Media Literacy (10th Edition) PDF

Media Literacy Tenth Edition Sara Miller McCune founded SAGE Publishing in 1965 to support the dissemination of usable knowledge and educate a global community. SAGE publishes more than 1000 journals and over 600 new books each year, spanning a wide range of subject areas. Our growing selection...

Media Literacy Tenth Edition Sara Miller McCune founded SAGE Publishing in 1965 to support the dissemination of usable knowledge and educate a global community. SAGE publishes more than 1000 journals and over 600 new books each year, spanning a wide range of subject areas. Our growing selection of library products includes archives, data, case studies and video. SAGE remains majority owned by our founder and after her lifetime will become owned by a charitable trust that secures the company’s continued independence. Los Angeles | London | New Delhi | Singapore | Washington DC | Melbourne Media Literacy Tenth Edition W. James Potter University of California FOR INFORMATION: Copyright © 2021 by W. James Potter, Inc. SAGE Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Except as permitted by U.S. copyright law, no part of this work may be reproduced or distributed 2455 Teller Road in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or Thousand Oaks, California 91320 retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Email: [email protected] publisher. All third-party trademarks referenced or depicted herein SAGE Publications Ltd. are included solely for the purpose of illustration and are 1 Oliver’s Yard the property of their respective owners. Reference to these 55 City Road trademarks in no way indicates any relationship with, or London EC1Y 1SP endorsement by, the trademark owner. United Kingdom Printed in the United States of America SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area Names: Potter, W. James, author. Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044 India Title: Media literacy / W. James Potter, University of California. SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd. Description: Tenth edition. | Los Angeles: SAGE, | 18 Cross Street #10-10/11/12 Includes bibliographical references and index. China Square Central Identifiers: LCCN 2020040323 | ISBN 9781071814451 Singapore 048423 (paperback) | ISBN 9781071814482 (epub) | ISBN 9781071814499 (epub) | ISBN 9781071814475 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Media literacy. Classification: LCC P96.M4 P68 2020 | DDC 302.23072/1—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020040323 Acquisitions Editor: Lily Norton This book is printed on acid-free paper. Editorial Assistant: Sam Diaz Content Development Editor: Megan O’Heffernan Production Editor: Megha Negi Copy Editor: Erin Livingston Typesetter: C&M Digitals (P) Ltd. Proofreader: Theresa Kay Indexer: Integra Cover Designer: Candice Harman Marketing Manager: Victoria Velasquez 20 21 22 23 24 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1  Brief Contents Preface xix Acknowledgments xxii About the Author xxiv PART I INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter 1 Why Increase Media Literacy? 2 Chapter 2 Media Literacy Approach 13 PART II EFFECTS 33 Chapter 3 Broadening Our Perspective on Media Effects 34 Chapter 4 How Does the Media Effects Process Work? 53 PART III INDUSTRY 71 Chapter 5 Development of the Mass Media Industries 72 Chapter 6 Economic Perspective 99 PART IV AUDIENCE 123 Chapter 7 Audience: Industry Perspective 124 Chapter 8 Audience: Individual Perspective 141 PART V CONTENT 167 Chapter 9 Entertainment 168 Chapter 10 Advertising 197 Chapter 11 News 222 Chapter 12 Competitive Experiences 254 Chapter 13 Social Networking Experiences 275 Chapter 14 Acquisition Experiences 295 PART VI SPRINGBOARD 311 Chapter 15 Helping Yourself and Others to Increase Media Literacy 312 INTRODUCTION TO THE ISSUES CHAPTERS 337 Issue 1 Ownership of Mass Media Businesses 339 Issue 2 Sports 361 Issue 3 Media Violence 382 Issue 4 Privacy 399 Glossary 431 References 441 Index 461  Detailed Contents Preface xix Acknowledgments xxii About the Author xxiv PART I INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter 1 Why Increase Media Literacy? 2 The Information Problem 3 Growth Is Accelerating 4 High Degree of Exposure 5 Keeping Up 5 Dealing with the Information Problem 6 Our Mental Hardware 6 Our Mental Software 6 Automatic Routines 7 Advantages and Disadvantages 9 The Big Question 9 Summary 11 Further Reading 11 Keeping Up to Date 12 Chapter 2 Media Literacy Approach 13 What Is Media Literacy? 14 The Three Building Blocks of Media Literacy 15 Skills 16 Knowledge Structures 20 Personal Locus 22 The Definition of Media Literacy 23 Media Literacy Is Multidimensional 24 Media Literacy Is a Continuum, Not a Category 25 The Development of Media Literacy 26 Advantages of Developing a Higher Degree of Media Literacy 28 Appetite for Wider Variety of Media Messages 28 More Self-Programming of Mental Codes 29 More Control over Media 30  Summary 30 Further Reading 30 Exercise 31 PART II EFFECTS 33 Chapter 3 Broadening Our Perspective on Media Effects 34 Four-Dimensional Analytical Tool 36 Timing of Effects 36 Valence of Effects 37 Consumer Perspective 37 Media Business Perspective 37 Intentionality of Effects 38 Consumer Perspective 38 Media Business Perspective 39 Type of Effects 39 Cognitive-Type Effect 39 Belief-Type Effect 40 Attitudinal-Type Effect 40 Physiological-Type Effect 42 Emotional-Type Effect 42 Behavioral-Type Effect 43 Macro-Type Effects 43 Using the Four-Dimensional Analytic Tool 45 The Example of Addiction 45 The Analysis 46 Becoming More Media Literate 47 Summary 48 Further Reading 49 Exercises 51 Chapter 4 How Does the Media Effects Process Work? 53 Media Effects Are Constantly Occurring 55 Manifested Effects and Process Effects 55 Baseline Effects and Fluctuation Effects 56 Factors Influencing Media Effects 58 Baseline Factors 59 Demographics 59 Developmental Maturities 59 Cognitive Abilities 60 Personal Locus 60 Knowledge Structures 61 Sociological Factors 62 Media Exposure Habits 62  Fluctuation Factors 62 Content of the Messages 63 Context of Portrayals 63 Cognitive Complexity of Content 63 Motivations 63 States 64 Degree of Identification 64 Process of Influence 65 Thinking about Blame 65 Becoming More Media Literate 66 Summary 66 Further Reading 68 Keeping Up to Date 68 Exercises 69 PART III INDUSTRY 71 Chapter 5 Development of the Mass Media Industries 72 The Evolution Pattern 74 Stages of Evolution 74 Innovation Stage 74 Penetration Stage 75 Peak Stage 76 Decline Stage 77 Adaptation Stage 78 Comparisons across Mass Media 78 Revolution Pattern of Development 81 The Analog Media 81 Channel 81 Decision Making 82 Messages 83 The Digital Media 83 Channel 83 Decision Making 84 Messages 85 Range of Experiences 85 Convergence 88 Profile of Mass Media Workforce 91 Summary 94 Further Reading 95 Keeping Up to Date 96 Exercises 96 Chapter 6 Economic Perspective 99 The Media Game of Economics 101 The Players 101 The Goal 105 Characteristics of the Game 106 Nature of Competition 106 Complex Interdependency among Players 107 Importance of Valuing Resources Well 108 Digital Convergence 109 Media Industry Strategies 110 Maximizing Profits 110 Increasing Revenue 110 Minimizing Expenses 111 Constructing Audiences 112 Attracting People to Niche Audiences 113 Conditioning Audiences 114 Reducing Risk 114 Consumers’ Strategies 116 Default Strategy 116 Media Literacy Strategy 116 Summary 119 Further Reading 120 Keeping Up to Date 120 Exercises 121 PART IV AUDIENCE 123 Chapter 7 Audience: Industry Perspective 124 The Shift from Mass to Niche Perspective on Audience 126 What Is a Mass Audience? 126 Rejection of the Idea of a Mass Audience 127 The Idea of Niche Audiences 128 Identifying Niches 129 Geographic Segmentation 130 Demographic Segmentation 130 Social Class Segmentation 131 Geodemographic Segmentation 131 Psychographic Segmentation 131 Twelve American Lifestyles 132 VALS Typology 132 Attracting Audiences 133 Appeal to Existing Needs and Interests 133 Cross-Media and Cross-Vehicle Promotion 134 Conditioning Audiences 135  Summary 137 Further Reading 137 Exercises 138 Chapter 8 Audience: Individual Perspective 141 Information Processing 143 Filtering 143 Meaning Matching 146 Meaning Construction 147 Analyzing the Idea of Exposure to Media Messages 149 Exposure and Attention 150 Physical Exposure 150 Perceptual Exposure 150 Psychological Exposure 152 Attention 152 Exposure States 153 Automatic State 153 Attentional State 154 Transported State 154 Self-Reflexive State 155 Information-Processing Traits 155 Cognitive Traits 155 Field Independency 155 Crystalline Intelligence 157 Fluid Intelligence 157 Conceptual Differentiation 159 Emotional Traits 159 Emotional Intelligence 159 Tolerance for Ambiguity 160 Non-impulsiveness 160 The Media Literacy Approach 161 Processing Information 161 Tools 162 Summary 163 Further Reading 164 Exercises 165 PART V CONTENT 167 Chapter 9 Entertainment 168 What Is Entertainment? 170 Audience’s Perspective 170 Programmers’ Perspective 171 Patterns 172  Content Analysis Method 172 Character Patterns 173 Controversial Elements 175 Health 178 Body Image 179 Telling Stories as a Business 179 Story Formulas 180 General Story Formula 181 Genres 182 Comedy 182 Drama 183 Romance 184 Challenges 185 Different Media 185 Changing Public Taste 186 Dealing with Risk 186 Becoming Media Literate with Entertainment Messages 188 Appreciate the Blend of Reality and Fantasy 188 Appreciate Story Formulas 191 Summary 192 Further Reading 192 Keeping Up to Date 193 Exercises 194 Chapter 10 Advertising 197 Advertising Is Pervasive 199 Advertising Strategies 201 Traditional Strategy 202 Digital Strategies 203 Tools of Advertising 205 Tools for Identifying Audiences 205 Tools for Persuading Audiences 206 Search Engine Optimization 206 Recommender Systems 207 Ratings Services 209 Buying Funnel 209 Becoming More Media Literate with Advertising 211 Analyze Your Personal Needs 212 Analyze Ads 214 Look for Differences 215 Evaluate the Ads 215 Summary 216 Further Reading 216  Keeping Up to Date 217 Exercises 218 Chapter 11 News 222 Dynamic Nature of News 224 Rise and Fall of “Big News” 225 Shift to Online Sources of News 226 Changes in the Need for News 227 Changes in News Content 227 More Immediate 228 More Local 228 Shorter News Stories 229 Multimedia Stories 229 Different Perspectives on News 230 Political Philosophy Perspective 231 Professional Journalism Perspective 231 Economic Perspective 232 Marketing Perspective 232 Standards for Evaluating News 234 By Type of Producer 234 By News Criteria 236 By Accuracy 236 By News Perspective 241 How Can We Become More Media Literate with News? 242 Exposure Matters 242 Quality Matters 243 Be Analytical 245 Evaluate Facts 245 Evaluate the News Story 245 Be Skeptical 246 Summary 247 Further Reading 247 Keeping Up to Date 249 Exercises 249 Chapter 12 Competitive Experiences 254 Attraction to Digital Games 257 Who Are the Players? 257 Why the Attraction? 258 The Game-Playing Experience 259 Creating Digital Game Platforms 260 Designing Digital Games 260 Marketing Digital Games 261  Types of Games 262 Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) 262 Digital Games as Sport 264 Addiction to Digital Games 265 Addiction Defined 266 The Addiction Progression 266 Displacement 267 Dependence 268 Addiction 269 Media Literacy 270 Personal Implications 270 Broader Concerns 271 Summary 272 Further Reading 273 Keeping Up to Date 273 Exercise 274 Chapter 13 Social Networking Experiences 275 Friendship 276 History 276 Attraction 278 Effects 280 Negative Effects 280 Both Negative and Positive Effects 281 Dating 282 Attraction 283 Dangers 283 Living 284 Second Life 284 Farmville 286 The Sims 287 Attraction to Virtual Worlds 287 Opinion Sharing 290 Blogs 290 Attraction 291 Media Literacy with Social Networking 292 Summary 293 Further Reading 293 Keeping Up to Date 294 Exercise 294 Chapter 14 Acquisition Experiences 295 Information 296 Music 297  Video 298 Shopping 298 Acquisition Issues 300 Shopping Addiction 300 Piracy 301 The Economy 304 Media Literacy with Acquisition Platforms 305 Summary 305 Further Reading 306 Keeping Up to Date 306 Exercises 306 PART VI SPRINGBOARD 311 Chapter 15 Helping Yourself and Others to Increase Media Literacy 312 Helping Yourself 313 Ten Guidelines 314 1. Strengthen Your Personal Locus 314 2. Develop an Accurate Awareness of Your Exposure Patterns 314 3. Acquire a Broad Base of Useful Knowledge 315 4. Think About the Reality–Fantasy Continuum 316 5. Examine Your Mental Codes 316 6. Examine Your Opinions 317 7. Change Behaviors 317 8. Become More Skilled at Designing Messages 318 9. Do Not Take Privacy for Granted 318 10. Take Personal Responsibility 318 Illustrations of Milestones 319 Cognitive Ladder 319 Emotional Ladder 319 Moral Ladder 320 Aesthetic Appreciation Ladder 320 Examples of Levels of Literacy 321 Helping Others 322 Interpersonal Techniques 323 Interventions 325 Public Education 326 Current Situation 326 Barriers 327 What Can You Do? 329 Societal Techniques 330 Summary 331 Keeping Up to Date 333 Exercises 333 INTRODUCTION TO THE ISSUES CHAPTERS 337 Issue 1 Ownership of Mass Media Businesses 339 Delineating the Issue 340 Arguments against Concentration of Ownership of Media Companies 340 Arguments for Concentration of Ownership of Media Companies 340 Evidence of Concentration 340 Trend toward Concentration 341 Factors Driving the Trend 344 Efficiencies 344 Regulation 345 Deregulation 346 Evidence for Harm 351 Increased Barriers to Entry 351 Reduced Level of Competition 351 Reduced Number of Public Voices 351 Changes in Content 352 Your Own Informed Opinion 353 Expand Your Perspective 353 Analyze the Evidence 353 Ownership and Control 354 Harm 354 Recognize Your Values 355 Localism 355 Efficiency 356 Conclusion 356 Further Reading 357 Keeping Up to Date 358 Applying Media Literacy Skills 358 Issue 2 Sports 361 Delineating the Issue 361 The Money Cycle 362 Players 364 Owners and Leagues 367 Television Networks 368 Advertisers 369 The Public 370 Olympics 371 Video Gaming 374 The Big Picture 374 Your Own Informed Opinion 375 Cost–Benefit Analysis 375 Implications 376 Extend Your Knowledge 376  Further Reading 377 Keeping Up to Date 377 Applying Media Literacy Skills 378 Issue 3 Media Violence 382 Delineating the Issue 382 Public’s Perspective 384 Limiting the Scope of Harmful Effects 384 Equating Violence with Graphicness 388 Focusing on Frequency over Context 390 Producers’ Faulty Beliefs 391 Violence Is Necessary to Storytelling 391 Blame Others, Not Producers 392 Your Own Informed Opinion 392 Implications for Individuals 392 Implications for Producers 393 Moving Beyond Faulty Thinking 394 Further Reading 396 Applying Media Literacy Skills 397 Issue 4 Privacy 399 Delineating the Issue 400 Criminal Threats to Your Privacy 402 Stealing Private Information 402 Direct Theft 402 Indirect Theft 403 Economic Purposes 405 Political Purposes 406 Hijacking Computers 406 Destroying Information 407 Noncriminal Threats to Your Privacy 408 Monitoring Activity 409 Collecting and Selling Information 413 Spamming 415 Controlling 417 Public Opinion and Regulations 418 Public Opinion 418 Regulations 419 Your Own Informed Opinion 421 Map Your Expectation of Privacy 421 Information Assessment 422 Threat Assessment 423 Privacy Strategy 423 Remove Private Information 424 Correct Inaccuracies 424  Subvert Invasion of Privacy Practices 424 Limit Cookies 425 Download Software to Protect Your Computer from Threats to Your Privacy 425 Continually Monitor Threats 426 Further Reading 426 Keeping Up to Date 428 Applying Media Literacy Skills 429 Glossary 431 References 441 Index 461  Preface M ost of us think we are fairly media literate. We know how to access all kinds of media to find the music, games, information, and entertainment we want. We recognize the faces of many celebrities and know many facts about their lives. We recognize a range of musical styles and have developed strong preferences for what we like. We can easily create messages through photos, videos, and text and then upload them to various sites on the internet. Clearly, we know how to expose ourselves to the media, we know how to absorb information from them, we know how to be entertained by them, and we know how to use them to create our own messages and share them with others. Are we media literate? Yes, of course. We have acquired a great deal of information and have developed remarkable skills. The abilities to speak a language, read, under- stand photographs, and follow narratives are significant achievements, although we often take them for granted. While we should not overlook what we have accomplished, it is also important to acknowledge that we all can be much more media literate. In many ways, your overall level of media literacy now is probably about the same as it was when you were a teen- ager. Since that time, your information base has grown enormously about some types of media messages, such as popular songs, internet sites, and video clips. However, your information base may not have grown much in other areas—who controls the mass media, how decisions are made about the production of content, and how that constant flow of content affects you and society in all sorts of subtle as well as pow- erful ways. Thus, your current level of media literacy allows you to do many things with the media, but you could be exercising much more control and getting more out of your media exposures if you grew your knowledge in additional areas. The more you are aware of how the mass media operate and how they affect you, the more you gain control over those effects, and the more you will distinguish your- self from typical media users who have turned over a great deal of their lives to the mass media without realizing it. By “turning over a great deal of their lives to the mass media,” I mean more than time and money, although both of those are considerable. I also mean that most people have allowed the mass media to program them in ways that they are unaware of. And because they are unaware of these ways, they cannot control the media’s influence or shape the way the media are affecting them. The purpose of this book is to show you how the media have been shaping your beliefs and behavioral patterns. Until you become aware of how much your beliefs have been formed by media influence and how the media have accomplished all this shaping, you will continue to float along in a flood of media messages, oblivious to their constant, subtle influence. However, once you begin to see things from a media literacy perspective, you can see how this process of influence works, and this under- standing will help you to gain control over this shaping process. xix xx  Media Literacy How to Get the Most Out of This Book As you read through this book, think beyond the many details and focus on the frameworks it provides as reminders of what is most important. Frameworks are maps. When you have a map to guide your reading journey, you’ll always know where you are and where you have to go next. To help you perceive the most important frame- works, each chapter begins with a key idea followed by an outline of the topics cov- ered. When you keep these frameworks in the front of your mind, you will be able to both read faster and get more out of your reading. As you read each chapter, be strategic. Use the frameworks to ask questions, then actively look for the answers to those questions as you read. By actively, I mean don’t just scan the words and sentences; instead, start with an agenda of questions, then as you read through each section, look specifically for answers to your questions. After you have finished a chapter, close the book and see how much you can recall. Can you remember only a random assortment of facts or can you envision a structure of knowledge that is organized by your questions? This book is composed of 15 instructional chapters followed by four issues chapters. The purpose of the 15 core chapters is to provide you with a set of key ideas to help you organize your knowledge structures in four areas: knowledge about media effects, knowledge about media audiences, knowledge about the media industries, and knowl- edge about media content. To navigate through the detail presented in each chapter, use the outline at the beginning of that chapter as a map. When you have finished reading a chapter, try doing the exercises. These exercises will help you use and elaborate on the information presented in the chapter. If you want to continue elaborating your knowl- edge beyond what is present in each chapter, look at the sections on further reading that recommend particular books, articles, and websites; I have selected these as particularly interesting extensions of what I have presented in the chapter. Also, because things change so fast these days with the media, I have provided several sources of informa- tion—typically websites—where you can access the most current information available. You will get more out of each of the core instructional chapters if you try to incorpo- rate the information you are learning into your own experience. This book has a self-help tone as it presents guidance and practical exercises to guide you in your journey toward achieving higher levels of media literacy. Do not get caught in the trap of thinking that it is sufficient to memorize the facts in each chapter and then stop thinking about the material. Simply memorizing facts will not help you increase your media literacy much. Instead, you need to internalize the information by drawing it into your own experiences. Continually ask yourself, “How does this new information fit in with what I already know?” “Can I find an example of this in my own life?” and “How can I apply this when I deal with the media?” The exercises at the end of each chapter will help you get started with this. The more you work through the exercises in your everyday life, the more you will internalize the information, thus making it a more natural part of the way you think. After you have finished with the instructional chapters and building your ini- tial set of knowledge structures, you will be ready to dig deeper into the controver- sies within media studies. The four issues chapters give you a chance to use your knowledge structures and increase the strength of your skills as you take apart these controversies, appreciate the beauty of their complexity, and construct your own informed opinion on each of these issues. The first issue unpacks the controversy  Preface  xxi about whether or not the ownership of the mass media has become too concentrated; some critics argue that there are now too few owners of media businesses. The topic of sports is treated in Issue 2 by examining possible answers to the following ques- tion: Is there too much money being spent on sports? Issue 3 tackles the persistent controversy over whether there is too much violence in the media and whether the prevalence of violence in media content is harming individuals and society. This sec- tion concludes with Issue 4, which examines the growing concern about privacy and how the new media environment is making it much more difficult for you to exercise control over who gets access to your private information. If you engage these issues on a superficial level, then you will likely be frustrated by what seem to be unsolvable problems. But if you dig deeper and apply your develop- ing skills of media literacy, you will begin to see how the complexities of these issues may be causing problems in your own life. When you recognize these problems, you will be able to use your greater level of media literacy to develop strategies to reduce their influence. Thus, you will be taking more control over issues that you previously thought were too big, too complicated, and the fault of other people. To Conclude It is my hope that this book will stimulate you to think more deeply about your media habits and become motivated to increase your control over the process of influence from the media. The information presented in these chapters will get you started in this direction. Will the book provide you with all the information you need to com- plete this task fully? No. That would require too much information to fit into one book. You will need to continue reading. At the end of most chapters, I suggest several books for further reading on the topic of that chapter. Although some of those books are fairly technical, most of them are easy to read and very interesting. This book is an introduction. It is designed to show you the big picture so you can get started on increasing your own media literacy efficiently. It is important to get started now and to begin exercising the power that you did not know you had. I hope you will have fun reading this book. I hope it will expose you to new per- spectives from which you can perceive much more about the media. If it does, you will be gaining new insights about your old habits and interpretations. If this happens, I hope you will share your new insights and “war stories” with me. Much of this book has been written to reflect some of the problems and insights my students have had in the media literacy courses I have taught. I have learned much from them. I’d like to learn even more from you. So, let me know what you think and send me a message at [email protected]. See you on the journey! Teaching Resources This text includes an array of instructor teaching materials designed to save you time and to help you keep students engaged. To learn more, visit sagepub.com or contact your SAGE representative at sagepub.com/findmyrep.  Acknowledgments T his book project has traveled a very long distance from its initial conceptualization in the mid-1990s. Since then, I have had the privilege of using various versions of the book with several thousand students at Florida State University, UCLA, Stanford University, and the University of California at Santa Barbara. These students helped me form the idea into a useful book for a broad range of undergraduates and refine the material through nine subsequent editions. I thank them for every question, every puzzled look, and every smile of satisfaction from an insight gained. Over the years, Media Literacy has been translated from English into seven other languages, which makes it accessible to readers in many parts of the world. Some of those readers have provided me with their reactions, and I thank them. I thank the many reviewers whom SAGE called on to critique the text in each edition. Some contacted me directly; others chose to remain anonymous. In all cases, their comments were valuable. The reviewers included Kelly A. Berg, College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University; Frank Nevius, Western Oregon University; Stanton H. Hudson, Jr., State University of New York, Buffalo State; Doug Tewksbury, Niagara University; Sara Drabik, Northern Kentucky University; Phyllis Zrzavy, Franklin Pierce University; and Anthony Jerome Stone Jr., University of Cincinnati. I am grateful for the support of SAGE with its many highly skilled staff members over the years. First, I need to thank Margaret Seawell, who initially signed this project then shepherded it through three editions; then Todd Armstrong, who took over for Margaret on the fourth and fifth editions; then Matt Byrnie, who took over for Todd and gave me considerable help with the sixth, seventh, and eighth editions before turning it over to Terri Accomazzo for the ninth edition; then to Lily Norton for this, the tenth edition. In the production department, Astrid Virding skillfully took the first edition from manuscript to bound book, as did Claudia Hoffman on the second edition, Tracy Alpern on the third, and Astrid Virding again on the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions and now Megha Negi with the current edition. They made it look easy, though there must have been days when it was anything but. I also want to thank Carmel Withers in marketing and SAGE salespeople for their enthusiastic support of the new edition. Finally, I must thank the many fine copy editors SAGE has assigned to this project over the years, especially Erin Livingston who continually impressed me with her detailed and insightful editing of this tenth edition. If you like this book, then I share the credit of success with all the people I men- tioned above. If you find a mistake, a shortcoming, or a misinterpretation, then it is my fault for not fully assimilating all the high-quality help I have been privileged to experience. xxii  Acknowledgments  xxiii Reviewer Acknowledgments Kelly A. Berg, College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University Frank Nevius, Western Oregon University Stanton H. Hudson, Jr., State University of New York, Buffalo State Doug Tewksbury, Niagara University Sara Drabik, Northern Kentucky University Phyllis Zrzavy, Franklin Pierce University Anthony Jerome Stone Jr., University of Cincinnati  About the Author W. James Potter, professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, holds one PhD in communication studies and another in instructional technology. He has been teaching media courses for more than two decades in the areas of effects on indi- viduals and society, content narratives, structure and economics of media industries, advertising, and journalism. He has served as editor of the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media and is the author of many journal articles and several dozen books, including 7 Skills of Media Literacy; Introduction to Media Literacy, Digital Media Effects; Analysis and Evaluation of the Major Theories of Media Effects; The 11 Myths of Media Violence; and Becoming a Strategic Thinker: Developing Skills for Success. xxiv Introduction PART I  1 Media literacy increases your ability to exercise control over the vast array of messages you encounter iStock.com/400tmax through daily media exposure. Why Increase Media Literacy? Key Idea: To survive in our information-saturated culture, we put our minds on “automatic pilot” in order to protect ourselves from the flood of media messages we constantly encounter. The danger with this automatic processing of messages is that it allows the mass media to condition our thought processes. 2  Chapter 1 Why Increase Media Literacy?  3 The Information Problem Automatic Routines Growth Is Accelerating Advantages and High Degree of Exposure Disadvantages Keeping Up The Big Question Dealing with the Information Summary Problem Further Reading Our Mental Hardware Keeping Up to Date Our Mental Software T he first challenge we all face when confronting a new body of information is moti- vation. We ask ourselves: Why should I expend all the effort to learn this? How will learning this help me enough to make all that effort worthwhile? With media literacy, our initial answers to the above questions are likely to make us feel that learning about media literacy is not worth the effort because we feel that we already know a lot about the media. We are familiar with a large number of websites, apps, recording artists, and celebrities. We are already able to access a wide range of entertainment and information, so why would we need to learn a lot more about the media? This book will show you the answer to that question by presenting you with some key insights about the media. This information will expand your perspective into new areas and increase your power to exercise control over your media exposures so that you can get more value from those messages. Let’s get started! In this chapter, I will show you the big picture of our media environment so that you can see how enormous the information problem is. The strategy we use to deal with this problem typically works well on a day-to-day basis because it is effi- cient; however, over the long term, it is not very effective. That is, the advantages we achieve in the short term when we focus only on efficiency grow into disadvantages over the long term. To show you why this is the case, let’s first analyze the informa- tion problem. The Information Problem Our culture is saturated with media messages—far more than you may realize. Hollywood film studios release more than 700 hours of feature films each year, which adds to its base of more than 100,000 hours of films they have already released in previous years. Commercial television stations generate about 48 million hours of video messages every year worldwide, and radio stations send out 65.5 million hours of original programming each year. We now have more than 140 million book titles in existence, and another 5,000 new book titles are published throughout the world each day. Then there is the World Wide Web, which has been estimated to have almost two billion websites (Internet Live Stats, 2018) but is so huge that no one knows how big  4  Part I Introduction it really is. Each of these websites has the potential to deliver an unlimited amount of information. For example, a video platform such as YouTube has more than five billion videos available for viewing (YouTube, 2018), and users are uploading more than 500 new hours of video every minute of every day (Clement, 2019). Growth Is Accelerating Not only are we already saturated with media messages, the number of messages avail- able from the media continues to grow. More information has been generated since you were born than the sum total of all information throughout all recorded history up until the time of your birth. In 2012, Silver estimated that the amount of infor- mation was doubling every year. And the rate continues to accelerate! This means that today, over half of all the information that is available to you (in all the libraries, websites, recordings, etc.) did not exist one year ago. Why is so much information being produced? One reason is that people are pro- ducing more information than ever before. Half of all the scientists who have ever lived are alive today and producing information. Also, the number of people in this country who identify themselves as musicians has more than doubled in the last four decades, the number of artists have tripled, and the number of authors has increased fivefold (U. S. Bureau of the Census, 2017). Another reason is that the technology now exists to provide easy-to-use plat- forms to share information. Thus, every- one can generate and share information with large numbers of people every day. You no longer need to be a musician to create songs; you can use Garage Band or other computer synthesizers. You don’t need to be signed to a recording contract by a record company to distribute your Bloomberg/Getty Images songs. You can also be a journalist, a fic- tion writer, a photographer, a filmmaker, or even a video game designer as a hobby and make your messages easily available to millions of people, just like professional Social media artists. Or you could generate and share is one of the fastest growing smaller forms of information such as emails and tweets. There are now 4.5 billion areas for media regular users of the internet worldwide, and they send and receive 300 billion exposure, being email messages each day (Clement, 2020a). Each minute, 188 million emails are consumed mostly on smartphones sent, 18.1 million texts are sent, 4.5 million searches are conducted on Google, and other mobile and 1.4 million swipes are made on Tinder. Furthermore, during any given min- devices and ute of the day, users of Netflix stream 694,444 hours of video; users of Instagram increasing in popularity among post 277,777 stories; and 231,840 users of Skype are making calls (Fancycrave1, all age groups. 2019).  Chapter 1 Why Increase Media Literacy?  5 Each of us is adding to this flood of information like never before. Tucker (2014) explains, Between checking your phone, using GPS, sending e-mail, tweets, and Facebook posts, and especially streaming movies and music, you create 1.8 million megabytes [of data] a year. It’s enough to fill nine CD-ROMs every day. The device-ification of modern life in the developed world is the reason why more than 90 percent of all the data that exists was created in just the last three years. (p. xv) Tucker continues, “And it’s growing exponentially, with 44 times as much digital information in 2020 as there was in 2009” (p. xvi). High Degree of Exposure The media are highly attractive, so we increase the time we spend with media mes- sages each year. Over the last three decades, every new survey of media use has shown that people, on average, have been increasing their exposure time every year. For example, in 2010, people spent an average of 10 hours and 46 minutes with all forms of the media each day; this increased to 12 hours and 14 minutes by 2017 (eMar- keter, 2017). The media become increasingly important to us as we absorb information from others and contribute our own infor- mation by connecting with friends and iStock.com/South_agency sharing our ideas, pictures, and opinions with others every day. Keeping Up How do we keep up with all this informa- Multitasking, tion? One thing we try to do is multitask. For like messaging example, a person can listen to recorded music, text friends, and watch a video on a someone on your smartphone pop-up window all at the same time—thus experiencing three hours of media expo- while watching sure for each hour of clock time. online videos, Multitasking, however, is not a good strategy for helping us keep up with the flood increases your media exposure. of information. For example, if you wanted to view all the videos uploaded to YouTube But are you truly today, it would take you an entire year of viewing and you would have to multitask multitasking, by watching 20 screens every second of every day! While multitasking helps increase or are you still missing bits our exposure, it is not a good strategy to help us keep up with even a tiny fraction of and pieces of media messages in the flood of information every day. information? 6  Part I Introduction Dealing with the Information Problem Although we are all saturated with information and each year the media are more aggressive in seeking our attention, we are able to deal with it. How is this possible? The answer lies in the way the human brain is wired and programmed: its hardware and software. Our Mental Hardware The most remarkable piece of hardware on Earth is the human brain. Although the human brain is relatively small (weighing less than four pounds), it has a remarkable capacity to take in information from the five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell); process all that information by either filtering it out or attending to it; process its meaning; store it and later retrieve it; and make decisions that often stimulate action. The human brain is composed of 100 billion neuron cells—which is the num- ber of stars in the Milky Way (Storr, 2019). Each cell is linked by synapses to as many as 100,000 others. That means your brain has created over 500 trillion stringlike fibers (called axons) and dendrites that connect with other neurons at junctions (called syn- apses). “These synapses constantly form and dissolve, weakening and strengthening in response to new experiences” (Haven, 2007, p. 22). As the human brain is constantly monitoring the environment, thousands of neurons are receiving stimulation from thousands of other neurons and must decide whether to ignore the input or respond in some way by sending a signal to another specific neuron. “Somehow, through this freeway maze of links, loops, and electric traffic jams, we each manage to think, perceive, consider, imagine, remember, react, and respond” (Haven, 2007, p. 22). Our Mental Software How does this complex piece of hardware know what to do? The answer to this ques- tion is that the brain has been programmed to perform certain functions. This pro- gramming or software, which is sometimes referred to collectively as the mind, tells the brain how to function, much like the software on your computers tell them which functions to perform and how to perform those functions. Some of this software has been hardwired into the brain before birth. For example, the brain automatically oversees the body’s internal states by constantly monitoring the performance of the organs (heart, lungs, kidneys, etc.) to keep them functioning properly. The brain also has been programmed to monitor a person’s environment for threats. For example, orienting reflex directs the brain to pay attention to the environment for sudden changes, such as loud noises or flashes of light, and when a potential threat is identified, the brain creates an attentional state that forces the person to examine the thing that triggered the attention to determine whether it is an actual threat or not. Also, the brain has been hardwired with a fight-or-flight reflex so that when a potential threat is encountered, the body is automatically made ready (increased heart rate and blood pressure) to either fight off the threat or run away to safety.  Chapter 1 Why Increase Media Literacy?  7 In addition to the hardwiring of the brain to maintain physical well-being, the brain has also been hardwired to enhance its social well-being. For example, the ability for lan- guage has been hardwired into human brains so that people can easily communicate. Throughout history, every culture has devel- oped a language. While the basic ability to learn a language is hardwired, the learning of any particular language must be learned after iStock/itsskin birth so that each individual can use their language facility to transmit meaning to oth- ers and receive meanings from their culture. The human brain As we accumulate experiences in life, not only oversees our minds create additional programming that tells our brains how to perform autonomic functions like additional functions, such as math or logical reasoning; how to work through breathing, it also moral problems; how to control one’s emotions; and how to expand and grow the manages the skills that would lead to rewarding careers and relationships. This additional pro- choices we make and how we act in gramming initially comes from one’s parents and siblings. It also comes from one’s social situations. contact with cultural institutions, such as education, religion, politics, and gov- ernment. It comes from one’s friends, acquaintances, and even one’s enemies. And it comes from the mass media. All of this additional programming shapes how we make decisions in our everyday world about what to wear, what to eat, what is important, how to act, and how to spend our resources of time and money. This programming is constantly running in our unconscious minds in the form of auto- matic routines. Automatic Routines The human mind can be wondrously efficient. It can perform many everyday tasks quickly by using automatic routines, which are sequences of behaviors or thoughts that we learn from experience and then apply again and again with little effort. Once you have learned a sequence—such as tying your shoes, brushing your teeth, driving to school, or playing a song on the guitar—you can perform it over and over again with very little effort compared to the effort it took you to learn it in the first place. As we learn to do something, we are writing the instructions, similar to a computer code in our minds. That code then runs automatically in our unconscious minds and serves to guide us through the task with very little thought or effort. To illustrate, recall your experience in first learning to type. You had to think of the individual letters in each word, think about which key controlled which letter, and then command a finger to press the correct key. It took you a long time to type out each word. But now, after much practice, your fingers (or thumbs) move over the keyboard quickly as you type out messages in seconds. Now when you mes- sage someone, you think only about the message while not having to think at all about the mechanics of typing.  8  Part I Introduction Psychologists refer to this automatic processing of information as automaticity. Automaticity is a mental state in which our minds operate without any conscious effort from us. We encounter almost all media messages in a state of automaticity; that is, we put our minds on “automatic pilot” and automatically filter out almost all message options. I realize that this might sound strange, but think about it. We can- not consider every possible message and consciously decide whether to pay attention to it or not. There are too many messages to consider. Over time, we have developed automatic routines that guide this filtering process very quickly and efficiently so we don’t have to spend much, if any, mental effort. To illustrate this automatic processing, consider what you do when you go to the supermarket to buy food. Let’s say you walk into the store with a list of 25 items you need to buy; 15 minutes later, you walk out of the store with your 25 items. In this scenario, how many decisions have you made? The easy answer is to say 25 decisions, because you made a separate decision to buy each of your 25 items as you put each item into your cart. But what about all the items you decided not to buy? The average supermarket today has about 40,000 items on its shelves. You actually made 40,000 decisions in the relatively short time you were in the supermarket—25 decisions to buy the 25 products and all those other decisions not to buy the remaining 39,975 products. How did you accomplish such an extensive task in such a short period of time? You relied on automatic routines. Our culture is a grand supermarket of media messages. Those messages are every- where whether we realize it or not, except iStock.com/FG Trade that there are far more media messages in our culture than there are products in any supermarket. In our everyday lives—like when we enter a supermarket—a program is loaded into our mind that tells it what to Deciding which brand is best, look for and automatically filters out the trying to tune out rest. This automatic processing guides most—but certainly not all—of our media advertisements, exposures. With automatic processing, we experience a great deal of media messages and determining what you want without paying any attention to them. Every once in a while, something in the mes- versus what you sage or in our environment triggers our conscious attention to a media message. To need—these illustrate this, imagine driving in your car; you have music from your smartphone are all things we encounter when playing through your car’s sound system but your attention is on the conversation we’re out shopping, you are having with your friend who is seated next to you. Then your favorite song and when we’re starts playing, and your attention shifts from the conversation to the music. Or engaging with media. How else perhaps your conversation is interrupted when your friend notices that the sound is shopping in system is playing her favorite song, and she starts singing along with the music. In a supermarket both scenarios, you are being exposed to a stream of media messages from your car’s similar to consuming media sound system without paying conscious attention to them, but then something hap- content? pens that triggers your conscious attention to the music.  Chapter 1 Why Increase Media Literacy?  9 Advantages and Disadvantages The huge advantage of automatic processing is efficiency. When the filtering software is running automatically, it is making thousands of decisions for us without requiring us to expend any effort. There are, however, some significant disadvantages. When we rely exclusively on our automatic routines, we get into a rut and miss out on paying attention to many messages that may be highly useful to us; we never know what we are missing. When our minds are on automatic pilot, we may be missing a lot of messages that might be helpful or enjoyable to us. We might not have programmed all the triggers we need to help us get out of automatic processing when a potentially interesting message comes our way. Returning to the supermarket example from above, let’s say you are very health conscious. Had you been less concerned with efficiency when you went into the super- market, you would have considered a wider range of products and read their labels for ingredients. Not all low-fat products have the same fat content; not all products with vitamins added have the same vitamins or the same proportions. Or perhaps you are very price conscious. Had you been less concerned with efficiency, you would have con- sidered a wider variety of competing products and looked more carefully at the unit pricing so you could get more value for your money. Thus, when we are too concerned with efficiency, we lose opportunities that expand our experience and that put ourselves in a position to make better decisions that can make us healthier, wealthier, and happier. Another disadvantage of relying on automatic routines is that over the long run, we start to experience message fatigue. When we feel overwhelmed by too many media messages, we try to protect ourselves by narrowing down our attention and thus filtering out even more messages. Eventually, we end up exposing ourselves to the same type of message over and over, and the value of each message keeps decreasing. This process weakens our ability to concentrate. In 1971, the Nobel Prize–winning economist Herbert Simon observed that “a wealth of information crates a poverty of attention” (Angwin, 2009, p. 239). This is illustrated by a study where experimenters set up a jam-tasting table in a food store. In this experiment, the researchers either offered people samples from six jams or 24 jams. While the table with more jams attracted 50% more visitors and tasters, the table with fewer jams stimulated more sales. Among the visitors to the table with the larger number of jams, only 3% bought some jam, while among the visitors to the table with the smaller number of jams, 30% bought some jam (Anderson, 2006). The lesson here is that while choice is attractive, too much choice can paralyze us into inaction. When we feel overwhelmed, we rely more and more on automatic routines and this leads us into a deeper and deeper rut, where we find ourselves doing the same things over and over. The Big Question Given that we live in a culture highly saturated with information and given that we protect ourselves from this flood of information with automatic routines programmed into our minds, the big question is this: Who benefits the most from the way automa- ticity has been programmed in your mind? 10  Part I Introduction There is no simple answer to this question because many forces have been active in influencing how your code has been programmed over the course of your life so far. Some of this influence has come from parents, siblings, and friends who typically try to help you, so their influence is likely to have been positive. Some of this influence has come from institutions and society, which are typically prosocial influences, but they have also been concerned with pushing you to conform to their ideas of what you should believe and how you should behave. Then there are the media program- mers and advertisers who are most concerned about influencing you in order to satisfy their own goals while convincing you that their products are satisfying your needs. The task of sorting through all these influences requires some considerable analy- ses. This book will guide you through the media part of that analysis. Each of the 15 chapters in the instructional core of this book will show you how to ask the crucial questions about what you think about the world, what you believe to be true, and your habits of spending your resources of time and money. Through these analyses, you will gradually increase your awareness about the degree to which the media have programmed your automatic codes. This increased awareness will help clarify which parts of your code are not acting in your best interest and are likely training you to waste your personal resources, which leads to frustration, anxiety, and unhappiness. These insights will put you in a position to identify the faulty bits of code and help you to reprogram your existing codes so that they better serve your needs. People who do not periodically examine the coding that governs their automatic routines are confined to stay in the trap of continually being controlled by outside influences. When we are not consciously paying attention and carefully evaluating our media exposures, the mass media continually reinforce certain behavioral pat- terns of exposure until they become automatic habits. We mindlessly follow these habits, which are delivering less and less valuable information and experiences. We allow advertisers to increase their influence as they continually program an uneasy self-consciousness into our minds so that we are on the lookout for products that will make us look, feel, and smell better. Advertisers have been very successful in program- ming many of us into a shopping habit. People in America spend more time shopping than people in any other country. A few years ago, 93 percent of teenage girls sur- veyed said that shopping was their favorite activity (Schwartz, 2004). Advertising has programed our automatic routines so that we shop even when it would be in our best interest to do other things. When you allow others to dominate the programming of your mind and when your mind runs on automatic pilot, then you end up behaving in ways that achieve the goals of those programmers rather than behaving in ways that would make you more happy. If you are bothered that the media have been programming your automatic rou- tines in order to satisfy their objectives rather than your personal objectives, then you likely have the motivation to learn how to take more control over this programming process. You will want to learn how to examine the code that has been programmed into your mind and sort through those programs that really do help you while elim- inating those programs that make you unhappy. Increasing your personal control is what media literacy is all about.  Chapter 1 Why Increase Media Literacy?  11 Summary We cannot physically avoid the glut of information that aggressively seeks our atten- tion in our culture. Instead, we protect ourselves by psychologically avoiding almost all of the messages in the flood of information. We do this by keeping our minds on automatic pilot most of the time. This automaticity allows us to avoid almost all mes- sages and to do so efficiently. Automaticity, however, comes with a price. While we are in the automatic state, we allow the media to condition us to form all kinds of habits that consume our time and money. While some of these habits may be beneficial to us, others are not. Learning to tell the difference between the two requires a stronger media literacy perspective. Further Reading Gleick, J. (2011). The information: A history, a The author documents the dramatic increase theory, a flood. New York: Pantheon Books. in information over the last several decades (526 pages, including index) and argues that most of this information is This is a rather long book that gets very tech- noise, which makes it more difficult—rather nical in places with mathematical and engi- than easier—to make good predictions and neering-type descriptions. But it is worthwhile forecasts. if you really want to understand the nature of Wright, A. (2007). Glut: Mastering information information and how it has changed forms through the ages. Washington, DC: Joseph over the years. Henry Press. (252 pages, including index) Schwartz, B. (2004). The paradox of choice: Why The author, who characterizes himself as more is less. New York: HarperCollins. (265 an information architect, takes a histori- pages including endnotes and index) cal approach to showing how humans have Barry Schwartz writes about how much choice evolved in the way they generate, organize, the average person is now confronted with and use information. He argues that all infor- every day. He argues that increasing choice mation systems are either nondemocratic and up to a point is a good thing, but beyond that top-down (a hierarchy) or peer-to-peer and point, increasing choice overwhelms people open (a network). Tracing the development of and they cease to make good decisions. human information, he uses perspectives from Silver, N. (2012). The signal and the noise: Why mythology, library science, biology, neurology, so many predictions fail—but some don’t. New and culture. He uses this historical background York: Penguin Press. (534 pages, including to critique the nature of information on the index) internet. 12  Part I Introduction Keeping Up to Date For some chapters, the material I talk about is very topics concerning the internet and web fluid and quickly changes. Therefore, some of the tech issues. Begun in 2007, Pingdom is a facts and figures I present may be out of date by company that provides internet services to the time you read a particular chapter. To help companies around the world. you find more up-to-date figures, I have included Statistical Abstract of the United States some sources of information that you can check (https://www.census.gov/library/publications/ out to get the most recent figures available. time-series/statistical_abstracts.html) Infoniac.com (http://www.infoniac.com/ Up until 2011, the United States Census hi-tech/) Bureau of the Department of Commerce released a new statistical abstract from the This site presents data about the data it gathered every year. Since then, this growth of information in the world and website presents links for reports based on provides general information about new data gathered by other organizations. developments in technologies. Pingdom (royal.pingdom.com) This is a blog written by members of the Pingdom team on a wide variety of  2 The media are able to constantly provide us with all kinds of useful information about our world. David Malan/Getty Images Media Literacy Approach Key Idea: Media literacy is a set of perspectives that we actively use to expose ourselves to the media and interpret the meaning of the messages we encounter. It is multidimensional and a continuum. 13 14  Part I Introduction What Is Media Literacy? The Development of Media Literacy The Three Building Blocks of Media Advantages of Developing a Higher Literacy Degree of Media Literacy Skills Appetite for Wider Variety of Knowledge Structures Media Messages Personal Locus More Self-Programming of The Definition of Media Literacy Mental Codes Media Literacy Is More Control over Multidimensional Media Media Literacy Is a Summary Continuum, Not a Further Reading Category Exercise A s you learned in the first chapter, we are constantly flooded with a huge number of messages from the mass media. We must screen out all but a tiny percentage. To help us do this screening with the least amount of mental effort, we default to automa- ticity, where our minds quickly screen out messages without any conscious awareness of this process. This automatic filtering process is governed by a set of procedures— much like a computer program—that runs unconsciously until something in a media message triggers our attention. While this filtering process is largely automatic, it is possible for us to gain greater control over it if we increase our media literacy. What Is Media Literacy? The most standard use of the term literacy applies to a person’s ability to read the writ- ten word. However, with the advent of technologies to convey messages in addition to print, the idea of literacy was expanded to also include things such as visual liter- acy (the ability to process two-dimensional pictures of our three-dimensional world), story literacy (the ability to follow plots in books, film, and video), and computer literacy (the ability to create one’s own digital messages, to send them to others elec- tronically, to search for messages, and to process meaning from electronic screens). In this book, we do not focus on any one particular type of literacy but instead take a broad approach that considers all media. Another characteristic within the writings about media literacy is a focus on the mass media as being harmful; that is, mass media messages expose people to risks of harmful effects. While acknowledging that media messages have the potential to increase the risk of harmful effects, this book attempts to show you that media messages also offer a great potential for positive effects—if we are open minded. To illustrate this point, let’s consider the belief that newer forms of technology have harmed people’s ability to write well. An illustration of this belief is John Sutherland, an English professor at the University College of London, who has argued that texting  Chapter 2 Media Literacy Approach  15 has reduced language into a “bleak, bald, sad shorthand,” that Facebook reinforces narcis- sistic drivel, and that PowerPoint presenta- tions have taken the place of well-reasoned essays (quoted in Thompson, 2009). He says that today’s technologies of communica- tion that encourage or even require shorter Westend61/Getty Images messages (such as Twitter) have shortened people’s attention spans and therefore have limited their ability to think in longer arcs, which is required for constructing well-rea- soned essays. Other people, in contrast, regard these Understanding newer formats for communication more pos- media literacy itively. For example, Andrea Lunsford, a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford allows us to University, argues that the newer information technologies have actually increased adapt to changing technologies and literacy. She says, “I think we’re in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which new forms of we haven’t seen since Greek civilization” (quoted in Thompson, 2009). In addition, communication as she argues that these new technologies of communication are not killing our ability well as open our minds to new kinds to write well but instead are pushing it in new directions of being more personal, of messages. creative, and concise. She reached this conclusion after systematically analyzing more than 14,000 student writing samples over a five-year period. She explains that young people today are adept at understanding the needs of their audiences and writing messages especially crafted to appeal to them. For today’s youth, writing is about dis- covering themselves, organizing their thoughts concisely, managing impressions, and persuading their readers. When we open our minds, we see that there are both positive as well as negative effects of these newer forms of communication. The newer technologies of communi- cation offer fewer opportunities to develop particular skills but increase the opportu- nities to develop other kinds of skills. Thus, it is faulty to regard the media’s influence on our skill set as being either all good or all bad. In addition to encouraging us to open our minds, media literacy also stimulates us to adapt to our changing world rather than to ignore those changes or to deny that those changes are happening. We adapt by opening ourselves up to a wider variety of messages and then by analyzing those messages for new elements and evaluating those elements so we can appreciate their value. The Three Building Blocks of Media Literacy The three building blocks of media literacy are skills, knowledge structures, and personal locus. The combination of all three is necessary to help you build a useful set of perspectives on the media. Your skills are the tools you use to build knowledge structures. Your knowledge structures are the organizations of what you have learned. Your personal locus provides mental energy and direction. 16  Part I Introduction Skills Many people who write about media literacy primarily consider it a skill, and the term they use to refer to this skill is critical thinking. While the term critical thinking sounds good, its use creates confusion because everyone seems to have a different meaning for it. Some people regard critical thinking as a willingness to criticize the media; other people define it as the need to examine issues in more depth; still others suggest a meaning of being more systematic and logical when interacting with the media; others imply that it means the ability to focus on the most important issues and ignore the rest—and the list goes on. In order to avoid this conglome