Media Smarts

"Electronic media is increasingly seductive, influential, and pervasive, yet most schools treat the written word as the only means of communication worthy of study. Therefore, most American students remain poorly equipped to think critically about, and express themselves through, the media that defines them...Cue the herald trumpets, and enter the Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA), an organization that promotes media literacy as an essential life skill. Consisting of more than 500 educators and media experts, the AMLA believes that "as communication technologies transform society, they affect our understanding of ourselves, our communities, and our diverse culture. By applying literacy skills to media and technology messages, by learning to skillfully interpret, analyze, and create messages, media literacy empowers people to be both critical thinkers and creative producers of messages using image, language, and sound." Media literacy means various things to different people, encompassing everything from the basics of graphic design to critical analysis of advertising images and news broadcasts."