Online digital technology has empowered users in ways that were unimaginable twenty years ago. Social media sites have given us the ability to reach a global audience, and have increased the average user’s means to persuade and influence. We are no longer just consumers of media, but content creators and distributors, as well as editors, opinion makers, and journalists.
How does media literacy fit into this new media landscape? How do we ensure that we are not perpetuating harmful ideas and messages through our online social network? Perhaps with an increase in our power to influence and persuade should come the critical frameworks that we can apply to the media we create, and not just the media we consume. The situation is no longer us, the passive media consumers, versus them, the corporate and government media powers. When it comes to perpetuating harmful media messages, the enemy is often us.
So how can we create a media literacy framework that takes into account our power and participation in the media?
I thought it would be best to go back to the basics, and review the five concepts of media literacy. Although these were created in 1987 during a time when online participatory media didn’t exist, I found that they are still useful for gaining a critical understanding of social media as well.
