The conceptualisation of media literacy

Approaches – existing and possible – to media literacy

The key to ICT Access and the new communication environment is media literacy. Promoting it among European citizens has become a strategic and integrationist objective for the whole of Europe.

The term literacy has been extended to cover the skills and competencies involved in finding, selecting, analysing, evaluating and storing information, in its treatment and its use, independently of the codes or techniques involved.

From an historical point of view each stage of the development of communications – in terms of codes, techniques and mediums- correspond to a specific development of the communicative and cultural competences and in consequence a different literacy model. The model that is related to the new communicative environment is known as media literacy.

The development of media literacy became from the appearance of alphabetical writing. literacy of reading, writing and understanding – was, in fact, the driving force behind a huge intellectual and social advancement. Both the Renaissance and Humanism in their day aided the expansion of writing, which with it brought printing. Similarly, the industrial revolution was accompanied by the progressive expansion of reading and writing, which in turn led to the introduction of obligatory literacy.

Media literacy is a part of the important process of humanity’s communicative development, which started with the introduction of the classical written alphabet, and which has extended to the development of electronic media and digitalised information.

Historical era	Communicative environment	New skills	Socio-cultural outcomes
Classical era	Oral and gestural communication +1 Development of alphabetical writing	Command of oral and gestural language + Alphabetical skills	+ Systematization and conservation of knowledge + Origin of philosophy and scientific exploration
Renaissance – and first industrial revolution	+ Develop of printing, of books and the press	+ Amplification and expansion of literacy	+ Advances in empirical philological sciences
Second industrial revolution	+ Appearance of electronic media: telephone, film, radio and television	+ Audiovisual literacy	+ Media and consumer societies
Information society	+ Digital media and Internet	+ Digital literacy + Media literacy (in a climate of media convergence)	+ Globalisation of information + Explosion of knowledge + Knowledge society

The most important: a) the appearance of electronic media (telephone, film, radio and television) paving the way for mass communication – dominant since the 1950s – and the later emergence of digital media, the paradigm of which is the Internet – since the 1980.

Mass communication and multimedia communication are the different things.

 

Paradigm of Mass Communication

¨ Autonomy of each form of media

¨ Centralised circulation

¨ Passive consumption

¨ Centralised professional production

¨ Languages separated by media

¨ Static broadcast-consumption

¨ Creation of extensive audiences

¨ National circulation

 

Paradigm of multimedia communication

¨ Media convergence

¨ Communication-network

¨ Interactive consumption

¨ Decentralised social production

¨ Multimedia languages

¨ Mobile broadcast-consumption

¨ Creation of communities

¨ Global circulation

 

According Pier Casare Rivoltella media have brought: a) Multimediality in reception and multimodality in production; b) Portability and connectivity – which promote the autonomy of users in relation to the media, make the consumption and use of new technologies more transversal and layered, and promotes multi- tasking.

Historical milestones in the literacy process:

v Classic literacy (reading-writing-understanding)

v Audiovisual literacy, which relates to electronic media

v Digital literacy or information literacy stems from computer and digital media

v Media literacy, which is needed as a result of the media convergence – that is the merging of electronic media (mass communication) and digital media (multimedia communication) which occurs in the advanced stages of development of information society

The conceptualisation of media literacy

Media literacy is considered the result of the process of media education.

In Europe, at the beginning of 21st century, the use of media education was accompanied with media literacy

The first, represented by the Grunwald declaration of 1982, was the creation of the field of media education, which brought attention to the impact of the media on training and education.

The second, represented by the 1990 Toulouse Conference was the systematisation and more precise definition of the field.

Thirdly, the 1999 conference in Vienna, took a new look at media education in the context of digital advances and the new communicative era that came about as a result.

Finally, the fourth, the UNESCO seminar in Seville in 2002, which adopted the definition of the field made in the Vienna conference, highlighted the need for action through active promotion policies in five areas: 1) Investigation; 2) Training; 3) Cooperation between schools, the media, NGOs, private businesses and public institutions; 4) Consolidation and promotion of the public sphere of society and its relationship with the media.

The most basic definition of media literacy is provided by OFCOM, which states that media literacy consists of ‘the ability to access, understand and create communications in a variety of contexts’.

According to the European Charter of Media Literacy, there are seven areas of competences (or uses) related to media literacy:

· Use media technologies effectively to access, store, retrieve and share content to meet their individual and community needs and interests;

· Gain access to, and make informed choices about, a wide range of media forms and content from different cultural and institutional sources;

· Understand how and why media content is produced;

· Analyse critically the techniques, languages and conventions used by the media, and the messages they convey;

· Use media creatively to express and communicate ideas, information and opinions;

· Identify, and avoid or challenge, media content and services that may be unsolicited, offensive or harmful;

· Make effective use of media in the exercise of their democratic rights and civil responsibilities.

The skills related to media literacy can be summarised in four   areas of ability: access, analysis, evaluation and creative production.