This document discusses media literacy and its importance in education. It defines media literacy as the process of critically analyzing media content by considering its presentation, underlying messages, and how ownership may affect content. The document also discusses how each medium has its own "grammar" or conventions and how commercial factors can influence media coverage and content. Developing critical media literacy skills helps people become more discerning consumers and producers of media.

1. 5th edition
John V Pavlik & Shawn McIntosh
Chapter 2:
Media Literacy in the Digital Age

2. EDUCATION AND MEDIA
 We learn much from our daily and extensive interactions
with media content
 If media are so pervasive in our lives, why aren’t we
studying them in the same way that we study geography or
biology?
 Educators have recognized a growing need to teach media
literacy skills to school-age children, starting as young as
kindergarten or elementary school and continuing to high
school graduation

3. WHAT IS MEDIA LITERACY?
The process of critically
analyzing media content
by considering its
particular presentation, its
underlying political or
social messages, and how
media ownership or
regulation may affect the
type of media content we
receive

4. WHAT MAKES MEDIATED
COMMUNICATION DIFFERENT
 What we see and hear through mediated communication—
the signs, symbols, and words we receive through such
things as books, the Web, television and radio—affect us in
ways that nonmediated communication does not
 Semiotics: The study of signs and symbols
 Framing: Classify, organize, and interpret things into
certain schema, or frameworks

5. EARLY CONCERNS OF MEDIA EFFECTS
Public concern about the possible
effects of each new medium of mass
communication as it has emerged

6. MEDIA GRAMMAR
Each medium of mass communication
presents its messages uniquely

7. MEDIA GRAMMAR
Print media
 Books: Physical dimensions, pictures,
size and style of typeface, hardcover or
paperback, artwork, spacing between
words, page numbering, table of
contents, indexes, and chapter headings
 Newspapers: Subject sections
 Magazines: Sophisticated graphic and
design techniques, long-form writing

8. MEDIA GRAMMAR
Radio & Recorded Music
 Radio: Audio techniques,
including volume
changes, multiple audio
tracks, actualities, sound
effects, and voice-overs
 Recorded music:
Particular stylistic
conventions, including
length of song and music
format

9. MEDIA GRAMMAR
Film & Television
Sophisticated media grammar that is
based on editing, camera angles,
lighting, movement, and sound

10. MEDIA GRAMMAR
Digital media
 Media grammar evolves as
our communication devices
evolve
 Adopted from traditional
media forms and created
new ways for us to interact
with the media

11. IMPLICATIONS OF COMMERCIAL MEDIA
Economic factors and corporate
decisions often influence what is and is
not covered in the news and what kind of
entertainment is created and shown

12. IMPLICATIONS OF COMMERCIAL MEDIA
Commercial media debate
• Critics of corporate media: Media
companies are not like other companies
and play a much greater role in
influencing our thinking and behavior;
media should be publicly funded
• Proponents of commercial media: Profit
motive as a key incentive for media
companies to produce quality content
that people will want to watch or read

13. CONCENTRATION OF MEDIA OWNERSHIP
 Successful media enterprises have acquired,
through purchase or merger, other media
enterprises and have become larger in size and
scope
 Greater concentration of ownership results in less
diversity of media voices, and a poorly served
public; minority voices and non-mainstream views
may be silenced

14. MEDIA BIAS
Media bias: Favoring one side
or another with greater
and/or more favorable
coverage
Bias occurs across media:
 News: More/less time on particular
stories, language used in
coverage; strive for fair and
balanced
 Entertainment: Propagating
stereotypes and normalizing or
demonizing certain types of
behaviors

15. DEVELOPING CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY
SKILLS
Assumption that the public is largely
passive; media literacy skills help us
become better media consumers and
producers as we learn to think critically
about various media.

16. DEVELOPING CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY
SKILLS
Guide to think critically about the media:
 What is the purpose of the media content?
 Consider the source of the media
 Examine framing of media content
 What stereotypes are presented?
 Question the media ecosystem
 Make the media