Blog Post #1- Media Literacy

Jane Tallim, an Education Specialist of Eastern Ontario, describes media literacy as the ability to sift through and analyse the messages that inform, entertain and sell to us every day. To become media literate you must first become aware of the importance of managing one's media. For example, how much television you watch everyday or how much you expose yourself to newspapers or magazines. Secondly, you must learn the specific skills of critical viewing. This means you must learn to understand and analyse questions the media is asking. Finally, after this, you must explore these questions and go deeper into the issues. This means figuring out what profits and purposes are behind these questions. In my opinion being media literate is extremely important. Media surrounds each and every one of us every day, and it is important to understand how it works and how it influences our lives and the decisions we make. Being media literate can help us in our everyday lives in many ways. For example, if you were to obtain a new job where media was going to be incorporated into your tasks, it would be important to understand how the media works. A task like this could simply be trying to grasp a specific audience's attention, like teens for example, and trying to make them interested in whatever field your job is in. Media literacy is fast evolving, and if we understand and are media literate, hundreds of new opportunities will be available to us today.