Media Literacy

• Not just having the ability to analyze media, but the ability to create it

Being able to analyze media is a very important skill to have, if you believe and never question every single piece of media you see or hear you’re gonna be fed a lot of false news. If you’re able to analyze it and see through the false facts you will be able to find the truth through all the fake news. Being able to also create media is a good skill to have as you can help contribute to the media surrounding a subject that interests you.

• The goal of most corporations, including those that own media, is to make money above anything else

This fact is just one of the reasons that you must be able to analyze media and attempt to see through the false facts. These big corporations are only trying to get your money and will tell you almost anything in an attempt to get you to buy their products. If a big corporation is offered a large sum of money to talk or not talk about something then chances are they will take the money and do whatever is asked of them. You should always try to take any news you hear from media owned by big corporations with a grain of salt and do your own research when the facts don’t add up.

• Media is very powerful and can be beautiful but also dangerous

This is a very true statement as there are all kinds of beautiful forms of media be it music or videos of nature or funny cat videos. Everywhere you look you can see awesome and creative forms of media made by all kinds of different people. Even though there are all kinds of beautiful media there are also all kinds of dangerous forms of media like fake news and hateful media. A big thing in politics right now are “alternative facts” which are practically just fake news. These are dangerous as some people actually believe this propaganda giving power to these liars.

• No media message is objective; there is always a point of view and someone (or group) is left out

This statement is very significant in today’s world as so much news is about different races and religions that some points of view will be left out. Some news outlets claim to be completely objective but it is impossible, there will always be at least one point of view left out. Even if all of the points of view are covered the person covering them could be biased.

All in all, these points all have something to do with our day to day lives. There are so many advertisements we see every day and so many of them are paid for by big companies that only want you to buy their product and not know about the bad things about their products.