Here is a short list of sources that I found had a great variation of explanations towards a key topic we have learned about this session, media literacy. These sources focus on the fact of how essential learning media literacy is, and how as a society we should recognize this is an endless tool we should always prioritize as a media consumer. I have chosen four different sources ranging from articles, blogs and videos. The best way to understand a necessary topic such as media literacy, is continuing to learn different sides of it from different sources, and these were some of the most informative for me.
In this first source, It is actually an article, that Josephine Lister has put together, and a video she showcases on behalf of the Student Reporting Labs she references in her article. The article itself starts off with a strong point, “The revolution of the internet – and all the content it brings with it – has left a key skills gap for today’s young people. That gap is media literacy.” Which in all truthfulness, the gap between generations and media literacy seems to be getting farther on the spectrum, and that needs to be the complete opposite in this digital age we are in. The video I highly urge you to see, is explaining what Student Reporting Labs is, and what a great benefit it is for our younger generations to understanding and practicing media literacy. This video and article is noteworthy because it is an educational organization designed to seek and share innovations, such as transforming children’s classrooms into newsrooms with ages K-12 for free. Their focus is to teach our younger generation, but our older generation can learn just as much from this source as well.
In this source its a short video but very informative. For those of us that are more of a visual learner, videos like these are great, they not only explain but also show you the examples and questions the author is referring to referring to . A key point to take note of here is, “If each of us makes the practice of using the five key questions for media literacy in all our activities and with all of the people we encounter, we will all move closer to the more positive and well informed physical engagement that we want and deserve.” This source is noteworthy because it actually is coming from a media literacy center where one can find much more informative sources as well.
This Source I actually had never heard of until this recent research of media literacy sources, but i am so happy that i now know of The 74. The 74 is a non-profit non-partisan news site covering education in America. Their mission is to lead an honest, fact-based conversation about how to give America’s 74 million children under the age of 18 the education they deserve. In this particular blog, Katie Stringer is the contributor to this blog and she, along with Sherri Hope Culver,(director of the Center for Media and Information Literacy at Temple University) cover topics such as: urgency in media literacy that is needed in schools, how fake news has only risen since 2016, laws to promote media literacy and vaccine for #fakenews? This source is noteworthy because it has a mission unlike any other source out there, their goal is to reach those 74 million kids that need the media literacy education as well as all those people that surround the children.
Overall, in this particular exercise of learning media literacy noteworthy sources, I noticed that I unintentionally gravitated towards sources that emphasized teaching media literacy to school aged children as well as adults. The important key in all of us becoming media literate is to gain as much knowledge of it that we can early on, and that eventually means law reforms at some point, within the educational systems, would have to take place perhaps all across the world one day. As for now, it has to be spread by word of mouth and take actions into our own hands to constantly keep informing, learning and practicing not only for our good, but for many of those around us that may need our support in becoming media literate.
