What Is Media Literacy?
Both the video excerpts and the activities are intended to help your students learn to watch carefully and think critically, and thus improve their media literacy. Ontario is the first jurisdiction in North America to mandate media education, and it defines media literacy as follows: Media literacy is concerned with the process of understanding and using the mass media. It is also concerned with helping students develop an informed and critical understanding of the nature of the mass media, the techniques used by them, and the impact of these techniques. More specifically, it is education that aims to increase students’ understanding and enjoyment of how the media work, how they produce meaning, how they are organized, and how they construct reality. Media literacy also aims to provide students with the ability to create media products. (Ontario Ministry of Education, Media Literacy Resource Guide, 1989, page 7) Key concepts Ontario’s provincial standards document links outcomes to the
