EDUC 639 - Blog: The Importance of Teaching Media Fluency/Literacy

Promoting Media Fluency in the Classroom

        We all can recognize the fact that the number of hours most of humankind spends a day in front of media of some sort has skyrocketed in the last decade, the amount of time our children and youth spend, even more so. I can not imagine how those numbers have multiplied over the last year since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The face of our work and school lives has transformed this past year into something we could not have imagined just 12 months ago. What we have found is that we are no longer merely consumers of media but producers as well. In order to continue to excel in our work and school lives, humankind has a deep need to become fluent in all avenues of media literacy. “Today we need to be able to communicate as effectively with graphical and multi-media formats as we do with words and text. Media fluency helps us to develop these abilities.” (Wabisabi Learning, 2016)

            As educators, we have a weighty burden to not only provide media literacy education for our students, but in many cases, we must bridge that gap for ourselves first! Becoming media literate means we must teach students to “apply critical thinking to media message and” “use media to create their own messages”. This is “a key 21st-century skill. Media Literacy is critical to” students’ future educational endeavors and their “future participation in the civic and economic life of our democracy”. ("What is media literacy?", 2014)

            Media fluency demands critical listening skills, the ability to analyze, verbalize and verify information, separating facts from opinions. We need to be fluent also in the ‘wrappers’ the information reaches us in, the specific medium utilized. Acquiring next the skills to respond or communicate using that media’s form, flow, and align it correctly for the audience at hand. Becoming media literate means we have the ability to interpret the media message (wrappers and all), evaluate the impacts of those messages on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and then be able to produce our own media thoughtfully and diligently. ("What is media literacy?", 2014)

            Becoming media fluent or literate is imperative for students as they approach their future educational and civic endeavors, it will empower them to engage in a global media environment. “Today’s messages come in many forms and literacy can no longer refer simply to the ability to read and write.” ("What is media literacy?", 2014)

(Media Literacy Now, 2017)

References

Media Literacy Now. (2017, January 17). What is Media Literacy? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIaRw5R6Da4

Wabisabi Learning. (2016, February 16). Media Fluency [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myYUGyAjqII

What is media literacy? (2014, January 28). Media Literacy Now. https://medialiteracynow.org/what-is-media-literacy/