Quiz on media literacy

QUIZ 8: MEDIA LITERACY

• This will be a matching quiz: match the first half of a sentence from the article below with the end of the sentence.
• It is not necessary to memorize all the sentences. Understanding what the article says will make it clear what pieces go together on the quiz.

https://yali.state.gov/media-literacy-five-core-concepts/

Young African Leaders Initiative Tool Kit on Media Literacy: Five Core Concepts

They are on your mobile phones and computer screens, in newspapers and magazines, stretched across billboards and broadcast through radio waves. They are mediated messages, and you are inundated with them every day. With so many viewpoints, it’s hard to separate fact from fiction. To guide your exploration of the media that surround you, the Center for Media Literacy developed these five core concepts:

1. All media messages are constructed.

Media texts are built just as surely as buildings and highways are built. The key behind this concept is figuring out who constructed the message, out of what materials and to what effect.

2. Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules.

Each form of communication has its own creative language: scary music heightens fear, camera close-ups convey intimacy, big headlines signal significance. Understanding the grammar, syntax and metaphor of media language helps us to be less susceptible to manipulation.

3. Different people experience the same media message differently.

Audiences play a role in interpreting media messages because each audience member brings to the message a unique set of life experiences. Differences in age, gender, education and cultural upbringing will generate unique interpretations.

4. Media have embedded values and points of view.

Because they are constructed, media messages carry a subtext of who and what is important — at least to the person or people creating the message. The choice of a character’s age, gender or race, the selection of a setting, and the actions within the plot are just some of the ways that values become “embedded” in a television show, a movie or an advertisement.

5. Most media messages are organized to gain profit and/or power.

Much of the world’s media were developed as money-making enterprises. Newspapers and magazines lay out their pages with ads first; the space remaining is devoted to news. Likewise, commercials are part and parcel of most television watching. Now, the Internet has become an international platform through which groups or individuals can attempt to persuade. By considering the core concepts behind every media message, you equip yourself with an ability to analyze and interpret a message — and to accept or reject its legitimacy.

Why Media Literacy Is Important

1. The influence of media in our central democratic processes

In a global media culture, people need two skills in order to be engaged citizens of a democracy: critical

thinking and self-expression. Media literacy instills both of these core skills, enabling future citizens to sort through political packaging, understand and contribute to public discourse, and, ultimately, make informed decisions in the voting booth.

2. The high rate of media consumption and the saturation of society by media

When one considers videogames, television, pop music, radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards, the internet – even T-shirts! – we are exposed to more mediated messages in one day than our great-grandparents were exposed to in a year. Media literacy teaches the skills we need to navigate safely through this sea of images and messages -- for all our lives.

3. The media’s influence on shaping perceptions, beliefs and attitudes

While research disagrees on the extent and type of influence, it is unquestionable that media experiences exert a significant impact on the way we understand, interpret and act on our world. By helping us understand those influences, media education can help us separate from our dependencies on them.

4. The increasing importance of visual communication and information

While schools continue to be dominated by print, our lives are increasingly influenced by visual images – from corporate logos to building-sized billboards to Internet websites. Learning how to “read” the multiple layers of image-based communication is a necessary adjunct to traditional print literacy. We live in a multi-media world.

5. The importance of information in society and the need for lifelong learning

Information processing and information services are at the core of our nation’s productivity but the growth of global media industries is also challenging independent voices and diverse views. Media education can help both teachers and students understand where information comes from, whose interests may be being served and how to find alternative views.

Five Key Questions of Media Literacy

1. Who created this message?

2. What techniques are used to attract my attention?
   • Colors and shapes? Sound effects? Music? Silence? Dialogue or Narration?
   • Props, sets, clothing? Movement? Composition? Lighting?
   • Where is the camera? What is the viewpoint?
   • How is the story told? What are people doing?
   • Are there any visual symbols or metaphors?
   • What’s the emotional appeal? Persuasive devices?

3. How might different people understand this message differently from me?

4. What lifestyles, values and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this message?

• How is the human person characterized? What kinds of behaviors /consequences are depicted?
• What type of person is the reader / watcher / listener invited to identify with?
• What ideas or values are being “sold” in this message?
• What political or economic ideas are communicated in the message?
• What judgments or statements are made about how we treat other people?
• What is the overall worldview? Are any ideas or perspectives left out? How would you find what’s missing?

5. Why was this message sent?

• Who’s in control of the creation and transmission of this message?
• Why are they sending it? How do you know? • Who are they sending it to? How do you know?
• Who is served by, profits or benefits from the message? The public? Private interests? Individuals? Institutions? • What economic decisions may have influenced the construction or transmission of the message?

On the quiz questions, write only the required word for each answer.

As usual, adding extra words or punctuation marks will cause Canvas to mark the answer as incorrect.