Videos

Project Look Sharp also has hundreds of free media literacy-centered content lesson plans available.

2. Provide Time and Space for Students to Practice Asking Questions

Oftentimes, teachers are the ones asking questions, and students are expected to provide answers. But a media literate person is inquisitive and curious about the media they consume and create. To help develop a habit of inquiry in students, teachers can provide more space and time for students to ask questions, which can be a challenge! Students sometimes struggle with asking questions because they are so used to providing answers.. It takes time, practice, and modeling to help develop those skills. Here are some approaches that have worked in my classroom:

• When you start a new unit, preview your unit with media. Show some media that you’ll examine throughout the unit and let kids brainstorm questions about it. You can try questions like, What do you think about when you see this media? What about the media sparks your curiosity? What would you like to know about this media? You could do an exercise of asking questions as part of a K-W-L activity as well.
• Try out the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) from the Right Questions Institute when examining a piece of media with students. The QFT is a structured method for generating and improving questions and helps students to build their question-asking skills.
• Let inquiry (Inquiry Design Model) or Personal Digital Inquiry guide your approach and instruction on a topic, a single unit, or throughout the year.

3. Create to Learn

Provide opportunities for students to create media in a variety of formats. Media creation demystifies the creative process, equipping students with the 21st Century skills needed to navigate the digital landscape. By embracing a "create-to-learn" approach in the classroom, students can show what they know through the digital media creation process. By adopting this approach, teachers empower students to become authors and can promote student advocacy and amplify student voice.

Of course, as educators we have constraints (state tests, time, etc.). But just a little flexibility in planning can make the create-to-learn process work. Will students write an argumentative essay? What if they write the essay and create a short PSA video to “sell” their argument? Can they analyze political cartoons? How about helping them make their own cartoons to apply their understanding?