Media Literacy

Abstract

As a critical component for communication in the coming years, media literacy means different things to different people. In the past decade, the emerging curriculum in schools has tended to include emphasis on decoding and deconstructing the meanings and messages in mass media in order to enable students to read between and beneath the lines and images. While there is much of importance and value in these initiatives, they continue to lack inculcation of child development and socializing theory in ways that would discourage defence of counterproductive themes in popular culture for children. At the same time, they underscore the need for a broader definition and more pervasive application of the concept.