Five Steps To Becoming Media Literate

Media literacy can help youth recognize and understand messages—actual or “between the lines”—delivered in music lyrics, promoted on clothing and jewelry, illustrated in advertisements, and portrayed on TV or in movies. Media literacy helps children build resiliency skills, come to understand that all messages are constructed deliberately, and develop the ability to identify and resist messages that support the use of illegal drugs, tobacco, or alcohol.

Five steps can help you and your child identify, analyze, and evaluate media messages. Each step is one of the five basic principles of media education. By answering the questions in each step, you and your child can become critical consumers of information. Ask your child to pick any media message—a cartoon, a movie, a news photograph, a magazine article, a TV or magazine advertisement, a T-shirt, or song lyrics. Using the five steps, ask her about the messages she received.

Step 1 - Reality: Media messages represent (someone's) reality. What is the message maker's point of view?

Step 2 - Interpretation: People interpret media messages differently. How does the message make you feel?

Step 3 - Construction: Each media message is a collection of words, images, and sounds. What special words, images, and sounds are used to create the message?

Step 4 - Purpose: Each media message has an author and a purpose. Who created the message and why?

Step 5 - Form: Media messages come in different forms. How is this message delivered (magazines, television, radio, newspapers, etc.)?

Additional Media Literacy Activities

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