Media Literacy in Education

What sparked my interest most out of today’s class was the idea of media literacy as a potential part of pre-collegiate education. Our class and our O’Neill reading, Media Literacy and Communication Rights: Ethical Individualism in the New Media Environment, both mentioned how the United States is the world’s largest producer of media, one of the largest consumers of media, and yet we have nothing worked into our public education system to teach our citizens to be media literate. This is not just an education issue, but a human rights issue. The EU, unlike the US, has raised media literacy as a public policy concern and has required that children and educators are informed in making personal critical evaluations of media content. This is intended to ultimately better prepare children to be active citizens and to simultaneously protect them against the growing dangers the digital environment harbors.

O’Neill sets up this debate by emphasizing that both the US and EU promote the idea of ethical individualism, meaning that individuals are increasingly given responsibility to make their own decisions on responsible behavior, opinions from media, and choices regarding what interactions they choose to have in the digital world. He expands to say that with new media becoming increasingly prevalent, these responsibilities become an increasingly important human rights issue. With less support and guidance, people are being left to determine their own acceptable standards. This is great in theory and is part of the foundations of our democracy, but it greatly endangers children. Both adults and children have communication rights, but, according to O’Neill, it is society’s responsibility to provide education to protect their best interests and to support them in this undertaking.

I would definitely agree with O’Neill and with the EU that children need this support. I think that media literacy is something that we should be concerned about both from a sociological and from a public policy standpoint. Over the past generations media and technology have exponentially grown and infiltrated our personal lives inside our homes. There is no escape from advertisements, a barrage of opinions, and greater threats on the internet and on social networking sights. While our class has been educated to critically approach all of these messages and opportunities, we have done so more gradually than the children of today’s age. Our generation brought about the creation and popularity of computer games, emails, and (dare I bring us back to the ever-popular) Facebook. We had time to establish social norms, to see the dangers slowly emerge, and to adjust our media literacy throughout our lives. Children in today’s age do not have such a luxury. They are brought into the digital world with no prior experience, a need for greater guidance, and facing greater threats.

I would argue that media literacy education is something that the US should seriously consider, if not for the sake of children's safety or for their basic human rights, but for the future of our society.