The ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create,
and act using all forms of communication.
In its simplest terms, media literacy builds upon traditional literacy and offers new forms of reading and writing. Media literacy empowers people to be critical thinkers and makers, effective communicators, and active citizens.
The term “media literacy” is often used interchangeably with other terms related to media and media technologies.
To clarify what we mean when we talk about media literacy, NAMLE offers these definitions: Media refers to all electronic or digital means and print or artistic visuals used to transmit messages. Literacy is the ability to encode and decode symbols and to synthesize and analyze messages. Media literacy is the ability to encode and decode the symbols transmitted via media and synthesize, analyze and produce mediated messages.
Media education is the study of media, including ‘hands-on’ experiences and media production. Media literacy education is the educational field dedicated to teaching the skills associated with media literacy.
A Broader Definition:
Media Literacy is interdisciplinary by nature. Media literacy represents a necessary, inevitable, and realistic response to the complex, ever-changing electronic environment and communication cornucopia surrounding us.
To become a successful student, responsible citizen, productive worker, or competent and conscientious consumer, individuals need to develop expertise with the increasingly sophisticated information and entertainment media that address us on a multi-sensory level, affecting the way we think, feel, and behave.
Today’s information and entertainment technologies communicate to us through a powerful combination of words, images, and sounds. As such, we need to develop a wider set of literacy skills helping us to both comprehend the messages we receive and effectively utilize these tools to design and distribute our messages. Being literate in a media age requires critical thinking skills that empower us as we make decisions, whether in the classroom, the living room, the workplace, the boardroom, or the voting booth.
Finally, while media literacy does raise critical questions about the impact of media and technology, it is not an anti-media movement. Rather, it represents a coalition of concerned individuals and organizations, including educators, faith-based groups, health care providers, and citizen and consumer groups, who seek a more enlightened way of understanding our media environment.
Over the years, many definitions and visions of media literacy have been created to reflect different points of view, different approaches and goals, and different audiences. Through the postings in various sections of the NAMLE web site, we will try to present many of these definitions along with their sources. We welcome input from visitors to the web site.