Understanding Media and Information Literacy

Module 1 Learning Objectives

• This module aims to impart an understanding of media and information literacy (MIL) and related ideas.
• It describes the effect of media and information on communication.
• It dives into communication models.
• The roles and functions of communication and media in a democratic society are discussed.
• There is an identification of the similarities and differences among media literacy, information literacy, and digital/technology literacy.
• Identifies the history of media.
• The relationships between traditional and new media are determined.
• It differentiates between technological and cultural determinism.
• An evaluation of the media in the Philippines is conducted using Normative Theories of the Press.
• Recognizes current issues in Philippine Media.
• Identifies the types of media.
• Contents across media types are classified.
• Discusses the effects of media on culture and society.

Basic Concepts of Communication

• Communication involves transmitting a message from a source to a receiver.
• Political scientist Harold Lasswell indicated that a way to describe communication effectively is answering these questions:
  • Who?
  • Says what?
  • Through which channel?
  • To whom?
  • With what effect?

Elements and Process of Communication

• Source: The originator or initiator of the message, it can be an individual, group, or institution.
• Encoding: The sender's process of creating and organizing ideas to form a message.
• Message: The product of the sender's encoding, which can be verbal and/or non-verbal.
• Channel: The pathway or route where the message travels from the source to its recipient; without this, communication cannot take place.
• Decoding: The receiver translates or interprets the source's message.
• Receiver: The individual or audience to whom the message is intended.
• Feedback: The response to the message, describing how the person heard, seen, understood, and processed the information.
• Noise: Any distraction, interference, or hindrance in the communication process, and can be physical, mental, or emotional.

Levels of Communication According to Number of Participants

• Intrapersonal: Communication within oneself; internal conversation.
• Interpersonal: Communication between two (dyad) or more persons (small group) interacting to convey information.
• Mediated or Machine-Assisted: Interpersonal communication using mechanical and technological devices (e.g., machines, electronics, computers, the Internet).
• Public: An individual delivering a speech or message in front of an audience; public speaking.
• Mass: Two or more persons or an institution using mechanical and technological devices to produce and transmit messages to a large, mixed audience.

Models of Communication

• Communication models simplify the process by visually representing aspects of communication encounters.
• Models differ but contain common elements.
  • Linear or Transmission Model: Communication is a linear, one-way process where a sender intentionally transmits a message to a receiver. It focuses on the sender and message.
  • Interactive or Interaction Model: Communication is a process where participants alternate positions as sender and receiver, generating meaning by sending messages and receiving feedback within physical and psychological contexts. More concerned with the process itself, considering physical and psychological context.
  • Transaction Model: Communication is a process where communicators generate social realities within social, relational, and cultural contexts, which frame and influence encounters.

Media, Information, and Technology Literacy

• Media is the means of communication that disseminates news, entertainment, education, data, or promotional messages
• Media literacy includes understanding and using mass media in assertive or non-assertive ways, with informed and critical understanding of media and the techniques used with their effects.
• It also involves decoding, analyzing, evaluating, and producing communication in a variety of forms.
• Information literacy is the ability to recognize when information is needed, and to locate, evaluate, effectively use, and communicate information in different formats.
• Digital (Technology) literacy - the ability to use digital technology, communication tools, or networks to locate, evaluate, use, and create information and being able to understand and utilize information when shown via computers and being able to read and interpret media, and replicate data and images through digital manipulation, and assess and apply new knowledge from digital environments
• Media Information Literacy (MIL) is a fusion of various information and media sources incorporated with the concept of literacy.
• The challenge is how to equip oneself with the knowledge, skills, and attitude required by these fields.
• “The role of media and information literacy in deepening democracy and good governance is crucial.
• "Media and Information Literacy recognizes the primary role of information and media in everyday lives. It empowers citizens to understand the functions of media and other information providers, to critically evaluate their content, and to make informed decisions as users and producers."

History of Media

• Pre-Industrial Age (Before 1700s): People discovered fire, developed paper from plants, and created weapons/tools with stone, bronze, copper, and iron such as cave paintings, clay tablets, papyrus in Egypt, Acta Diurna in Rome, Dibao in China, Codex in the Mayan region, and the printing press using wood blocks.
• Industrial Age (1700s-1930s): People began using steam power, developed machine tools, established iron production, and manufactured various products like books through the printing press such as newspapers like The London Gazette(1640), printing press for mass production (19th century), typewriter (1800), telephone (1876), motion picture photography/projection (1890), motion picture with sound (1926), telegraph, and punch cards.
• Electronic Age (1930s-1980s): Electronic age starts with the invention of transistors allowing for long distant communication. Examples included; transistor radio, television (1941), large electronic computers i.e. EDSAC (1949) and UNIVAC 1 (1951), mainframe computers - i.e. IBM 704 (1960), personal computers - i.e. Hewlett-Packard 9100A (1968), Apple 1 (1976), and OHP, LCD projectors
• Information Age ( 1900s-2000s): With the Internet creating social networks, this allowed for easier communication with personal computers and mobile devices. Image, voice, data become digitalized. Examples included; laptops (1980), netbooks (2008), tablets (1993), web browsers: Mosaic (1993), Internet Explorer (1995), search engines: Google (1996), Yahoo (1995), blogs: Blogspot (1999), LiveJournal (1999), Wordpress (2003), social networks: Friendster (2002), Multiply (2003), Facebook (2004), Skype (2003), Google Hangouts (2013), smart phones and wearable technology

Traditional Media VERSUS New Media

• Traditional Media: Limited media experiences, one-directional, and very specific sense receptors are used.
• New Media: Interactive media experience, more involved audiences that can send feedback simultaneously, and integrates the old media.

Technological Determinism VERSUS Cultural Determinism

• Technological Determinism: Is a theory where technology is predominant and is used to create social and cultural change. How people use a technology is how the technology drives culture.
• Cultural determinism: A theory where society is the main factor that drives technological agenda and conditioning the diffusion of the technologies produced.

Normative Theories of the Press

• These are ideas that explain how media should ideally operate in a given system of social values.
• Deals with the relationship between the press and the government and the ownership of the media.
• The three types include: Libertarianism, Social Responsibility Theory, Authoritarianism and Communism
  • Libertarianism asserts that good and rational people can tell right from wrong if presented with all and free access to information allowing censorship to be unnecessary and free from authority.
  • Social Responsibility Theory asserts media must remain free from the government control but has to serve the public and uphold ethics
  • Authoritarianism and Communism state that media is for subjugation, for the purpose of serving the government so there is censorship protecting the government.

Functions of Communication and Media

• Monitoring Function: To inform the citizens of incidents
• Meaning and Significance of Facts: To educate the audience
• Public Opinion and Expression of Dissent: Provide a platform for dialogue
• Watchdog Role of Journalism

Current Issues in Philippine Media

• Media killings/violence against journalists.
• Viral fake news
• Media suppression/ having broadcasters being forced off air.

Types of Media and Media Convergence

• Print Media: Utilizes paper and ink, reproduced in a process that is usually mechanical.
• Broadcast Media: Uses airwaves to transmit information to a wide net of people.
• New Media (The Internet): Content is organized and distributed through a digital platform.
• Media Convergence: The coexistence of traditional and new media where content goes across multiple platforms by using a digital code to be accessible in everyday devices.

Media Effects

• Media enables mass communication which people may disagree with its effects, but is undeniable to have them.
• Mass Society Theory: This is the idea that media are corrupting influences undermining the social order where those most influenced are “average” people whom do not hold values to theorists.
• Limited Effects Theory: One of the first scientific studies of media effects and is a composition of other theories where media influence was limited by individual differences, social categories, personal relationships .
• Cultural Theory: Is the belief that our experience as human beings is just a social construct and one that only transmitted from one authority.
• Meaning-Making Perspective: States that audience members actively use media to create meaning that can effect many people where the individual’s idea gives meaning to signals. Which these signs that are used by culture maintain people behaviors . Some can also have a inaccurate judgment or cultivated reality if cultivated enough.
• Controversial Media Effects can include; Media and violence to viewers, drug abuse, stereotyping people and affecting them prosocially.