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

7 S K I L L S O F M E D I A L I T E R A C Y

★ Skill 3

Grouping—determining which elements are alike in some way; determining which elements are different in some way

7 S K I L L S O F M E D I A L I T E R A C Y

★ Skill 4

Induction—inferring a pattern across a small set of elements, then generalizing the pattern to all elements in the set

7 S K I L L S O F M E D I A L I T E R A C Y

★ Skill 5

Deduction—using general principles to explain specifics

7 S K I L L S O F M E D I A L I T E R A C Y

★ 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.