M E D I A L I T E R A C YM E D I A L I T E R A C Y
T O D AY ’ S O B J E C T I V E
• Discuss the importance of media literacy
• Understand basic process and function of mass media
• Discuss how agriculture is portrayed on mass media
• List of media literacy skills
Q U E S T I O N S
• What’s your opinion about global warming?
• What about GMOs?
• Where do your opinions come from?
• Where do you think other people’s opinions come from?
W H AT I S M E D I A L I T E R A C Y
• Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media.
• Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.
W H Y M E D I A L I T E R A C Y
• Information issue!
• Media saturation
• Challenge of selection
• Automatic Routines
• “Being media literate means that you control the interpretation of the media instead of it controlling you.”
E S S E N C E O F C O M M U N I C AT I O N
• Lasswell’s model of communication
• Who, Says what, In which Channel, To Whom, With what effect?
F U N C T I O N S O F M A S S C O M M U N I C AT I O N
• Surveillance of the environment • Keep up a surveillance of all the happenings
• Provide information to the human society
• Correlation of components of society • Media select certain information to report
• Media provide interpretation of the information
• Cultural transmission between generation. • Media to teach the various norms, rules and values
• Entertainment • Media create a means of escape from the stress of everyday life
C O R E Q U E S T I O N S O F M E D I A L I T E R A C Y
• Who created this message?
• What creative techniques are used to attract my attention?
• How might different people understand this message differently than me?
• What values, lifestyles and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this message?
• Why is this message being sent?
F I V E C O R E C O N C E P T S
• All media messages are “constructed.”
• Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules.
• Different people experience the same media message differently.
• Media have embedded values and points of view.
• Most media messages are organized to gain profit and/or power.
• Today’s consumers are not as connected with agriculture and food production on a daily basis.
• Consumers rely more on media to help inform them about agricultural issues
• How the media covers agriculture influences consumers’ perceptions of how food is produced, handled, or processed
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsgF-bSX0TQ
M A S S M E D I A A B O U T F O O D
• Media coverage of the agricultural industry crisis situations.
7 S K I L L S O F M E D I A L I T E R A C Y
★ Skill 1:
Analysis—breaking down a message into meaningful elements
e.g. text, audio, visual; argument points; etc.
7 S K I L L S O F M E D I A L I T E R A C Y
★ Skill 2
Evaluation—judging media information by comparing the elements to some criterion
e.g. compare the message to moral standard, to established standard
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★ Skill 3
Grouping—determining which elements are alike in some way; determining which elements are different in some way
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★ Skill 4
Induction—inferring a pattern across a small set of elements, then generalizing the pattern to all elements in the set
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★ Skill 5
Deduction—using general principles to explain specifics
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★ Skill 6
Synthesis—assembling elements into a new structure
7 S K I L L S O F M E D I A L I T E R A C Y
★ Skill 7
Abstracting—creating a brief, clear, and accurate description capturing the “big picture” of the media message as few words as possible.
