Lesson 5: Media Literacy
Polytechnic University of the Philippines
Sta. Mesa Manila
College of Education
Department of Business Teacher Education
A Self-Learning Outcome-Based Education (OBE)
Instructional Materials in EDUC 30173
Building and Enhancing Literacy Across the Curriculum
with Emphasis on the 21st Century Skills
Lesson 5
MEDIA LITERACY
Contributors:
DR. CARMENCITA CASTOLO
EDUC 30173: Building and Enhancing Literacy Across the Curriculum with Emphasis on the 21 st Century Skills Page
1
Lesson 5: Media Literacy
MS. RUTH PERIDA
LESSON 5:
MEDIA LITERACY
Learning Outcomes
After completion of this lesson, you will be able to competently do these:
Upon completion of this module, the student will be able to:
1. develop a working understanding of media literacy and how they relate to one another,
2. demonstrate appreciation of the importance of developing media literacy both in
ourselves and one another in the information age; and
3. apply the practical steps to develop the literacies early in children.
Course Materials
Media Literacy can be defined in several ways. Aufderheide (1993) defines it as “the
ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate messages in a wide variety of form”, while
Chris and Potter (1998, as cited by Alata, & Ignacio, 2019) define it as “the ability to access,
analyze, evaluate, and create messages across a variety of contexts.” Hobbs (1998) posits that it
is a term used by modern scholars to refer to the process of critically analyzing and learning to
create one’s own messages in print, audio, video, and multimedia.
Perhaps in its simplest sense, media literacy can thus be defined as “the ability to define
different types of media and understand the messages they are communicating” (Common Sense
Media, n.d., cited in Alata, & Ignacio, 2019). The exact type of media varies – television, radio,
newspapers, magazines, books, handouts, flyers, etc. – but what they all have in common is that
they were all created by someone, and that someone had a reason for creating them.
EDUC 30173: Building and Enhancing Literacy Across the Curriculum with Emphasis on the 21 st Century Skills Page
2
Lesson 5: Media Literacy
According to Boyd (2014, in Alata, & Ignacio, 2019), media literacy education began in
the United States and United Kingdom as a direct result of war propaganda in the 1930s and the
rise of advertising in the 1960s. In both cases, media was being used to manipulate the
perspective (and subsequent actions) of those exposed to it, thereby giving rise to the need to
educate people on how to detect the biases, falsehoods, and half-truths depicted in print, radio
and television.
Because media communication lends itself so easily and so well to the purpose of
manipulating consumers’ perceptions on issues both political and commercial, being able to
understand the “why” behind media communication is the absolute heart of media literacy today.
Despite the relatively simple and clear definition of media literacy, it should come as no
surprise that scholars and educators have been debating for quite some time on how media
literacy should be both defined and taught. Aufderheide (1993) and Hobbs (1998) reported, “At
the 1993 Media Literacy National Leadership Conference, U.S. educators could not agree on the
range of appropriate goals for media education or the scope of appropriate instructional
techniques.” The conference did, however, identify five essential concepts necessary for any
analysis of media messages:
1. Media messages are constructed.
2. Media messages are produced within economic, social, political, historical, and
aesthetic contexts.
3. The interpretative meaning-making processes involved in message reception consist
of an interaction between the reader, the text, and the culture.
4. Media has unique “languages”, characteristics which typify various forms, genres,
and symbol systems of communication.
5. Media representations play a role in people’s understanding of social reality.
What these five concepts boil down to is that while the producer of a particular media has
an intended meaning behind the communication, what actually gets communicated to the
consumers depends not only on the media itself but also on the consumers and on their respective
EDUC 30173: Building and Enhancing Literacy Across the Curriculum with Emphasis on the 21 st Century Skills Page
3
Lesson 5: Media Literacy
cultures. The consumers’ perceived meaning is what then develops into how people understand
social reality.
An immediate example of this is the media portrayal of Mindanao. Because so little good
news coming from the island is communicated by the news networks, the average Filipino who
might never have been to Mindanao comes to believe that the entire island is involved in the
conflict, and therefore refuses to go there, nor allow any of his or her relatives to do so. It is
unlikely that this was the news media’s intention, but it is the viewer’s interpretation that
ultimately determined his or her beliefs and behavior.
Challenges to Media Literacy Education
One glaring challenge to teaching Media Literacy is, “how do we teach it?” Teaching it
as a subject in itself might not be feasible given how overburdened the curriculum is at the
moment, while integrating it into the subjects that are currently being taught might not be enough
to teach what are essentially media consumption habits, skills and attitudes that are learned by
doing and repetition rather than by mere classroom discussion.
Livingstone and Van Der Graaf (2010) identified “how to measure media literacy and
evaluate the success of media literacy initiatives” as being one of the more pernicious challenges
EDUC 30173: Building and Enhancing Literacy Across the Curriculum with Emphasis on the 21 st Century Skills Page
4
Lesson 5: Media Literacy
facing educators in the 21st century, for the simple reason that if we cannot somehow measure the
presence of media literacy in our students, how do we know we have actually taught them?
Finally, a more fundamental challenge to Media Literacy Education is one of purpose.
As Chris & Potter (1998, in Alata, & Ignacio, 2019) put it, “Is media literacy best understood as
a means of inoculating children against the potential harms of the media, or as a means of
enhancing their appreciation of the literary merits of the media?
Digital Literacy
Can be defined as the ability to locate, evaluate, create, and communicate information on
various digital platforms. Put more broadly, it is the technical, cognitive, and sociological skills
needed to perform tasks and solve problems in digital environments. It finds its origins in
information and computer literacy, so much so that the skills and competencies listed by Shapiro
and Hughes (1996, in Alata & Ignacio, 2019) in a curriculum they envisioned to promoteshould
sound very familiar to readers today:
tool literacy – competence in using hardware and software tools;
resource literacy – understanding forms of and access to information resources;
social-structural literacy – understanding the production and social significance of
information;
research literacy – using IT tools for research and scholarship;
publishing literacy – ability to communicate and publish information;
emerging technologies literacy – understanding of new developments in IT; and
critical literacy – ability to evaluate the benefits of new technologies.
(Note that this literacy is not the same as “critical thinking”, which is often regarded as a
component of information literacy.)
It should also come as no surprise that digital literacy shares a great deal of overlap with
media literacy; so much so that digital literacy can be seen as a subset of media literacy, dealing
particularly with media in digital form. The connection should be fairly obvious – if media
literacy is “the ability to identify different types of media and understand the messages they are
communicating”, then digital literacy can be seen as “media literacy applied to the digital
media.”
EDUC 30173: Building and Enhancing Literacy Across the Curriculum with Emphasis on the 21 st Century Skills Page
5
Lesson 5: Media Literacy
Bawden (2008) collated the skills and competencies comprising digital literacy from
contemporary scholars on the matter into four groups:
1. Underpinnings – This refers to those skills and competencies that “support” or
“enable” everything else within digital literacy, namely, traditional literacy and
computer/ICT literacy (i.e. the ability to use computers in everyday life).
2. Background Knowledge – This largely refers to knowing where information on a
particular subject or topic can be found, how information is kept and how it is
disseminated – a skill taken for granted back in the day when information almost
exclusively resided in the form of printed text.
3. Central Competencies – These are the skills and competencies that a majority of
scholars agree on as being core to digital literacy today, namely:
reading and understanding digital and non-digital formats;
creating and communicating digital information;
evaluation of information;
knowledge assembly;
information literacy; and
media literacy.
4. Attitudes and Perspectives – Bawden (2008) suggests that it is these attitudes and
perspectives that link digital literacy today with traditional literacy, saying “it is not
enough to have skills and competencies, they must be grounded in some moral
framework,” specifically:
independent learning – the initiative and ability to learn whatever is needed for a
person’s specific situations; and
moral/social literacy – an understanding of correct, acceptable, and sensible
behaviour in a digital environment.
Socio-Emotional Literacy within Digital Literacy
Alongside Information Literacy, Eshet-Alkalai (2004, cited in Alata & Ignacio, 2019)
highlights a kind of Socio-Emotional literacy needed to navigate the Internet, raising questions
EDUC 30173: Building and Enhancing Literacy Across the Curriculum with Emphasis on the 21 st Century Skills Page
6
Lesson 5: Media Literacy
such as, “How do I know if another user in a chat room is who he says he is?” or “How do I
know if a call for blood donations on the Internet is real or a hoax?”
Such questions should make us realize that there are no hard and fast rules for
determining the answers. Instead, there is a necessary familiarity with the unwritten rules of
Cyberspace; an understanding that while the Internet is a global village of sorts, it is also a global
jungle of human communication, embracing everything from truth to falsehoods, honesty and
deceit, and ultimately, good and evil. According Eshet-Alkalai (2004, in Alata & Ignacio, 2019),
this Socio-Emotional literacy requires users to be “very critical, analytical, and mature” –
implying a kind of richness of experience that the literate transfers from real life to their dealings
online. Curiously, while research shows that the older a user is, the less likely they are to behave
naively online, and this does not exempt them from the occasional lapse. They might not believe
that a Nigerian prince is bequeathing 100 million dollars in gold bullion to them in exchange for
their bank details, but they might be willing to believe that someone really is giving away 100
units of the latest Smartphone in exchange for their contact information.
Digitally literate users know how to avoid the “traps” of cyberspace mainly because they
are familiar with the social and emotional patterns of working in cyberspace – that it is really just
an outworking of human nature.
Digital Natives
The term digital nativehas become something of a buzzword in the education sector over
the past decade. This was popularized by Prensky (2001, cited in Alata & Ignacio, 2019) in
reference to the generation that was born during the information age (as opposed to digital
immigrants – the generation prior to that acquired familiarity with digital systems only as adults)
and who has not known a world without computers, the internet, and connectivity.
Despite the fact that Prensky’s original paper was not an academic one and had no
empirical evidence to support its claims, educators and parents alike latched onto the term,
spawning a school of thought wherein the decline of modern education is explained by
educator’s lack of understanding of how digital natives learn and make decisions.
However, a popular misconception borne out of the term digital natives and the
educational ideas it spawned is that the generation in question is born digitally literate. If this is
the case, then the question, “how can digital immigrants teach digital natives a literacy they
already have?” is a valid one, to which the answer would be, correctly, “they cannot.”
EDUC 30173: Building and Enhancing Literacy Across the Curriculum with Emphasis on the 21 st Century Skills Page
7
Lesson 5: Media Literacy
But the problem here is that “digitally literate” is popularly defined as the ability to use
computers or use the internet, which as we have seen earlier forms only one part of the crucial
skills and competencies required to be digitally literate. Our expanded view of the term
“literate” allows us to see that while the digital natives in our classrooms are most certainly
familiar with digital systems, perhaps even more so than their instructors, this does not mean
they automatically know how to read, write, process, and communicate information on these
systems in ways that are both meaningful and ethical especially when the information does not
involve technology’s most common use which is personal entertainment. That is to say, when
the task at hand does not involve what the digital natives consider to be entertainment, the gaps
in their literacy begin to show.A good example of this is the difficulty many Senior High School
instructors have in teaching research. Students who are otherwise quite familiar with using the
internet for entertainment are suddenly at a loss in locating, accessing, and understanding
information from research journals and websites, mainly because they are looking for
information on topics they are either unfamiliar with, uninterested in, or both.
Another problem concerning digital natives is the misconception that everyone belonging
to the generation is on more or less equal footing in regard to digital literacy. Although the
drawing of such a conclusion is understandable (given the near-ubiquity of digital technology
and the internet), it is nonetheless mistaken, as no one is truly “born digital”. Instead, the
determining factor is access to education and experience: children born to poorer families will
naturally seem less digitally literate for lack of access to technology and on education in said
technologies; while those born to privileged families will display more of the literacies discussed
earlier.
Challenges to Digital Literacy Education
Digital Literacy Education shares many of the same challenges to Media Literacy. For
example: How should it be taught? How can it be measured and evaluated? Should it be taught
for the protection of students in their consumption of information, or should it be to develop their
appreciation for digital media?
Brown (2017, in Alata & Ignacio, 2019) also noted that despite the global
acknowledgement that Digital Literacy Education is a need, there is as of yet no overarching
model of framework for addressing all of the skills deemed necessary. Put simply, there is no
single and comprehensive plan anywhere for teaching digital literacy the way it should be taught.
Accordingly, he asked, “What assumptions, theories, and research evidence underpin specific
EDUC 30173: Building and Enhancing Literacy Across the Curriculum with Emphasis on the 21 st Century Skills Page
8
Lesson 5: Media Literacy
frameworks? Whose interests are being served when particular frameworks are being promoted?
Beyond efforts to produce flashy and visually attractive models, how might we reimagine digital
literacies to promote critical mindsets and active citizenry in order to reshape our societies for
new ways of living, learning, and working for a better future – for all?”
Readings:
Printed Materials
Alata, E. & Ignacio, E. (2019). Building and enhancing new literacies across the curriculum.
Quezon City: Rex Bookstore, Inc.
Online Materials
Aufderheide, P. (1993). Media literacy: A report of the national leadership conference on media
[Link] form: [Link]
Livingstone, S. & Van der Graaf, S. (2010). Media literacy. Retrieved from
[Link]
Activities / Assessment Tasks
Activity 1
EDUC 30173: Building and Enhancing Literacy Across the Curriculum with Emphasis on the 21 st Century Skills Page
9
Lesson 5: Media Literacy
Give an instance where Critical Thinking is applied to Media and Cyber/Digital Literacy.
Media Literacy Digital Literacy
Critical Thinking
Assessment
A. Identification
____ [Link] the ability to identify different types of media and understand the messages they
are communicating, including who is the intended audience and what is the
motivation behind the message.
____ [Link] a subset of media literacy. It is the ability to locate, evaluate, create, and
communicate information on various digital platforms.
____ [Link] a subset of media literacy. It is the ability to locate, access, and evaluate
information from a variety of media sources.
____ 4. this refers to those skills and competencies that support or enable everything else
within digital literacy.
EDUC 30173: Building and Enhancing Literacy Across the Curriculum with Emphasis on the 21 st Century Skills Page
10
Lesson 5: Media Literacy
____ 5. these are the skills and competencies that a majority of scholars agree on as being
core to digital literacy today.
____ 6. this largely refers to knowing where information on a particular subject or topic
can be found.
____ 7. this is the ability to communicate and publish information.
____ 8. this is the competence in using hardware and software tools.
____ 9. this is the ability to evaluate the benefits of new technologies.
____ [Link] is the ability to use IT tools for research and scholarships.
B. True or False.
Directions: Write T if the statement is True, F if false.
____ [Link] messages are produced within economic, social, political, historical, and
aesthetic contexts.
____ 2. Media messages are unconstructed.
____ 3. The interpretative meaning-making processes involved in message reception
consist of an interaction between the reader, the text, and the culture.
____ [Link] has unique “languages”, characteristics which typify various forms, genres,
and symbol systems of communication.
____ 5. Media representations play a role in people’s understanding of social reality.
EDUC 30173: Building and Enhancing Literacy Across the Curriculum with Emphasis on the 21 st Century Skills Page
11
Lesson 5: Media Literacy
References
Books and Online Sources:
Alata, E. & Ignacio, E. (2019). Building and enhancing new literacies across the curriculum.
Quezon City: Rex Bookstore, Inc.
Aufderheide, P. (1993). Media literacy: A report of the national leadership conference on media
[Link] form: [Link]
Bawden, D. (2008). Origins and concepts of digital literacy[PDF File]. Retrieved from
[Link]
Hobbs, R. (1998). The seven great debates in the media literacy movement [PDF File].
International Communication Association. Retrieved from
[Link]
Livingstone, S. & Van der Graaf, S. (2010). Media literacy. Retrieved from
[Link]
EDUC 30173: Building and Enhancing Literacy Across the Curriculum with Emphasis on the 21 st Century Skills Page
12