Media+Literacy

= **Livingstone, Sonia."Media Literacy and the Challenge of New Information and Communication Technologies."** = //Livingstone, Sonia. "Media Literacy and the Challenge of New Information and CommunicationTechnologies." //The Communication Review //_.7 (2004): 3-14.// _//. Web. 20 Mar. 2011.//

Abstract
Within both academic and policy discourses, the concept of media literacy is being extended from its traditional focus on print and audiovisual media to encompass the internet and other new media. The present article addresses three central questions currently facing the public, policy-makers and academy: What is media literacy? How is it changing? And what are the uses of literacy?

** Argument **

The term "Literacy" has become more than it's basic definition of "the ability to read and write" with the introduction of new forms of communication and their predecessors. While "literacy" is the most appropriate term available to describe people's ability to understand and communicate using multimedia technology, it must acquire a new conceptual framework that spans such media and abilities.

** Key Passages ** History tells us that even the narrow and common sense meaning of the term “literacy”—being able to read and write—masks a complex history of contestation over the power and authority to access, interpret, and produce printed texts (Luke,1989). Such scope for contestation is magnified as the materiality of symbolic texts increasingly relies on audiovisual and computer-based technologies. In theorizing people’s interpretations of media, old and new, are we now dealing with one or many literacies? Are the literacies required for today’s communication and information environment an extension of, or a radical break with, past traditions of knowledge and learning? Should the academy be guiding, or critiquing, the implementation of media literacy policy (Sterne, 2002)?

Some might argue that we should leave the somewhat opaque, contested term “literacy” to its origins in high culture (Williams, 1976), rejecting its association with the world of authoritative printed books and its tendency to stigmatize those who lack it. Doubtless the spawning of new literacies—computer literacy, cyber-literacy, Internet literacy, network literacy, digital literacy, information literacy—is infelicitous. And how do these relate to the existing literacy terms—print literacy, audiovisual literacy, critical literacy, visual literacy, oral literacy, cultural literacy, or social literacy (Freire & Macedo, 1987; Hirsch, 1987;Street, 1995)?

“The term literacy is shorthand for cultural ideals as eclectic as economic development, personal fulfillment, and individual moral fortitude” (Tyner, 1998, p. 17). Nonetheless, in a key conference a decade ago, a clear, concise and widely adopted definition emerged: Media literacy—indeed literacy more generally—is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create messages in a variety of forms (Aufderheide,1993; Christ & Potter, 1998). These four components—access, analysis, evaluation, and content creation—together constitute a skills-based approach to media literacy.

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