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By BELLA PETERSON — arts@theaggie.org
In a world where it can seem that the Internet determines much of the youth’s public opinion, especially when it comes to media, can media literacy truly thrive? Or is it a lost skill?
Media literacy, defined as the ability to analyze a piece of media thoroughly and interact with its contents intellectually, requires a viewer’s full attention. Beyond just absorbing the surface level images, text or speech, media literacy speaks to a viewer’s ability to read between the lines and pick up on a media’s subtext.
Today, audiences often multitask whilst consuming media; playing a TV show or movie while scrolling on their phone or completing chores. Professor of German and Cinema and Digital Media Jaimey Fisher emphasized that now, more than ever, media literacy needs to be directly taught.
“There is always hope,” Fisher said. “We faculty, who are generally quite a bit older than students, see how things can change, for better and worse and back again, over time.”
Fisher shared that, while earlier education tends to prioritize conventional literacy, new curricula incorporating media literacy could play a vital role in better reflecting our modern world.
“[In] my mind, [media literacy] should be taught in both K-12 and in higher education, given how much time people spend on it and how much it is impacting society, economy and politics,” Fisher said.
In today’s age, with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) as an informational resource people turn to, Associate Professor of Communication Jingwen Zhang shared her thoughts on this new variable.
“Media literacy is supported through a combination of traditional classroom education and efforts by [National Government Organizations], research institutions, media and technology companies,” Zhang said. “However, these efforts remain scattered and insufficient, especially given the rapid adoption of AI for media production and consumption and the many unresolved questions surrounding its impacts on information quality, audience interpretation and downstream societal effects.”
Zhang also noted the potential influence of AI on consumers, recommending that, with these new fluctuating sources of information, media literacy needs to be thoroughly examined by holding appropriate conversations toward the matter.
“Media literacy definitely has to be updated to help individuals and society cope with the information ecosystem increasingly infused with human and AI-generated contents,” Zhang said. “For instance, how to critically distinguish sources of information and how to assign liability for information production and dissemination is a key question.”
Professor of Communications Magdalena Wojcieszak also detailed data points to back these concerns about media literacy.
“Media literacy is more important now than ever in the current media environment that requires users to navigate an overload of information, visuals, videos, text and sources in a knowledgeable and informed way,” Wojcieszak said. “Sadly, many users, especially [in] the older demographics — but even many of the ‘digital natives’ — do not have the skills to deal with all this information well. Some studies suggest that 43% of 14-year-olds do not reach basic digital skill levels in some assessments.”
With the state of media literacy in the U.S. increasingly questioned, hope can be hard to come by; Zhang, however, believes that not all is yet lost.
“There is certainly reason for hope as we investigate more into these changing dynamics,” Zhang said. “But we need more societal discussions, attention and support to both research and policy making.”
With the many shifting facets of our society, it can be hard to pin down one correct answer to improve the overall state of media literacy, according to Wojcieszak. She finds that the responsibility should fall to much bigger figures.
“It shouldn’t be only on individual citizens or social media users to try to, by themselves, navigate the complicated media environment,” Wojcieszak said. “It even shouldn’t be an individual producer of a movie or series who tries to model media or digital literacy skills. It should be on local, state or national governments to establish and push for media literacy in school.”
Written by: Bella Peterson — arts@theaggie.org
