Media Literacy: Mobilizing the Millennials as Socially Responsible Prosumers

On the 25th of November 2015, a seminar entitled "Media Literacy: Mobilizing the Millennials as Socially Responsible Prosumers". The seminar was held at the Asia Pacific College Auditorium. The objective of the seminar was to develop sense of social responsibility among RAMpage editorial staff and APCians in general; and To create a discourse on media literacy among APCians. 

There were three speaker. All of them came from a Television network (GMA). Ms. Edmallyne Remillano as the head writer for the State of Nation with Jessica Soho and the secretary; Ms. Jan Maynard Nualla as the program producer for Global Conversations on CNN Philippines and affiliated with Talents Association of GMA Network and Society of Asian Journalist. Ms. Lian Nami Buan as the associate producer for segments on the State of Nation with Jessica Soho, Associate Editor for Subselfie.com and affiliated with Talents Association of GMA Network. These speakers are good because they were able to convince us that all of us can be news reporter. That through media we can say what ever we want that can help our society. Each speaker has different focus or topic.

What is important to understand is that media literacy is not about "protecting" kids from unwanted messages. Although some groups urge families to just turn the TV off, the fact is, media are so ingrained in our cultural milieu that even if you turn off the set, you still cannot escape today's media culture. Media no longer just influence our culture. They ARE our culture.

Media literacy, therefore, is about helping students become competent, critical and literate in all media forms so that they control the interpretation of what they see or hear rather than letting the interpretation control them.

To become media literate is not to memorize facts or statistics about the media, but rather to learn to raise the right questions about what you are watching, reading or listening to. Len Masterman, the acclaimed author of Teaching the Media, calls it "critical autonomy" or the ability to think for oneself.

Without this fundamental ability, an individual cannot have full dignity as a human person or exercise citizenship in a democratic society where to be a citizen is to both understand and contribute to the debates of the time. source

Media literacy represents a necessary, inevitable, and realistic response to the complex, ever-changing electronic environment and communication cornucopia that surround us.

To become a successful student, responsible citizen, productive worker, or competent and conscientious consumer, individuals need to develop expertise with the increasingly sophisticated information and entertainment media that address us on a multi-sensory level, affecting the way we think, feel, and behave.

Today’s information and entertainment technologies communicate to us through a powerful combination of words, images, and sounds. As such, we need to develop a wider set of literacy skills helping us to both comprehend the messages we receive and effectively utilize these tools to design and distribute our own messages. Being literate in a media age requires critical thinking skills that empower us as we make decisions, whether in the classroom, the living room, the workplace, the boardroom, or the voting booth.

Finally, while media literacy does raise critical questions about the impact of media and technology, it is not an anti-media movement. Rather, it represents a coalition of concerned individuals and organizations, including educators, faith-based groups, health care-providers, and citizen and consumer groups, who seek a more enlightened way of understanding our media environment. source