Media and Information Literacy (MIL), contextual approach to a still young concept

Executive summary:

This article describes the attention given to Media Education (ME) by different actors during different periods of time. It seeks to show the importance of gathering up all close definitions in order to establish a convenient understanding over a topic that is winning space and relevance /1/. The role that the international agencies and institutions -such as the European Commission and UNESCO- have played on the development of the Media and Information Literacy (MIL) concept is described and analyzed taking into account the many contributions academics have given to its current general understanding and definition. The article also describes the efforts being realized in order to produce MIL indicators and assessment schemes. Under the approach exposed, MIL competencies are understood as lifelong learning enablers and facilitators, and as an empowering tool. Finally, the article remarks the importance of including Media and Information Literacy and Media Education in schools curricula and in general communication and social policies, as well as the urgency of concentrating the works on its implementation rather than on its theoretical discussion.

Key words:

Media and Information Literacy, Media Education, Assessment, Implementation, Media Competencies

1. Brief history of Media Education: locating the precursors

1.1. First appearances

The studies conducted by Lasswell and McLuhan produced a strong impact over Media Education (ME) in the whole world. In 1967, McLuhans global village presented a world in risk of becoming a huge spectrum of media products, worldwide available, nourished by a disproportionate distribution of different kinds of information, ads, and opinions. But the efforts for describing the possible effects of the media over the population started long before.

1.1.1. UK, France and Russia

The conceptual path Media Education (ME) has covered is at least one century old. France, the United Kingdom, Russia and the United States have been

developing the concept since the beginnings of the 20th Century. The first bastion of ME started growing at the same time the films were spreading throughout France and England. In the 1920s, Paris started experiencing the well-known film clubs, from which, in 1922, the first international conference about film education was propelled and held. By this moment, France founded the Offices rgionaux du cinma ducateur and, in 1936, France launched the Young-Cinema movement all over the country/2/.

Almost at the same time, in 1933, the British Film Institute (BFI) was founded in the UK. The BFI has promoted since a great number of campaigns and studies concerning ME and Film Literacy. Originally, the UK had a very protective vision over the different media supports and broadcasts, and conducted through regulatory institutions researches concerning the possible side effects of media in children and potentially vulnerable audiences. The BFIs first campaigns concentrated on consumer protection. Gradually, an aesthetical approach to film education started spreading throughout the UK and France, where the appreciation of images and artistic elements in movies, besides the contextual studies over the characters and directors, were used to describe different cultural and historical processes.

France maintained its position as the leader in terms of Media Literacy (ML) for long. By 1952, for example, French teachers received, as part of their initial training, courses on audiovisual education. In 1960, the media analysis was included in the curriculum as an indispensable area of study. In a very similar way, the UK started spreading the concept of screen education, but it was not until the 1960s when this concept was introduced into formal education.

The ME process followed in Russia is what was later known as the reception studies. In the early 1920s, the Russian government led experiments and studies concerning the possible effects of mass media messages over the population. Aiming the mechanization of opinions, they started sending huge amounts of ideological-charged messages to the workers. Different kinds of approaches were studied, passing through the more invasive ones to the refinement of subtle techniques of political propaganda and mind programming /3/.

The principal contribution made by the Russians to the studies of media effects was the introduction of distorted contents into the school curricula. The Russians started spreading ideological charged materials on books, videos, radio transmissions and posters, and thus permeated the educational system with an invasive pro-communist historical approach. This type of propaganda proved efficient and the regime saw its supporters grow at a good rate. Some detractors of the communist regime argued that the bolshevists were using Pavlovs conditioned reflex theory as the people was involuntarily guided by external stimulus such as the apparition of certain public figures or by the imaginaries constructed around them, the result of a conduct taming technique /4/.

Similar studies were run by other authoritarian political regimes. Under the Nazi Germany, for instance, Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels used to state

that excessive amounts of propaganda would not work as efficiently as well addressed non-invasive propaganda strategies.

At this point, the world knew about the possible -and the proved- negative effects of media, and the most democratic countries started working towards limiting these potentially damaging side effects people could be victims of. These kinds of approaches could then be classified as the citizens empowering ones.

1.2. The second wave

In the United States proper ME started to spread during the 1950s. Canada had similar circumstances, even though it is in this slightly developed scenario where McLuhan founded the first Media Culture course in the country /5/.

It was in 1960 when the US developed in a more generalized way the Media Education. The American studies adopted an aesthetical approach. This theoretical framework visualized media as popular arts and tried to study the languages of the messages being transmitted (artistic languages and types of representation). This approach also developed a more protectionist branch. The American universities started offering cinema studies and subjects such as visual languages, film history and authors/directors studies (contexts and biographies).

During the 1970s and 1990s ME received a lot of important theoretical additions. Lasswell and McLuhans studies certainly established a benchmark in the way this discipline was understood. Giving importance to the distribution of media contents in a transcontinental way waked up a series of reflections over the effects of the passive reception of overseas and foreign cultural productions, as well as over the advertisement strategies used in marketing. These approaches had a strong influence over UNESCO, which initiated its campaign for developing the subject of media literacy (ML) in the 1970s.

UNESCO first defined the education in communication subjects as any way of studying, learning and teaching the history, creation, utilization and assessment of mass media as practical arts and techniques and as the establishment of the role these media play in the society, their social repercussions, the consequences of a mediatised communication, the participation and the transformations they can produce in the way in which people receive messages and information /6/.

1.2.1. Educommunication: Freire and the banking education

Paulo Freires/7/ theoretical proposal helps to understand the Latin-American approach. The comparison between what was being produced and Freires contribution leads to a somewhat different discipline. Freire establishes the educommunication as a rupture in the traditional education whilst European approaches see it as a defensive and empowering tool that should be used by citizens in order to face the possible effects of media as well as to benefit from the multiple opportunities they create.

The process described by Freire aims to change the organization and the practices of the educational processes, described as a banking education model. This Brazilian researcher worked on a dialogical educational process capable of transforming the unidirectional model that has traditionally ruled in education.

Barbas-Coslado/8/ describes Kapln/9/, Freire /10/ and Aparicis /11/ statements as the main orientations to understand the meaning of educommunication in the Latin American and Spanish tradition. Barbas-Coslado establishes a differentiated definition of the concept, which goes far beyond the instrumental approach derived from the Anglo-Saxon Information Literacy (IL). IL considers the concept as the librarians information classification ability rather than as a complex learning and information transmitting method.

Educommunication is then seen as a process and a discipline that has the objective of collectively create and construct meanings by exchanging both symbolical and well-established definitions and general data. What Barbas-Coslado /12/ suggests is that educommunication should be seen as a collaborative and participative area of study and as an enhancer of creative and participative possibilities.

The author reflects about the role of media and different devices used in the educommunicative process as well as the codes and languages in which the knowledge creation should be done. Knowledge creation and critical thinking are seen as outcomes of the interaction, dialogue and collaboration in the educational processes where creativity is both a goal and a method.

1.3. Media Literacy: birth of a discipline

With the UNESCO declarations and the development of regulatory agencies, multiple definitions were created in order to describe, understand and try to foster the abilities to adapt the educative systems and the administrations to an increasingly technological scenario, as well as to secure, protect and train citizens with the purpose of developing a balanced use of the ICT. The first theoretical approaches responded to specific issues like the need of acquiring working skills related to the ICTs (digital/ICT literacy), the will of more transparent and better managed information (IL/Librarian Literacy) and/or the study of the effects, reach, influences and uses of the different media channels on/by citizens (ML/MIL).

At a first stage, the works concentrated on protectionist studies and on aesthetical understandings of the media and cultural productions. However, todays approaches are going far beyond these types of visions. Researchers are working on the establishment of guidelines, criteria and competencies linked with the nowadays school needs.

According to the UNESCO guidelines /13/ for the establishment of proper Media and Information Literacy (mixing up the concepts of ML and IL), indicators must result on a theoretical proposal capable of assessing the abilities that a media and information literate person must have. In order to give a holistic view of the MIL concept, different researchers and organizations have started identifying the common elements between the most renamed literacy theories (digital/ICT, media, information/librarian). Jesus Lau /14/ has written about the skills that MIL should generate and the subsidiary ones that each principal derives. For Lau, it is more important to know the global elements of MIL rather than to identify if it is a matter of ML, IL or DL (Digital Literacy). Lau proposes the following competencies/skills map /15/:

Table 1 - MIL Competencies (Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes

Core skills Subsidiary skills

Access Identify need / Express / Search / Locate

Evaluation/ Understanding Analyze / Induction / Deduction (Understand) / Process

Use Apply / Learn / Ethics / Communicate / Reproduce / Produce

Under this theoretical framework, tools coming from IL are seen as the ones giving a contextual understanding as well as the ones that generate in citizens critical understanding abilities and empowering scenarios related to the management of information. On the other hand, ML is supposed to produce individual abilities and knowledge that will help people analyze, assess and produce media messages. The path Media Literacy has follow in Europe can be schematized as follows /16/:

Media Literacy concept evolution in Europe

New skills to address the context of new technologies

DIGITAL COMPETENCE

S

Acquisition process

Cultural, social and contextual elements aggregation

Development of critical thinking and reading

Autonomous and efficient use of information and

communication resources

MEDIA LITERACY

INFORMATION SOCIETY

Information economy

New digital context

Telecommunication industry

Resources and media availability

increasing: ICT

DIGITAL LITERACY

Process of social adaptation to new

technologies

Individuals Institutions

Capacity to accept change

Figure 1 - Media Literacy Concept Evolution

1.3.1. Consolidation of a discipline

The most recent solution to the conceptual and theoretical encounters, with an apparently consensus, is the MIL concept. UNESCOs MIL understanding pretends to smooth things over between the different definitions by creating a common framework. It is then understood as the grouping of common and distinctive elements of the three principal ICT-media related literacies.

The UN has supported the promotion of citizens education globally orientated policies. As a result, ML first appeared as an educational paradigm that stated the importance of promoting a responsible use of media and the acquiring of selection, comprehension, and discrimination abilities towards information coming from the different media channels. ML was then understood as a discipline willing to promote critical understanding and thinking in citizens in order to foster better information, well-structured opinions and a free and transparent information/communication /17/.

The quest for the establishment of a univocal term and a universal use and understanding of its components could not have been done without the help of the international institutions. Still, the governmental aids and subventions to research groups, as well as the policy-making guidelines, have enormously contributed to the definition of the MIL concept. Aguaded-Gmez /18/ gives special attention to the ML section of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), in which, for instance, an open resources directory has been created in order to facilitate the dissemination of the concept. Another principal initiative he recognizes as a milestone on the evolution of ML is the UNESCOs MIL Curriculum for Teachers (2011).

The path UNESCO has been drawing for the generation of a common MIL concept can easily be recognized since the Digital Competencies Indicators framework created in 2008 and the proper MIL indicators framework /19/. According to Marc Sheuer, UNAOCs director, ME and ML must be seen as a part of the general human right to education/20/. ML has to be thought as a set of tools, skills and abilities that should guarantee the wellbeing of people consuming media products, foster public debate and generate more engaged and participative citizens.

2. Actual paradigm: Media and Information Literacy in an international environment of implementation

As it has been developed in the previous pages, MIL gathers up several definitions that have different contextual and historical periods of evolution and that have been in conflict for the last decades. UNESCOs efforts have guided the path this discipline has walked. But the establishment of a common framework has not been an easy task. The elaboration of a theoretical and practical guideline for its application is at this moment a task that has not been completely developed. The MIL Curriculum for Teachers, the UNESCO MIL indicators

framework, the EAVIs conceptual pyramid /21/, as well as other measurement surveys such as the ICT assessment done by European Schoolnet, the PISA studies, the French B2i examination, Ferrs guidelines for ML indicators or the Australian National Assessment Program (NAP) are some of the academic approximations that have shaped-up the meaning of MIL.

2.1. Actual theories

In the process of establishing this common concept, different literacies were taken into account. UNESCO picked up all alike-literacies (related) and reorganized them into the three principal ones (see Figure 1). According to the framework drawn on the teachers curriculum, MIL as a global concept should be understood as the essential competencies (knowledge, abilities and attitudes) that allow citizens to efficiently involve with media and other kind of information providers as well as to generate critical thinking capacities, and abilities concerning lifelong learning in order to assure a more participative and engaged citizenship.

Table 2 Notions of MIL (UNESCO)

Media and Information Literacy /22/

Media Literacy Information Literacy Digital Literacy

Cinema literacy Internet literacy Games literacy

Television literacy News literacy

Advertising literacy Freedom of expression

literacy

Library literacy News literacy

Freedom of information Literacy

Computer literacy Internet literacy

Game literacy

The different literacies gathered up by UNESCOs holistic approach are also defined in the MIL Teachers curriculum. IL is set to be understood as the abilities, skills and tools that allow citizens to comprehend and use the mass media in a safe way, with an informed understanding -both critic to the theories and techniques the media enterprises use to spread messages, ideologies and understandings. ME is then globally seen as a tool to foster the capacities of reading, analyzing, assessing and communicating information on the different media channels and supports.

ML by itself is understood as a set of capacities and skills that allow people to understand and use mass media in a safe way, including critical understanding components related to the techniques media agents use as well as on its effects (regarding the use of these techniques). The abilities of reading, analyzing, assessing, and producing different media products are also taken into consideration in this definition. DL, the third principal ICT-Media related literacy conceptual approximation, is understood as the ability to use different digital technologies, tools, networks and communication resources in order to identify,

access, build and transmit information and cultural productions. This approach also concerns the use of different formats and applications and the basic skills for the proper utilization of text processing and daily-use software and Internet services (mail, browsers) /23/.

Carolyn Wilson /24/ asserts that MIL mostly makes reference to the processes of understanding and using the media (IL and ML seen from UNESCOs point of view) and to the use of ICT (DL). This discipline seeks the development of critical attitudes towards the comprehension of media products, the decision-making processes (agenda setting and other media practices) and the overall utilization of technologies and media channels. Thus, Wilson reflects on the necessity of introducing study elements on the different education stages in order to assure the rising of this kind of competencies among citizens. MIL should then give special attention to the treatment of information in an ethical way, which should be translated into the capacity of generating the ability of identifying when a media actor is distorting a meaning or creating a different scenario with the intention of manipulating the understanding of events. This approach highlights the importance of delivering capacities and skills to citizens, giving increased importance to the critical abilities rather than to the technical related ones.

Wilson, for whom the different risks are not only drawn by the arrival of the new technologies, also emphasizes on this topic giving special attention to the interconnection and the free flow of information todays world is facing. This approach, which reflects McLuhans global village theory, includes the awareness over the right to access information and the ethical use of ICT when communicating with others. Nowadays, users can participate in an intercultural dialogue rising inside the global village they live in. This participation creates a sort of global citizenship that must be exploited in a rational way: by using the different media and technologies in a responsible, critical and supportive way.

MIL covers different visions and theoretical frameworks. The components of citizens empowerment and access to opportunities share importance with those of users protection and ethical and rational use of media. Access to information is therefore shaped by the continuous emphasis on the correct utilization of searched and retrieved sources, its validation and the capacity of identifying reliable contents. Empowerment must be understood as the principal component of MIL as it gives the opportunity of accomplishing all other theoretical contributions, as well as the real opportunity of enjoying the resulting rights it fosters (i.e. access to information, tools, debate and media channels).

2.1.1. Beyond the UNESCO

Several assessment schemes and evaluation attempts have been carried out since the arising of the European Commission and the UNs (among others) preoccupation for the measurement of MIL levels. Different institutions have developed methodologies including questionnaires and tests aiming to establish a reliable indicator. However, universities and researchers have also started

testing their own assessment methods. Del Moral and Villalustre /25/, for example, applied a series of questionnaires to a senior citizens congregation in order to establish their levels of awareness and critical understanding: persuasion, valuation of the transmitted information and active participation. They used a simple methodology that included twelve observation items (variables) aiming to determinate the critical competencies of the sample.

As established, empowerment, awareness, participation, engagement and other elements concerning personal development and critical understanding derive from Del Moral and Villalustres approach. Spanish researcher Joan Ferrs, starting from precedent studies considering the languages, the technologies, the production and diffusion processes, the reception and interaction processes, ideology and values as well as the aesthetic dimension /26/, has begun working on a methodology for the assessment of ML in Spain. Ferrs and Piscitelli /27/ have followed the recommendations made by 50 experts regarding ME and ML in order to establish a series of indicators to assess peoples knowledge and capacities facing media. They focus on the growing technological environment by giving enormous attention to the fact that todays citizens/users/students have the opportunity of accessing and generating messages in several supports and channels. On the other hand, they claim that the power of media has also attained a level that exceeds any previously imagined scenario. The concentration of mass media in a little series of entrepreneurial groups compels the citizenship to act in a more active and engaged way. The medias power benefits from the transparency that characterizes the new representation systems, which generates confusion between reality and what is being represented. The media competence should face these complexities by triggering a participative culture and a critical capacity [on citizens] /28/.

2.1.2. Other academic approaches

Several authors understand MIL as the new literacies, the multiple literacies or the media literacy in a broad sense. These similar definitions come from the historical confrontation between ML, IL and DL and from the development of the concept that different researchers have preferred. Manuel Area and Teresa Pessoa /29/ stand on the concept of new literacies as a result of the changes introduced by the new technologies.

On their research, they resume Baumans liquid and solid theory /30/ to characterize the realities brought by the ICT. The new technologies are defined by their capacity of change and adaptation and by the velocity with which these changes take place in society. Area and Pessoa describe nowadays cultural productions as an unstable and in continuous motion set of products that are determined by the capacity to rapidly change or adapt. This liquid cultural production contrasts with the XIX and XX centuries solid production that is characterized as static and predictable. Under this approach, the web 2.0 establishes a benchmark in the cultural process by breaking, all at once, the rules of production, consumption and elaboration of cultural products.

The scenario drawn by Area and Pessoa shows that in order to face the different risks, as well as to take advantage of the different offered resources, people must be aware of the flows, trends and possible distortions that media products offer. The authors finally affirm that this new context constrains the citizenship (human resources) to be trained (to become literate) on several aspects. Literacy is then understood not only as the capacity to manage, produce, stock, validate or consume informational products, but also as a client/user/consumer literacy, capable of giving the necessary tools and skills to face online productions, to understand the limits and regulations around information and data being collected, to defend and respect other peoples rights and integrity and to correctly (and safely) absorb the different digital products.

2.2. Measurement efforts

In 2008, UNESCO suggested a series of parameters for the creation of assessment indicators on IL. In that moment MIL was not defined and its different concepts were worked separately. Under this scenario, different observation units were established in order to assess all its components. The communication skills map/constellation was established taking into account IL, ICT skills (DL), ML, general literacy, oral communication and reasoning. Every criterion was also divided into several variables /31/:

Figure 2 - Communication skills Constellation

Despite the information literacy approach, the need of taking into account the different literacies is already on its structure. This UNESCOs proposal constitutes a first approximation to the MIL levels assessment models being studied today. On this document, UNESCO takes Catts /32/ understanding of literacy as a lifelong process (Figure 4). On its proposal, UNESCO establishes the difference between generic capacities and specific capacities, which are defined by the profession and life path decided by every citizen /33/.

Figure 3 - Hierarchical Model of General Skills

According to this framework, the autonomous learner is placed on the top of the hierarchical model. This means, the person being able to use the tools, abilities and capacities acquired through continuing education. This understanding is since then part of almost every theoretical framework proposing MIL assessment methodologies.

On the Study on Assessment Criteria for Media Literacy Levels /34/ a first formal MIL levels assessment is proposed. The report shows several aspects that should be taken into consideration for the development of reliable measurement strategies. The suggested criteria reflect the theoretical and practical complexities surrounding the MIL concept.

The two principal proposed dimensions for MIL are the individual competencies and the environmental factors. The individual competencies must be understood as the set of abilities, skills and tools people must have in terms of MIL-, this is, the abilities to critically understand information, clearly identify sources, critically approximate to texts and contents as well as the ability to use and appropriate the new technologies. All this competencies must conduct people to a continuous learning environment where information should be well processed (as exposed above, in terms of empowerment). On the other hand, the environmental factors refer to the given conditions to the development of the

individual capacities (like media education, access to technologies, well equipped schools).

The report outlines five principal criteria inside the two principal components. These are: for the personal competencies, use and critical understanding; for the social ones, communication abilities and; for the environmental factors, media availability and media literacy context. The scheme is illustrated as follows /35/:

Figure 4 - Celot & Prez-Tornero Pyramid

On the pyramidal representation of their model, Celot and Prez-Tornero give a specific order to the different components in order to show that the base (the structural support of the pyramid) is composed by the triggering elements for a well MIL-trained society. Several components have been derived from the criteria proposed by these authors, with the intention of creating a theoretical framework to a MIL levels assessment scheme.

The individual competencies, listed on the two upper levels, are described as shown:

Figure 5 - Celot & Prez-Torneros MIL criteria

Close to Celot and Prez-Torneros framework, UNESCO /37/ established a proper MIL (adopting the concept of MIL) indicators framework. This new attempt to create a common understanding of what should be taken into consideration when referring to MIL and its assessment proposes two main categories. The first one is Media and Information Enabling Factors, which could be understood as the bottom of the pyramid previously exposed, by giving great importance to the context in which MIL is being introduced. The second category includes three main components. The first one is Creation and Availability. This variable, also related to the context, seeks to establish the elements that create both media and information (Online newspapers, journals). The second variable of this category is described as Distribution and Supply, making reference to the infrastructure one country has. This is, the channels and different technological elements to distribute (deliver) the media products (radio and TV infrastructure, Internet wiring, PCs available). The third variable

goes a little bit further in relation to the enabling factors. It is described as Information Reception, and has to do with the capability of citizens to receive, decipher, understand and process media and information.

Nevertheless, these two categories are not described alone. UNESCO establishes at the same time three abilitys components. The first one refers to access, to the capacity of retrieving information in an efficient and effective way. The second one marks a higher level as it observes the evaluation of the information that is being retrieved. This component has to do with the critical understanding of information and media in general. The third one is stated as use. It observes the ability to communicate media and information and it is composed by the other two components.

Conclusion

The importance MIL is receiving nowadays goes far beyond the discussion over its definition and the historically confronted meanings different countries and research groups used to defend /38/. The use of different terms has to do with the haze that exists over the understanding of the MIL concept, but it has finally arrived to a point where it has been recognized -despite its different nicknames- on the top of the international agencies preoccupations, as well as on those of the most developed countries (changes to the curriculum, implementation of new courses, teachers training on ME).

MILs role on modern society is of great significance: not only the academic circles are working on its development, but governments are somehow starting to work on models to establish the levels of ME that citizens have. MIL is seen (and must be understood) as an element that is present in society even without knowing it: as strategies to defend consumers, viewers, students, disadvantaged groups and every sector of the population from the effects and contestable intensions of some media agents; as a tool to empower them, to show the development enabling factors the ICTs constitute and the enormous opportunities they have brought to todays world (among others).

It is important to understand that MIL must find its place at all stages of education and formation as a lifelong learning enabler. Multi-literacies, as some authors understand MIL, must be inserted into the curricula and governments should continue paying attention to it as it derives from the rights of access to education, opportunities and information, as well as from the right to live in a democratic and inclusive society.