Digital Literacy vs. Media Fluency
Media literacy as a subset of digital literacy
The wisdom we want our students to cultivate is both theoretical and practical. We want them to see and understand the persuasive power of technology and media, especially the power that flies beneath most people’s radars. And there is no better way to “pull back the curtain and expose the wizard of technology OZ” than to have students create their own media. This is typically the domain of “media literacy.”
Digital storytelling is a great media literacy vehicle. When students persuade with media, they see how media producers persuade them.
Digital storytelling provides a great means to teach media literacy. Both computer-based and green-screen performance-based storytelling “lift the hood” on media persuasion and show students how media makers use technique to influence what we think and how we feel. Media literacy has always carried the connotation of being wary of how media is persuading our perceptions. That is, beause media is so powerful, we need to be especially aware of its power to persuade.
Media literacy: Recognizing, evaluating and applying the methods of media persuasion.
I recommend you make media literacy an explicit goal of your new media project. In my opinion, students cannot understand how media persuades until they become media persuaders themselves.
Media fluency. There is yet another component of digital literacy that is worth mentioning here: media fluency.
Media fluency: The ability to use a number of media to create a coherent and compelling narrative.
In one sense, it simply means being very media literate. That is, it’s the next step in language development that allows media developers to speak the language of media like a native.
But it carries with it a different connotation than media literacy. Eventhough media literacy addresses “applying the methods of media persuasion,” it is usually associated with just reading media. That’s because media literacy was born during an era when very few created media, while the rest of us watched it and were left to suspect what the media persuaders were actually doing and saying.
On the other hand, media fluency is a response to being able to both read and write media. In an era of inexpensive, widely distributed digital tools, we can now produce media, not just watch it. This signifies an important evolutionary step in the production of information, media, and, above all, stories.
Media literacy allows us to read media; media fluency allows us to write it.
Media literacy and media fluency are both important. Media literacy is needed to fully parse and understand what the media fluent person can do. Media allows us to critically consume media; media fluency allows us to effectively create it.
*http://www.jasonohler.com/storytelling/storyeducation.cfm#mediaLiteracy
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