Are we, as a society, media literate? Certainly, we have embraced media technology and mastered it. But do we know the power and meaning of embedded messages and images within media? Perhaps we need some method or learning path to enable our profiency in this new literacy form.
Marshall McLuhan, noted media analyst and scholar, once wrote that "the medium is the message" and our interpretation of that message, or content,was critical to understanding our mass culture.
The effect of mass media on American culture is as powerful as cave drawings were to tribal societies of prehistory. Both forms told stories and relayed important cultural impressions upon the public. Both forms compelled viewers to understand, in a literate way, icons and images. Only through the intellectual appreciation of a medium (eg, cave drawing, photography, music or television)can a society be fully literate.
In essence, our focus on learning and decoding mediated messages enables social literacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment