What Is Media Literacy? Why Is It Important? Why Is It Dismissed?
Media literacy is the way of identifying various types of media and the process of understanding the message that social media is trying to portray to the public or audience. Trilling and Fadel (2012), express that media literacy is “a framework to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms and also build an understanding of the role of social media in society”. Media literacy is important because it allows Individuals to express their ideas, thoughts, and opinions of various topics and be able to expand their knowledge as well. Media literacy has the benefit of being able to differentiate the difference between real and fake news and being able read in between the lines in the sense of understanding the message behind the message. However, media literacy can be dismissed because the amount of information online that is accessible to users and not all of it is factual or credible which can cloud people’s ideas and thoughts which can create confusion.
Why Should You Aim for Varied Views but The Factual Consensus in Your PLN?
From my personal experience in my personal learning networks, I think varied views are very valuable and needed. I say this because having different perspectives and can perhaps change your way of thinking and expand what you already know they can also introduce you to different ideas or information that might’ve not considered before. Factual consensus is critical because you want accurate information being presented in your PLN so that you can rely on it and trust the individuals in it and let those individuals trust you as well.
Open Dialogues About Media Literacy and Factual Information Can Create Conflict, Why Does This Happen?
There can be conflict when there are open dialogues about media literacy and factual information. This is due to individuals thinking that their opinions are fully factual when in fact that is not the case, and they are just ignoring or dismissing the correct and accurate information. It can be difficult for individuals to change their point of views when they are so persistent that they are in fact, correct. This can be a result in incorrect information being presented to the individual and them thinking its factual, this is where a lot of common mistakes come where people believe everything that they see online is true and don’t fact check it.
What Is the Benefit of Having A PLN That Values Media Literacy?
The benefit of having a PLN that values media literacy is that it improves our ability in understanding the information being presented by the media. We can determine factual and non-factual information and also gain knowledge by others in our PLN. We can also use media literacy for critical thinking of various topics or issues that are relevant to us.
References:
EDCI 338 (2020, Nov 1). A01 Smith, Julie. Retrieved from YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_T9RghwJlI&feature=youtu.be
Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2012). Digital Literacy Skills. In 21st century skills: Learning for life in our times. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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