By Renee Hobbs
Media Literacy IN ACTION
Questioning the Media
2nd
Edition
CHAPTER 2
Why are media important?
Learning Outcomes
1. Define media and understand how and why they have
changed over time
2. Understand how media use is deeply embedded in people’s
daily lives
3. Appreciate five different reasons why people use media
4. Consider media’s role in constructing culture and society
5. Reflect on your own patterns of media use and your reasons
for using them
MEDIA LITERACY LEARNING MODEL
KEY IDEAS FROM CHAPTER 2
(1) Media institutions are continually converging, changing, adapting, and transforming and they are often controlled by individuals and institutions who seek social power and wealth by managing public interpretations, expectations, and behavior.
(2) Although the mobile phone is most people’s primary digital device, they are often unaware of how much they use it, especially as streaming services are outpacing cable television as the preferred way to watch movies and television.
(3) People use media for diversion and entertainment, taking pleasure in the altered state of mind that comes from vicarious experience. Culturally, media helps to stitch together past, present, and future into a coherent narrative that also shapes people’s expectations about how social change should occur.
(4) Through media, people make sense of new information and share their knowledge with others, participating in knowledge networks that are replete with disagreement, but where learning to respect difference helps people create establish a shared process for establishing truth. With an overabundance of information, curation is increasingly needed to help people interpret and analyze content.
(5) Media shapes people’s sense of personal and social identity through a set of roles and relationships that are structured by culture and enacted through social relationships. Media representations have symbolic power when they influence the actions of others. But since power is not evenly distributed in society, some groups feel under-represented by media messages. Groups have more social power have their perspectives and experiences featured across the media landscape.
(6) People use media to instigate social change and this process is essential to democratic self-governance. Protesters use peaceful methods to communicate their beliefs and opinions widely. When people use violence as a form of protest, it can galvanize public opinion when it reflects rising levels of grievance and resentment. Us-vs-them thinking leads people to disrespect those whose views are different from their own, resulting in political polarization.
TRACK YOUR OWN MEDIA USE
Studying your own behaviors, thoughts, and feelings about media is often a first step in the practice of media literacy. Track your media choices (for 3 days to one week) using Web Historian or Time Tracker (an extension for Google Chrome) or other apps that offer behavior tracking. Look for patterns in your use of movies, TV shows, news, music, social media, video games and the internet to reflect on the functions of media for you. What value does media have in your life?
I'M AN ORIGINAL CATCHPHRASE
Create an Infographic
on Your Media Life
Apply what you learned in this chapter and monitor your media usage in half-hour increments over a 3-day period. From the time you wake up to the time you fall asleep, create a chart that shows how much media use occurs. If possible, make notes to identify your moods and feelings, as well as the context and situation of the use.
If you like, you can use a simple behavior-tracking app to record patterns in your use of media, creating categories that are specifically relevant to you.
Then create an infographic to analyze the patterns and illustrate the variety of media choices you made. Your infographic might use a combination of data, images, and language to show how much time you spend using media, and where and when your media use takes place.
ON YOUR MEDIA CHOICES
After charting the media you use in your daily life, it is time to reflect on some of the pleasures and annoyances they cause. Consider these questions as you plan your informal extemporaneous response for the ML Inquiry:
• What patterns did you notice when charting your own media use?
• Describe some features of print, visual, sound, or digital media that you really appreciate and value. Explain why they are important to you.
• Describe some features of the same media that are annoying, troubling, or have negative consequences or impact on yourself, others, or society. Explain why they are important to you.
• How do you balance the positives and the negatives when it comes to the media you use most?
You can share your ideas about what you are by contributing ideas to the Flipgrid. You can also view and respond to comments of other people who have offered thoughtful reflections on media literacy. Visit www.mlaction.com to learn more.
Learn more about how Sonia Livingstone influenced media literacy educators, researchers & activists
SONIA LIVINGSTONE
“A more recent concern centers on datafication and digital surveillance, whether by the government or businesses or both, as ever more of of our private lives move online, mediated by proprietary platforms whose activities are far from transparent and whose business interests may be quite different from the interests of children."
--Sonia Livingstone, 2020
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