WHAT IS MEDIA LITERACY AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT?

Media is any form used to transmit messages.  Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create and act using all forms of communications.  I see media as getting past and current information through print like newspapers, books or magazine or transmitted on television or radio. In the 1990's Vice-President Al Gore made the popular term information highway or infobahn surfaced to refer to digital communication systems and the internet telecommunications network.  The use of social media and internet has grown to access information.  Growing up, one of the options in gathering information was going to the library and reading newspaper archives and using indexes.  It was not in the tip of our fingertips like it is today.  We can Google everything or ask Siri to help us perform personal tasks.

As a private citizen we have a responsibility to keep inform about what is going on in the world.  For personal or professional growth we need to learn all the different approaches in keeping up with the times.  As a student and learning all these new to me media can be overwhelming but at the same time it has made me feel competent, productive and not lost with current technology.