Media Literacy

Literally Literacy

The dictionary’s definition of the concept of media literacy is as follows: “Media literacy is the process of accessing, analyzing, evaluating and creating messages in a wide variety of media modes, genres and forms.”

That is correct for the most part, but it is so much more than that. To expand on the idea of media literacy is to dive into the media world itself, because how we interpret the media can literally change how it is written. For example if a billboard has millions of people reaching for the phone to contact a company they know their slogan has been a wild success, if little or no feedback derives, they are aware it was a failure. This failure had to do with the media literacy put out by the media itself. Media literacy is the ability to analyze and interpret the meanings of the media world around us, and each one of us has media literacy in our minds, but we all do it differently. In the book “Understanding Comics, the invisible man” by Scott McCloud, he explains to us the meaning of closure. Closure is how we see certain parts of everything around us. In media literacy the human race will see what it wants to see, for example if someone has always hated Rogers the phone company, anytime they see an advertisement they will immediately make their decision due to prior experience. This is another form of closure; we react and put together pieces to come up with our literal idea of the concept.

The literacy of media in my opinion is literally our closure on the media.

Have I really answered the question what is media literacy? Well, what does it mean to you?

Works Cited

Mccloud, Scott. Understanding Comics The Invisible Art. New York: Harper Paperbacks, 1994. Print.

Tallim, Jane. "What is Media Literacy?" Media Awareness Network | Réseau éducation médias. Web. 07 Oct. 2009. .