Media Literacy can be define as follow: Media literacy is concerned with helping students develop an informed and critical understanding of nature of the mass media, the techniques used by them, and the impact of these techniques. More specifically, it is the education that aims to increase students understanding and enjoyment of how the media work, how they produce meaning, how they are organized, and how they construct reality. Media literacy also aims to provide students with the ability to create media products. When looking at those definitions, it is important that we are able to set our students and children up for success with media literacy by focusing on educating them about how to understand and interpret media literacy.
When looking at my own life and the amount of media I consume and the amount I actually tend to believe is true on some level to the real world, I do see a connection to some extent. Many marketing and advertising firms utilize specific techniques that produce the ads that we see each day to make us believe what they are trying to tell us. When I am consuming these ads, I do make sure to understand what the audience may be, and this allows me to understand if what they are trying to tell me is worth listening in to. When listening to or viewing specific media, I do understand that these are paid professionals that are working to try and make me think they have the next great thing, or the best way to make me believe something. One of the greatest examples of this is with all the work out advertisements that we see, hear, and read about. They will tell us that different celebrities are utilizing this new program and that it is guaranteed to work, yet for the majority of the people in the target audience, it wont.
When it comes to whether or not our students should learn to create multimedia based content, I do feel that it is important that students have the opportunity to choose themselves that they want to learn media literacy skills, or create these types of presentations and programs. The job market is ever changing, and reading and writing is not enough any more. Students can be persuaded to attempt to take these classes, and these types of presentations and multimedia content should be included into lessons, but I ultimately believe it is the students choice to want to learn how to become media literate. If time permits, students should then be presented with a presentation such as one provided on the iTunes U, but it should be incorporated some way with content that is necessary within the curriculum. A great way to do this would be within some sort of visual arts class, technology class, or Civics in a sense because this could provide students a way to become better citizens.
The motivation behind advertisements is to sell you something. These days advertisers are no longer allowed to lie, but that doesn't mean that they have to be truthful. Leaving out parts of the truth or using deceptive words to get their intended meaning across without lying are both techniques used by the advertisement industry. All of this is to get you to sell you something or think a certain way, and the advertisers almost always have their own interests in mind during their carefully planned messages. Understanding this fact is important to being able to distinguish how you are being influenced by advertisements. I completely agree that reading and writing is no longer enough in today's media-rich world, and exposing students to such media in a guided and controlled way (to learn about how they work) will have immense benefits for the students in their lives. That is why I think incorporating such media into the curriculum is important for every teacher to do, even if it is only one or two assignments out of the year. It is just too important to ignore. It should be incorporated (like you said) in a way that enhances the curriculum, but it should start to become a part of every class if students are to get the same guided exposure to media that they already are experiencing outside of class.
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