Assignment Task: Media Literacy Skill Manual
Most of us think we are media literate. We know how to access all kinds of media to find music, games, information, and entertainment. We recognize the faces of many celebrities and know many facts about their lives. We recognize a range of musical styles and have developed strong preferences for what we like. We can easily create messages through photos, videos, and text and then upload them to various sites on the internet. We know how to expose ourselves to the media, absorb information from them, how to be entertained by them, and how to use them to create our own messages and share them with others.
While we should not overlook what we have learned, it is also important to acknowledge that we all can be much more media literate. We should broaden our focus and knowledge by examining other areas of media literacy-who controls the mass media, how decisions are made about the production of content, and how that constant flow of content affects you and society in all sorts of subtle as well as powerful ways.
The more you are aware of how the mass media operate and how what they do affects you, the more you gain control over those effects, and the more you will distinguish yourself from typical media users who have turned over their lives to the mass media through patterns of behavior without even recognizing it.
Assignments:
This is a compilation assignment. You should use the work you have produced in this class and bring it together in one complete document.
This semester you analyzed online news, evaluated media messages and theories) grouped and sorted information from an interview, induced the pattern of social media engagement, and you deduced media content messaging. Now it is time for you to put what you learned into action by creating a Media Literacy Manual.
Students will compile and produce 1000-word Media Literacy Manual to showcase what they have learned this semester. Students can use ANY of the information that they produced, read, evaluated, etc. this semester. You can use the textbook, videos, TedTalks, articles, websites, from any of the modules. Students are encouraged to bring in any new information/resources.
FOCUS - to help someone navigate media messages in hopes of making them better media consumers.
PURPOSE - produce a physical element that can be shared with others. Writing should be conversational with an academic tone. This is NOT a research paper; this is a manual that should be readable and interactive. This is NOT a research paper.
CONTENT- 5 parts - 1000 words
I. Introduction (100-150 words)
1. Define media literacy.
2. Describe the importance of medical literacy.
3. Introduce yourself and tell why media literacy is important to you and what you have learned that is new about media literacy.
II. Media Theory (200- 250 words)
1. Discuss ONE media theory's application and importance in media literacy.
2. You should not have to write new material. Do not be afraid to use examples from the course including material you used in the writing assignments.
III. Skill (200 - 250 words)
Discuss in depth ONE of the following media literacy skills. You can use links to articles, cartoons, images, videos, etc. Do not forget to use the work from the course.
1. Analysis - the skill we use to examine an object to increase our understanding of that object. (WA #1)
2. Evaluation - assessing the worth of that element. (WA #2)
3. Grouping - determining which elements are alike and/or different in some way both inside and outside of a particular group (WA #3)
4. Induction - inferring a pattern across a small set of elements, then generalizing the pattern to all elements in the set (WA #4).
5. Deduction - using general principles to explain phenomena (WA #5).
6. Synthesis - assembling novel or new configurations. The assembling of individual elements into a coherent whole.
7. Abstraction - reducing a focal object (media message) down into a shorter version that preserves its essence.
IV. Summary (200 - 250 words)
1. Restate the main points of the manual.
2. Review pertinent content in your manual.
3. Write a conclusion paragraph to end the manual.
4. APA Style References Page