Information, Media, and Digital Literacy – An Introduction
Think of the last news article you read. What do you know about the author and company that published it? Are they credible, and how do you know? Why did they publish the article, and what are their inherent biases? What did other sources have to say about the same topic? These types of questions are typically filed under information, media, and digital literacy, but what do these terms mean? Do they mean the same thing, or are they different? Also, what is literacy other than the ability to read and write?
To answer these questions, I first need to break down terms to understand and combine them, similar to how an analytical philosopher deconstructs concepts and builds them back up. Here are some of my working definitions and notes so I can keep track of what I am saying and attempt to separate seemingly overlapping terms:
Information ("to form or shape into") is knowledge/data/facts attained through communication. Information can be influential and form/shape our thoughts, so we should be conscious and cautious of where the information we receive is coming from.
To be literate means being able to attain, evaluate, and utilize something. One way to view literacy is someone working on the high-order thinking skills found in Bloom's Taxonomy.
Media is the plural form of medium, which is a means of delivering information. "Mass media" refers to how media can provide information about the outside world to the masses and also how media has gone past local media to global media.
Something digital refers to all electronic and computerized technology used to calculate, manipulate, and store information. Also, "being digital" or "going digital" refers to how human processes have been optimized in the 21st century.
Information literacy is the ability to attain, evaluate, and utilize information (American Library Association, n.d.). It is a learned set of skills, and you can be considered "information illiterate" if you do not have them. Often, those most in need of becoming information literate are those deprived of an education that provides such skills.
Media literacy is the ability to access, evaluate, and utilize media in general, media's influence on society, and media's inherent subjective biases since all media content is created by people and for a reason (CrashCourse, 2019), such as influence, advertisement, entertainment, and education.
Digital literacy is accessing, evaluating, and utilizing our increasingly online digital world through computers and other electronic devices. Someone who is digitally literate can use digital tools to create, alter, and share information.
New media literacy combines media literacy with digital literacy, meaning information delivery processes have become optimized digitally. Traditional media – print, radio, television, phone calls, and analog advertisements (e.g., billboards) – deliver information that is/was not digitized. Besides being digitized, what is "new" about new media is that sources of information and data are more connected through networking (Connectivism would include people and non-digital media as sources), and people can interact with the information they receive. Interestingly, what seems "new" today will begin to feel dated quickly due to technology's rapid growth rate.
Media literacy and information literacy are related in that people receive a massive amount of information from the media, and this means that we need to be able to access, evaluate, and utilize the information we receive from the media. First, we need to be able to use digital tools (devices, applications, and platforms) to access information. Second, and maybe most important today, is that we need to evaluate the information we receive from the media to know that it is trustworthy, factual, and reliable. I have learned to weed out and combat unreliable sources through lateral reading, which is reading multiple sources on a topic to find objective facts – in a way, it is about operating the same way a professional fact-checker would (CrashCourse, 2019). When reading laterally, you constantly examine who published something, why they posted it, and their perspective. While living in a "post-truth" era, what we need to watch out for is "fake news," or information that is misleading and used to make money out of sensationalism, and alternative facts, which is information that is created out of ignorance or disregard for observable truth resulting in grey areas of knowledge and distrust in the media (Dell, 2019). Unfortunately, some people do mean harm to others, and they create sites that seem valid by creating the illusion of authority (Berkman, 2021). Finally, we need to learn to utilize the information we receive through digital media, and this usually means participating in the exchange of information and acting as a source of new information.
To learn more about information/media/digital literacy, lateral reading, and combatting fake news, watch this YouTube playlist from Crash Course.
References
American Library Association. (n.d.). Information Literacy. https://literacy.ala.org/information-literacy/
Berkman, R. (2021). When online fact-checking is a trap: The weaponization of media literacy. Online Searcher, 45(2), 10–13.
CrashCourse. (2019, January 22). Check yourself with lateral reading: Crash course navigating digital information #3[Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoQG6Tin-1E
Dell, M. (2019). Fake news, alternative facts, and disinformation: The importance of teaching media literacy to law students. Touro Law Review, 35(2), 619–648.
Swargiary, N. (2019). [man sitting on chair holding newspaper on fire]. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/FPNnKfjcbNU
