We re continually bombarded with messages from newspapers and magazines, movie and television screens, Internet Web sites, chat rooms and listservs. We have to know how to filter out what we don t need or want and how to access and then interpret, analyze and evaluate what s useful. Media literate people want to know the source of a message, its purpose and the source s credibility and reliability. They can recognize bias, distortion, stereotyping and sensationalism. They try to get information from multiple sources and to consider any issue from multiple perspectives.
Media education develops critical thinking skills.
It cuts across all areas of the curriculum and can be integrated into every subject area. George Gerbner, former dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, spent much of his professional life studying the impact of television. He has said that television is the primary agent of socialization in our country. It brings countless images and stories into our homes and our classrooms each day. Pictures and stories are powerful forms of communication.