CPMLE#2: Expand Traditional Literacy to include New Media Texts

Media Literacy Education expands the concept of literacy (i.e., reading and writing) to include all forms of media.

Implications for Practice

2.1 Like print literacy, which requires both reading and writing, MLE encompasses both analysis and expression.

2.2 MLE enables students to express their own ideas through multiple forms of media (e.g., traditional print, electronic, digital, user-generated, and wireless) and helps students make connections between comprehension and inference-making in print, visual, and audio media.

2.3 MLE takes place in a variety of settings, including, but not limited to: schools, after school programs, online, universities & colleges, religious institutions, and the home.

2.4 MLE should be taught across the pre-K-12 curriculum. It can be integrated into nearly any subject area.

2.5 MLE welcomes the use of a broad range of media “texts,” including popular media.

2.6 MLE recognizes that evolving media forms, societal changes, and institutional structures require ever new instructional approaches and practices.

2.7 Effective MLE requires classrooms to be equipped with the tools to both analyze and produce media.

2.8 MLE intersects with other literacies, i.e., is distinct from but shares many goals and techniques with print, visual, technology, information, and other literacies.

2.9 As a literacy, MLE may have political consequences, but it is not a political movement; it is an educational discipline.

2.10 While MLE may result in students wanting to change or reform media, MLE itself is not focused on changing media, but rather on changing educational practice and increasing students’ knowledge and skills.