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Media Literacy (Education Outreach): Understanding Media

Information for children, teens, parents, and teachers about media literacy in the age of AI.

Understanding Media

Media is the collective name for ways of communicating. Newspapers, radio, TV, websites, and social media apps are all forms of media. We use media every day to learn about the world around us and to express ourselves. Some content on media is meant to inform us, some is meant to persuade us, and some is meant to entertain us. It is important to understand how different people use media so we know what the messages we are receiving and sending really mean and how they affect people. Knowing how to analyze media is called media literacy.

 

Glossary of Terms

Bias -- Prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, group, or way of looking at a situation compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.

Confirmation Bias -- Seeking out and interpreting information that fits in with your own beliefs and theories.

Credible Source -- A content source that is trustworthy, unbiased, and provides evidence to support its statements.

Critical Viewing -- The ability to use critical thinking skills to view, question, analyze and understand issues presented overtly and covertly in movies, videos, television and other visual media.

Disinformation -- False information that is deliberately spread to mislead people.

Lateral Reading -- Verifying or fact checking what you are reading as you are reading it. Lateral reading helps you determine an author’s credibility, intent, and biases by searching for articles on the same topic by other writers and for other articles by the author you are researching.

Fact Checking -- Investigating content to verify the facts.

Fake News -- False stories that appear to be news.

Mass Media -- Media that are designed to be consumed by large audiences through the use of technology.

Medium/Media -- The term used to describe content forms forms such as radio, television, film, internet, etc.

Media Literacy -- The ability to decode messages; determine the influence of the messages on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; and create thoughtful and conscientious media.

Misinformation -- False or inaccurate information. Misinformation is often mistaken information.

Propaganda -- Any media text whose primary purpose is to openly persuade an audience of the validity of a particular point of view.

Reverse Image Search -- A method of finding other uses of an image on the internet.

Satire -- The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's choices, often in the context of politics and other current issues.

Terminology adapted from: American Psychological AssociationCenter for Media LiteracyMedia Literacy NowNews Literacy Project, Oxford Languages.