Critical Media Literacy
Jones and Hafner (2012) explains critical media literacy as "trying as much as possible to learn how things work, whether we are talking about the way language works to influence our opinions and view of the world or the way software works to influence our behaviour and our relationships with other people" (p. 111). The concept of learning how media works, and selecting, adapting, modifying, and mixing the media for our purposes and agenda rather than the agenda of politicians, journalists, engineers and corporations is the key to becoming critically media literate (Jones & Hafner, 2012). As shown in the diagram on the left, critical media literacy involves engagement with the technology and the media at the three levels indicated: meta-level (critical thinking), and competencies and skills with the associated technology. |
Critical Media Literacy Artifact 1 - the diagram, as shown below, reflects media literacy as a critical engagement with mass media that require competencies in all the skills mentioned in the circle. Canada's Centre for Digital and Media Literacy separate the terms: media and digital literacy with distinctive differences. Media literacy involves being a "critically engaged consumers of media, while digital literacy is more about enabling ... to participate in digital media in wise, safe and ethical ways" (Canada's Centre for Digital Media Literacy, 2014). However, the competencies for digital literacy and media literacy are considered "complementary and mutually supporting and are constantly evolving and intersecting in new and interesting ways" (Canada's Centre for Digital Media Literacy, 2014).
Reflections
The word "critical" included in the term critical media literacy refers to a "conscious stance - a stance that puts you in the position to 'interrogate' the ideologies and agendas promoted in the texts that you encounter via digital media and by digital media themselves" (Jones & Hafner, 2012, p. 98). Critical digital literacy involves becoming conscious of the ideologies and the agendas embedded in the messages of the digital media presented by specific groups and people rather than being unaware and unconscious of them and taking the particular ideology they subscribe to as the "truth rather than simply as one of many possible versions of reality" (Jones & Hafner, 2012, p. 98). Interestingly, "taking a critical stance towards media means being just as conscious of what they do not allow us to do as what they do allow us to do" (Jones & Hafner, 2012, p. 99). This statement refers to the awareness of various affordances and constraints of media, and the consequences of the mediated interaction with the technological tools. Jones and Hafner (2012) feel that we can exert control over the media that we use partially by our ability to choose or appropriate the media we use, by adapting them to fit our own purposes, by changing or modifying (modding) them, or by mixing two or more tools. In a way, this is what many of the digital age new generation of young people do with the technology to communicate their thoughts and feelings. It seems that the new generation is already harnessing the available technology and changing the the way we view literacy as more than traditional reading and writing.
From a pedagogical perspective, the changing needs of learning and communication spurred on by the new generation, who were born into the digital age, and providing an outlet for their expression using the tools that they are familiar with is also another way to be culturally relevant in our teaching practices.