Preventative Media Literacy

 

There is no singular definition of media literacy, and the study of it seems to be about as divisive as the media itself. W. James Potter (2010) offers a litany of definitions in “The State of Media Literacy”, and boils them down to four commonalities:

 

1. The mass media have the potential to exert a wide range of potentially negative effects on individuals.

2. The purpose of media literacy is to help people to protect themselves from the

potentially negative effects

3. Media literacy must be developed.

4. Media literacy is multi-dimensional (Potter, 2010)

 

These commonalities, which serve less as a definition of media literacy and more a rationale for teaching it, are mostly reactive and operate under the assumption that the media has an overall negative effect. Its literacy, therefore, serves as a means to counteract that negativity. Potter does say that “A corollary of this idea is that the media also offer a range of potentially positive effects”, but his paper does not pursue that corollary and instead focuses on media literacy as a defense against “the pervasive nature of media influence throughout our culture.” (Potter, 2010)

 

Decontextualized, ubiquitous media certainly has potential to affect children negatively. A policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) on the effect of media on young children comes to the conclusion that “Excessive early exposure to TV also has been correlated with expressive language delay, attention problems, and deficits in executive function.” (Stein, 2011) The AAP also comes to another damning conclusion: “Media clearly play an important role in the current epidemic of childhood and adolescent obesity.” (Council on Communications and Media, 2011) As much of the increase in obesity is attributed to lack of sleep, eating habits, and the “displacement of more active pursuits” resulting from the time spent in front of a television, advertising as an agent of increased obesity does not escape blame. It would be myopic to ignore the clearly negative effects that prolonged exposure to television can cause, especially those which might addressed by robust media literacy intervention.

 

He portrays the media itself as radioactive, and frames its resulting literacy as a preventative: “Much of the mass media literature addresses the importance of interventions, that is, specific strategies designed to help people, especially children, protect themselves from potentially harmful effects from mass media exposures.” (Potter, 2010) These interventions have been helpful. For example, media literacy has been found to “have immediate benefits for young girls” by “providing information about the unrealistic nature of media images”. (Halliwell, Easun, and Harcourt, 2011) In this case, it took a relatively small intervention - a video portraying “alterations to a model's face...showing how the dimensions of the face and neck are digitally altered” - to “[prevent] the negative exposure effects associated with viewing ultra-thin models”. (Halliwell, Easun, and Harcourt, 2011) A reactive media literacy is, indeed, effective.