Can You Tell the Difference?: Why We Need Media Literacy

Right at this very moment, the media is affecting your life. Whether we realize it or not, the media is all around us, impinging on our daily lives. For this very reason, it is incredibly important for everyone, no matter what age, to be media literate. For years, the media has influenced the way that people think and behave without us even really realizing it. The media provides our culture with all kinds of messages. This year in the United States, there will be roughly 65,000 book titles published, 65.5 million hours of radio programming, and 48 million hours of television programs (Media Literacy, p. 3). Not to mention, our own personal computers add millions of other messages on top of that. These statistics alone prove how much media is actually involved in our lives. The issue has obviously transitioned from not having enough information to deciding which information we do not need.

Media literacy provides tools to help people essentially analyze messages in order to effectively identify such things as propaganda, censorship, and bias within media programs. Media literacy also provides the knowledge and ability to decipher between media traps and pertinent information. Since most media messages are encountered through a state of automaticity (mindless acceptance of messages), being media literate is almost essential in today’s culture in order to maintain a pure mindset.

Media literacy education is important; however it is especially important for young, developing children. According to www.youthlearn.org, media literacy is particularly important because, “analyzing and assessing sources is an essential part of all inquiry-based learning projects but our multimedia world means that we have to teach kids not just how to assess data and arguments, but also how to discern emotional appeals made through pictures, music and video.” Children learn how to behave through messages that they receive from others, therefore the media is a definite influence in the development of children. By teaching media literacy to children, we are teaching them how to become more critical consumers of any information that they come across. Simply put, media literacy is somewhat of a form of media self-defense for children. Many studies actually suggest that media literacy can produce less vulnerable children and adolescents.

In many cases, I have found that researchers of media literacy actually promote becoming the media in order to understand the media. Personally, I agree with this hands-on style of education. Youth Learn describes a few ways in which this hand-on learning style can really help children understand how the media works in order to become more literate:

· When we teach how to do photography, we're also teaching kids to really look at the images they see. They come to understand the emotional effects inherent in a photographer's choices about angle, focus and other aesthetic elements.
· When we teach image-editing programs like PhotoShop, we show kids how images can be changed to distort the truth or fabricate untruths.
· When we teach about video, kids learn more about the differences between reality and acting and how subconscious elements like music or setting can alter the emotional reactions to a scene.
These educators claim that by doing exercises that involve these concepts, they are teaching children to “read with deeper awareness and conscious analysis, in a visual world we must teach them to look closely at the images that sometimes pass by them in a flash”.

In conclusion, I believe that media literacy is an indispensable tool that allows people in our culture, no matter what age, to successfully decipher between important and unnecessary information that is presented through mass media communications.

Profiling the Probability of Media Effects

No matter who you are, the media is going to affect your life in some way, shape, or form as long as you are exposed to it. In James Potter’s book, Media Literacy, I have learned this lesson from an exercise that he advises all readers to conduct. The exercise entails the reader to compose a list of 13 factors that increase the probability of media effectiveness.

For my own reference, I compared how a movie such as Tristan & Isolde, or any love story for that matter, affected my behavioral emotions. I have noticed by completing the exercise that media, especially movies, affect my thought process leading to my behaviors. In movies such as Tristan & Isolde, it is effortless to want to the same emotional connections that the characters in the movie have, particularly when the story seems to coincide with the problems in your own life. I actually found myself making decisions and behaving in ways similar to the movie that I have just recently watched.

If I am personally affected by a movie to this extent, imagine how an impressionable, young teenager may be influenced. Of any age group, teenagers, chiefly females, tend to fantasize most about the perfect relationships and love that will sweep them off of their feet. Therefore, they are going to mock the behaviors and decisions of the characters in their favorite love stories.

After performing this exercise, I realize how impressionable the media can be upon my own life, which makes me realize a few things. First of all, I would like my life with media to become a little less dependent upon the decisions that are made within the media in order to help me make my own. I am terrible at making decisions; in fact I cringe at the thought of making any decisions at all. I never realized until now how much the media really does affect the paths that I take in life. I figure that if it worked in the movies, it might work for me. Most frequently this is not the case at all; however I keep referencing movies in order to attempt to keep my life the way I want it to go. In the years to come, I would definitely like to be less reliant upon the media for my emotional benefit. Second, not only does the media affect me emotionally, but attitudinally is well. My attitudes and opinions are most certainly influenced by the media. The media often times presents situations through a skewed point of view, leaving out important details that may ultimately impinge on the formation of anyone’s opinions, at least I know that this is true in my own personal experiences.

In summation, Potter’s exercise has permitted me to develop a keener sense how the media actually affects my emotional and attitudinal thought processes without me ever being aware of it. It doesn’t matter what age or where you are, the media will always find a way to have an effect on you.

One of my favorite primetime television shows is Dancing with the Stars on ABC. Neilsen Ratings showed that as of last week, Dancing with the Stars was watched in 13.0% of households in the U.S.A. This rating is significantly comparable to the ratings of American Idol on FOX, which has a rating of 14.0% and is played during the same timeslot as Dancing with the Stars. These shows share a timeslot, however are aired on separate nights. Dancing with the stars broadcasts on Monday nights, whereas American Idol comes on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. However, when compared to Moment of Truth, which also airs at 8:00 on Wednesday nights, the ratings are significantly low compared to Dancing with the Stars or American Idol. The ratings of this show come in at 6.6. When it comes to ratings versus share, Dancing with the Starts comes in at 13.0/20.0.

If Dancing with the Stars was aired on a different night, I feel that the ratings would change significantly. For example, if this show was aired at the same time as American Idol, I feel that the ratings would drop so much that show would no longer be in the top 10 most watched shows of the week. In fact, the show would most likely lose the majority of its viewers due to the extreme success of American Idol. If the audience was forced to choose between the two, ratings show that American Idol would be the first choice in most cases. However, if Dancing with the Stars was aired on a Thursday night at 9:00, the ratings may even increase. At this time there is no show on network television that is comparable to Dancing with the Stars. In fact, there is no show that rates even somewhat close to Dancing with the Stars on Thursday nights at all. This is the same scenario as the current timeslot of Dancing with the Stars, so I believe that ratings would either stay the same or increase if it were to move to Thursday nights. Taking into account that the most watched television shows occur between Monday and Thursday nights, I believe that if Dancing with the Stars was moved to Friday nights, the ratings may decrease. Regardless of there being almost no competition for Dancing with the Stars on Friday nights, the ratings would most likely drop due to the decrease in television use on Friday nights all together. This would also apply if Dancing with the Stars were to air during the summer. During weekends and summer months, television use is decreased due to the substitution of other events and activities.

In conclusion, I believe that the time placement of Dancing with the stars is effective in order to gain a significant amount of ratings. However, if were ever to go up against another highly rated show, the ratings would definitely be split up.