Media literacy

Media literacy has been defined as “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages across a variety of contexts” (Christ & Potter 1998, 7). This definition, produced by the USA’s 1992 National Leadership Conference on Media Literacy, is widely accepted, although many alternative and competing conceptions also exist. As the subject of academic research, educational initiatives and communication policy (Potter 2004), media literacy research reflects enduring tensions between critical scholars (Critical Theory) and policymakers, educationalists and technologists, defenders of high culture and defenders of public morals. Associated with media literacy is a variety of related concepts – advertising literacy, Internet literacy, film literacy, visual literacy, health literacy etc. – these reflecting the range of media forms that demand, or assume, knowledge about media on the part of the audience or public.