Media literacy

 

Human beings have been constantly educated through generations. It has also steadily expanded its scope and developed from education for simple "hygiene, health and survival" to philosophy, ethics, culture and artistic education. The intellectual capacity required by us to live in a modern era where the media world and the real world coexist is not just the ability to see and understand sentences, but also the ability to judge the truth and value of information.

 

Media literacy is the ability to understand various media and to analyze, evaluate and communicate messages by accessing different forms of messages. Those with such media literacy can interpret, evaluate, analyze and produce print and broadcast media. Media literacy is the same as the ability to understand the language of the media. To understand the language of the media is to understand who makes the message, why it was made, is the information true, and whether it is intended to generate revenue from it.

 

 

Many people are exposed to sponsored advertising contents every day. Advertisements often have a great influence on people's decisions and even inscribe false knowledge. Before tobacco advertising and liquor advertising were censored and controlled, companies stimulated people's consumption through advertisements, creating a plethora of smokers and drinkers.

Many media are commercial. This is why in many cases, images or documents, including provocative content, are in the spotlight. The media is also used in politics. That is why if the press and the media are always controlled, suppressed and censored by the government, there is a possibility that distorted and packaged information will be exposed to citizens as it is. The biggest problems with this social structure are the stagnant growth of small and medium-sized enterprises and economic growth caused by a party's power monopoly and corruption. This is what China, North Korea, and many Middle Eastern countries are doing now. And another example is the U.S. presidential election. In general, where parties that spend a lot of money on advertising and promoting candidates tend to be elected.

 

 

Being literate means that not only reading but also to understand and communicate in a right way. To communicate well through the medias, we need to analyze the information with an critical eye and evaluate the information is true or not and also it is worthy enough to accept. To do this, we need to compare the information, not using a media but various types of medias from Books, Magazine, News, etc. However, censoring and suppressing all the information from the government is not a right way to being literate. When it comes to the politics, It can make more spin and misunderstandings and also it can leads to fake news that may arise in favor of only a few businesses and political parties. The government's duty is to educate students and people to interpret the media correctly, and to maintain clean politics that does not distort the media.