We live in the most interesting times as far as the media is concerned. In fact as I approach the topic.These lines from Charles Dickens signifying the scenario of the French revolution came instantly to my mind – yes there is an upheaval going on in the media too..and it is marked with opposing views on the continuum-... Read More

1. MEDIA LITERACY IN THE AGE OF
INFORMATION OVERLOAD
Media literacy is the method of dissecting media content in
order to critically analyze it. Media literacy is a crucial skill all
media consumers must-have.
On the other hand, Information overload is a situation in which
you receive too much information at a time and cannot think
about it in a clear way. The term was coined by Bertram Gross, a
Political Science professor at Hunter College in his paper The
Managing of Organizations, published in 1964, long before the
internet existed. It was used to describe the inability of
decision-makers to reach a quality conclusion when they were
presented with a huge amount of data.
Stanley Baran, in the Introduction to Mass Communication,
speaks of a term he calls “third-person effect”. This
encompasses the idea that as consumers we believe media
affects others but not ourselves (24). Being media literate allows
us to see that this is untrue and the media does in fact have
underlying messages that affect us.

2. The Problem with Too Much Information
We can’t really multitask — not productively at least. Have you ever
scrolled through Instagram while watching Netflix ? Have you
been convinced that you’re attentively consuming whatever show is
playing to suddenly realize you have no clue why the heroine is
crying? This is because you weren’t multitasking at all, but rather
overloading your brain with stimuli and information. While this
might seem harmless, information multitasking can actually lower
one’s IQ by ten points. It can also lead to internet addiction.
Being over-exposed to digital media can take a toll on your mental
and emotional well-being as well as cause various physical problems
such as backaches, headaches, weight gain, and/or weight loss,
blurred vision, carpal tunnel syndrome, and many others (cue fade
out of fast-paced commercial voice). But besides the harm to the
individual user, information overload also has a negative effect on
modern society.
The Spread of Fake News/Misinformation/Disinformation
The freedom of the internet and the fact that virtually anyone can
publish anything they want online has made it increasingly difficult
to distinguish between real and fabricated information.
According to a study titled, Limited individual attention and online
virality of low-quality information, the accuracy of information
doesn’t have an effect on its popularity on social networking sites.
“Low- and high-quality information have the same chances to
succeed,” stated Diego Olivera, co-author of the study. In order to
lessen the spread of fabricated news, researchers suggested social
media platforms should take a more aggressive stance on removing
“bots” or algorithms with fake profiles. Both accounts “make up a
significant portion of online profiles and many of them flood
social media with high volumes of low-quality information to
manipulate the public discourse.”

3. The Emergence of Deep Fakes
Further into the rabbit hole of false news, misinformation and
disinformation, is something called a “deep fake.” A deep fake
uses artificial intelligence to combine and superimpose existing
images and videos onto new images or videos. It uses the
technology invented by student Ian Goodfellow in 2014 called
the “generative adversarial network” that can recognize
patterns in a person’s behaviour through audio or video
renderings, which can then be used to doctor various media by
blending it with other content.
Back then, the use of this technology was limited to the artificial
intelligence research community but in late 2017, a Reddit user
called “Deepfakes,” a portmanteau of “deep learning” and
“fake,” started posting doctored pornographic videos. In
response, Reddit panned the account for violating the site’s
content policy but by this time, the creator of the videos had
already released FakeApp — an application that can create
forged videos and images.
With this technology, it is now possible to make politicians
and celebrities look like they are doing or saying whatever you
want because of the abundance of visual data available to them
online. These deep fake videos are hyper-realistic and difficult to
detect.
Applications like this further add to the difficulties we already
have with sifting through information online, similarly, if not
more harmfully, than fake news.

4. The Way Forward:
Developing Media Literacy Skills Today:
Today, we are living in what is known as the Digital Age and the
only constant is that it will continue to develop and expand for
future generations. It is important for everyone to develop and
expand along with the media, in order to properly understand
what is being circulated. For this to happen, we need to develop
media literacy skills.
It’s crucial for this to be taught to school age children, especially
now with more children being exposed to media at a younger
age. Today, children are being introduced to the media even
before their formal education (Hopkins, 24). Media literacy skills
are crucial for, “developing knowledge about the social,
political, and economic forces that influence media content”
(Pavlik and McIntosh, 40). These skills will help in keeping the
mind active when looking at different media platforms, instead
of keeping a passive mind
There are seven main media literacy skills (Baran, 24). The first
is “the ability and willingness to make an effort to
understand content, to pay attention and filter out noise”
(Baran, 24). This means consumers should distinguish the points
an article is trying to make and ignore factors that could
influence their thinking. Thus, changing the way we consume
media. An example could be when you are listening to the radio
while driving. What is your main focus, the radio or driving?
Hopefully driving, but this means you could misinterpret what’s
on the radio. By realizing what factors affect your interpretation,
you can be more mindful of when content you are absorbing.

5. Second is, “having an understanding of, and respect for,
the power of media messages” (Baran, 24). There’s so much
media content in circulation and it’s important to understand
how many people the content is available for. It is imperative
not to dismiss that fact, because it can be very powerful. For
example, some articles can convey stereotypes. If we dismiss
that, it hurts the group being stereotyped and other
marginalized groups. It is important that we recognize and
stand up against it.
Third, the “ability to distinguish emotional from reasoned
reactions when responding to content and act accordingly”
(Baran, 24). Sometimes, we connect with certain media like
songs and books because we can relate to them on an
emotional level. Rather, it’s important to keep in mind that
content like this may not always be true, despite our emotional
ties with it.
Some media content may be trying to persuade you by keying
into your emotional reactions; it’s essential to keep this in
mind when analyzing media messages.
Fourth, is the “development of heightened expectations of
media content” (Baran, 24). This is referring to viral videos or
articles on the internet that are the “most viewed” or “top ten”
that we settle on and give meaning to, when we are not
searching for anything specific. Today, on the internet there is so
much content to filter through that we tend to scroll through it
mindlessly, not looking for underlying messages, or meaning.
When on the internet, if there is not a specific thing you’re
looking for, it’s easy to give meaning to the random content you
fall upon.

6. Next, is “the knowledge of genre conventions and the
recognition of their mixing” (Baran, 24-25). This means that it's
necessary to understand different genres and how information
is given by those sources. For example, we are more likely to
believe a documentary about weight loss, then what’s in a
magazine for weight loss. By being aware of that fact you can
determine what is true and what is not, or if the source is
reputable.
Sixth, is “the ability to think critically about media
messages” (Baran, 25). This means not everything you read on
the internet will be true, even if it comes from a credible source.
For example, if Fox News presented an article it’s important to
remember that they are being paid by people who believe the
same things, so their media will be biased to whom they are
getting paid from to support those views.
Seventh is “the knowledge of the internal language of
various media and the ability to understand its effects”
(Baran, 25). This comes down to understanding how media is
produced; to pay attention to camera angles, lighting, text sizes,
and location. Understanding this language will help you to
make informed decisions on the credibility of the content and
media. As the media continues to grow, it continues to matter.
In today’s world the media is constantly around us. We are
always interacting with mass media, so it’s essential to learn
from our experiences with it. John Pavlik and Shawn McIntosh
in their book Converging Media: A New Introduction to Mass
Communication explain that we learn topics such as math and
history in school, but not media literacy (45). They bring up the
question; if we are interacting with the media so much, why
are we not learning about it? Media literacy encourages
thinking for ourselves, and questioning what is being told to us.
Media literacy “emphasizes the skills and knowledge needed

7. to be effective in the increasingly social media environment”
(Hobbs and Jensen, 5). We are introduced to media at an
increasingly younger age, so we should start learning about
media and its underlying messages sooner. Our society has a
“culture that absorbs and responds to the explosion of new
media….” (Hobbs and Jensen, 5); we thrive off of media, and
because of this media literacy skills are so important.
In Conclusion:
The use of technology has become more common in today’s
age. Whether it’s in an office or in a classroom, the use of
technological devices like computers play an important role in
our lives. Studies have shown that computer mediated
communication leads to several negative outcomes such as
“depersonalization, impoliteness, information overload, and
increased worker stress due to having to respond quickly”
(Bob and Sooknanan, 47). When communication is face to face
you are able to use your body language or other cues. Mediated
communication does not allow you to use these cues but has
created a different environment in communication, possibly
altering what the media content is communicating.
To be media literate it is important to be able to interpret and
analyze media information. If an individual is unable to decipher
between what is true and untrue, mediated and non-
mediated, then they will have a much more difficult time
navigating media effectively. Being media literate is essential for
the media consumer and it is important that everyone take
notice of their media literacy in the increasing age of
information overload…Read More