What does it mean to be media literate in today's world? How are we transformed by the many media infrastructures around us? We are immersed in a world mediated by information and communication technologies (ICTs). From hardware like smartphones, smartwatches, and home assistants to software like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, our lives have become a complex, interconnected network of relations. Scholarship on media literacy has tended to focus on developing the skills to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media messages without considering or weighing the impact of the technol.
Media literacy is often focused on evaluating the message rather than reflecting on the medium. Bringing together postphenomenology, media ecology, posthumanism, and complexity theory, Richard Lewis’s book offers a method for such a reflection and shows how our everyday media environments constitute us as (post)human subjects: one that is becoming and constitutes through relations – also with our media technologies. An original interdisciplinary effort – including for example the term 'intrasubjective mediation' – and a must-read book for everyone interested in how we become with and through technologies. Prof Mark Coeckelbergh, University of Vienna Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject is a clearly and concisely written book that employs a fruitful transdisciplinary approach. It at once offers an excellent grounding in the literature, whilst simultaneously developing a useful tool for students to reflect deeply and critically upon their own engagement with media. Thoroughly recommended. Alexander Thomas, University of East London What does it mean to be media literate in today’s world? How are we transformed by the many media infrastructures around us? We are immersed in a world mediated by information and communication technologies (ICTs). From hardware like smartphones, smartwatches, and home assistants to software like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, our lives have become a complex, interconnected network of relations. Scholarship on media literacy has tended to focus on developing the skills to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media messages without considering or weighing the impact of the technological medium—how it enables and constrains both messages and media users. Additionally, there is often little attention paid to the broader context of interrelations which affect our engagement with media technologies. This book addresses these issues by providing a transdisciplinary method that allows for both practical and theoretical analyses of media investigations. Informed by postphenomenology, media ecology, philosophical posthumanism, and complexity theory the author proposes both a framework and a pragmatic instrument for understanding the multiplicity of relations that all contribute to how we affect—and are affected by—our relations with media technology. The author argues persuasively that the increased awareness provided by this posthuman approach affords us a greater chance for reclaiming some of our agency and provides a sound foundation upon which we can then judge our media relations. This book will be an indispensable tool for educators in media literacy and media studies, as well as academics in philosophy of technology, media and communication studies, and the post-humanities.
Leading authority on media literacy education shows secondary teachers how to incorporate media literacy into the curriculum, teach 21st-century skills, and select meaningful texts.
The digital age has made it easy for anyone, even those with limited technology proficiency, to create some form of media. With so many different types of media and the sheer volume of information coming from a wide array of sources, media literacy has become an essential skill that can be very difficult to learn and teach. The Handbook of Research on Media Literacy Research and Applications Across Disciplines aims to present cross-disciplinary examinations of media literacy, specifically investigating its challenges and solutions and its implications for P-20 education. An assemblage of innovative findings centered on national and international perspectives, with topics including critical thinking and decision-making processes, smart consumerism, recognizing point-of-view, media influence, responsible media creation, cyber threats, media literacy instruction, among others, this book is ideally designed for educators, researchers, activists, instructional designers, media specialists, and professionals.
With the current ubiquity of technological tools and digital media, having the skillset necessary to use and understand digital media is essential. Integrating media literacy into modern day education can cultivate a stronger relationship between technology, educators, as well as students. The Handbook of Research on Media Literacy in the Digital Age presents key research in the field of digital media literacy with a specific emphasis on the need for pre-service and in-service educators to become familiar and comfortable with the current digital tools and applications that are an essential part of youth culture. Presenting pedagogical strategies as well as practical research and applications of digital media in various aspects of culture, society, and education, this publication is an ideal reference source for researchers, educators, graduate-level students, and media specialists.
Much of the discussion about new technologies and social equality has focused on the oversimplified notion of a "digital divide." Technology and Social Inclusion moves beyond the limited view of haves and have-nots to analyze the different forms of access to information and communication technologies. Drawing on theory from political science, economics, sociology, psychology, communications, education, and linguistics, the book examines the ways in which differing access to technology contributes to social and economic stratification or inclusion. The book takes a global perspective, presenting case studies from developed and developing countries, including Brazil, China, Egypt, India, and the United States. A central premise is that, in today's society, the ability to access, adapt, and create knowledge using information and communication technologies is critical to social inclusion. This focus on social inclusion shifts the discussion of the "digital divide" from gaps to be overcome by providing equipment to social development challenges to be addressed through the effective integration of technology into communities, institutions, and societies. What is most important is not so much the physical availability of computers and the Internet but rather people's ability to make use of those technologies to engage in meaningful social practices.
Technologies shape who we are, how we organize our societies and how we relate to nature. For example, social media challenges democracy; artificial intelligence raises the question of what is unique to humans; and the possibility to create artificial wombs may affect notions of motherhood and birth. Some have suggested that we address global warming by engineering the climate, but how does this impact our responsibility to future generations and our relation to nature? This book shows how technologies can be socially and conceptually disruptive and investigates how to come to terms with this disruptive potential. Four technologies are studied: social media, social robots, climate engineering and artificial wombs. The authors highlight the disruptive potential of these technologies, and the new questions this raises. The book also discusses responses to conceptual disruption, like conceptual engineering, the deliberate revision of concepts.
Our society has become characterized by aggressive media. Information is constantly at our fingertips – whether it be through the books, newspapers, and magazines we read, the television we watch, the radio stations to which we listen, or the computers that connect us to the world in a matter of seconds. We can try to limit our media exposure, but it is impossible to avoid all media messages. As a result, we psychologically protect ourselves by automatically processing the media to which we are exposed. Theory of Media Literacy: A Cognitive Approach comprehensively explains how we absorb the flood of information in our media-saturated society and examines how we often construct faulty meanings from those messages. In this book, author W. James Potter enlightens readers on the tasks of information processing. By building on a foundation of principles about how humans think, Theory of Media Literacy examines decisions about filtering messages, standard schema to match meaning, and higher level skills to construct meaning. A central theme of Potter′s theory is the locus that governs the degree to which a person is media literate. The locus is enriched by developing skills as well as good knowledge structures on five topics: media effects, media content, media industries, real world parameters, and the self. Key Features Presents the first social scientific theory of the process of media literacy Explores a broad range of literature on media literacy written during the past two decades Focuses on how the human mind works, especially in this mass media-saturated society Theory of Media Literacy is an essential resource to a wide audience within the media discipline. The book provides empirical researchers with direction to test the theory and extend our understanding of how the media affect individuals and society. Practitioners will find it helpful in developing strategies to achieve goals and, at the same time, avoid high risks of negative effects. In addition, new scholars will find it to be an excellent introduction to various media literacy research.
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology gives readers a view into this increasingly vital and urgently needed domain of philosophical understanding, offering an in-depth collection of leading and emerging voices in the philosophy of technology. The thirty-two contributions in this volume cut across and connect diverse philosophical traditions and methodologies. They reveal the often-neglected importance of technology for virtually every subfield of philosophy, including ethics, epistemology, philosophy of science, metaphysics, aesthetics, philosophy of language, and political theory. The Handbook also gives readers a new sense of what philosophy looks like when fully engaged with the disciplines and domains of knowledge that continue to transform the material and practical features and affordances of our world, including engineering, arts and design, computing, and the physical and social sciences. The chapters reveal enduring conceptual themes concerning technology's role in the shaping of human knowledge, identity, power, values, and freedom, while bringing a philosophical lens to the profound transformations of our existence brought by innovations ranging from biotechnology and nuclear engineering to artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and robotics. This new collection challenges the reader with provocative and original insights on the history, concepts, problems, and questions to be brought to bear upon humanity's complex and evolving relationship to technology.
Making Media Literacy in America presents a history for the field of Media Literacy. It recounts how people have developed knowledge and skills in organized ways to respond to their rapidly changing media environments as seen through the lens of Media&Values magazine, a quarterly publication that spanned the formation, recession and revitalization of the U.S. media literacy movement from 1977 to 1993. This book maps the discourses of media studies, education reform, and the public sphere that made media literacy concepts and practices possible in America. It is a history of vital importance for scholars of media communication and education, as well as for thought leaders in teacher education, informal learning, youth media, educational technology, library sciences, and media reform—all of whom comprise the field of media literacy today.
