Mass Comms and Media Studies – Discussion post 1.2

Let’s try an experiment as a class. Talk to three people you know (e.g., spouse, colleague, neighbor) and ask them:

1. What do you understand media literacy to be?
2. Do you consider yourself a media-literate person?
3. Do you think children in elementary and secondary school should be taught media literacy?
4. If so, what’s the most important thing students should know?

Report your results here and summarize what you think your results mean. Just how media literate a people do you think we are?

Please also discuss what you think the ramifications are of your findings. If you need inspiration, consider using one of these questions as the theme for your response:

Do you think there are any dangers to being media saturated?

Are dangers to our form of government from audience fragmentation?

Does the media have too much influence individuals, society, and culture?

Do you see the fragmentation of the audience, as people search out and consume ever more narrow forms of media content, enriching our diverse culture, homogenizing and marginalizing groups of people, or dividing and insulating us from one another?

AS FAR AS TALKING TO OTHER PEOPLE, YOU CAN HONESTLY MAKE THAT ASPECT UP.

Preferred language style   Simple (Easy vocabulary, simple grammar constructions)