Areas of media literacy

Access: This refers to the opportunities for using media. We will make a distinction between a) physical access to the media and to the contents of the media; and b) the ability – both cognitive and practical – to use these media properly. To include both of these aspects, we will talk about conditions of access.

Analysis and evaluation: This refers to a) the ability to read, understand and evaluate media content and, b) the capacity for comprehension and awareness of the conditions and possibilities of the media as tools.

Communicative competence: The skills that allow individuals to create messages, from different codes – and to produce and distribute them using the different media available. It therefore includes creative skills, technical skills, semiotic skills, and social skills.

Elements of media literacy

Contexts: A distinction is made between the personal context – which relates to the individual activity of a person as part of his or her private and personal life; family context, at the heart of family relationships, and generally in a family setting; educational context, corresponding to institutional spaces, schools, and formal teaching activity; media context, space created by the interaction of individuals with the media, its messages and its uses; and civil context, in which citizens exercise their public activities according to their rights, duties and responsibilities.

Actors: People, groups, institutions with a precise status and specific role in a given context. These players are defined by different parameters: the nature of the person, the roles, the situation and institutional characters and their social function.

Competences: Set of skills and abilities, which allow appointed actors to carry out a specific function. There are specific skills for each actor and for each area.

Processes: Activities linked to all of the previous elements.

Areas: Areas of activity and processes, which, in a given context, bringtogether different actors with specific aims.

Possible approaches

Government (or related) policy activities: Those developed by government and institutional authorities aimed at promoting media literacy. They include investment, subsidies, support, rulings, control, vigilance, etc.

The objective of these actions is normally to establish methods and to improve conditions to facilitate action from other citizens’ groups aimed at meeting specific objectives.

F amily activities: Its principal actors are family members – both on an individual basis and acting as a group – although in these processes other entities are often involved to provide stimuli and references. They generally aim to promote exchanges, actions and cooperative tasks to encourage the use of and access to communications, promoting family and personal use of the media.

The objective of many of these is to promote dialogue between family members, establish objectives and rules and guidance for media use, and promote individual autonomy and group consensus in a family setting.

Civil participation activities: Consists of the participation of citizens in activities related to media literacy involving different authorities in the media (generally, public media) domain. That is to say, participation in consultative or debating forums; in spaces provided by the media for response or discussion; in spaces for evaluation and criticism of media contents; and in spheres that have been set up by law in various countries for the active participation of citizens.

Educational and training activities: Based on the promotion of teaching and learning processes. They can take place in educational, school, formal or informal settings; can be aimed at children, young people or adults; and can involve education and lifelong training, media or other professionals.

The objective of these activities is the acquisition of new contents, attitudes or skills. They require the establishment of a basic curriculum, specific resources and certain institutional conditions.

Also campaigns, media activities, mediation activities, professional and business activities, production skills activities, operation and reference activities, exploratory, experimental, investigatory and evaluation activities.

Emerging trends and good practices in the development of media literacy in Europe