ORCID
Paul Mihailidis: 0000-0001-7019-4785 Srividya Ramasubramanian: 0000-0003-2140-8008
Melissa Tully: 0000-0003-1850-3477 Bobbie Foster: 0000-0003-2749-374 Emily Riewestahl: 0000-0002-3941-8792 Patrick Johnson: 0000-0003-1246-3080
Document Type
Article
Date
Fall 9-10-2021
Keywords
media literacy, social justice, equity, civic engagement, democracy, critical pedagogy.
Language
Eng
Disciplines
Other Film and Media Studies
Description/Abstract
It is often assumed that media literacy serves to protect and uphold democratic practice and that media literate citizens are the best safeguards for democracy. However, little attention is paid to defining this practice and its relationship to ongoing inequities within democratic societies. In this essay, we argue media literacy operates from three core assumptions; media literacy creates knowledgeable individuals, empowers communities, and encourages democratic participation. The first assumption draws out an individual’s skills and critical thinking in media literacy practices. The second assumption focuses on the community aspect of media literacy, specifically which communities are best served by media literacy and why. Finally, the connection between media literacy and democratic practices is evaluated to understand how the democratic ideals of equity and justice are situated within the existing literature. Through an exploration of these assumptions, this essay provokes a discussion into the assumptions that media literacy scholarship and practice addresses to highlight some of the gaps in constructing impactful practice that centers on equity and social justice.
ISSN
2167-8715
Recommended Citation
Mihailidis, P., Ramasubramanian, S., Tully, M., Foster, B., Riewestahl, E., Johnson, P., & Angove, S. (2021). Do media literacies approach equity and justice?. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 13(2), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.23860/JMLE-2021-13-2-1
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Rights
Copyright: © 2021 Author(s). This is an open access, peer-reviewed article published by Bepress and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. JMLE is the official journal of NAMLE
