Family-oriented media literacy education, an evolutionary branch of academic media literacy education

Isalnews - It is said that media literacy is a skill-based understanding that provides the active audience with the ability to distinguish between different types of media, facilitates media content analysis, and selects an effective process of perception, reception, analysis, evaluation, and feedback for the recipient in an internal, professional, and selective manner. Accordingly, media literacy conveys the audience to a conscious and critical understanding in dealing with media messages and media.

In recent centuries, media literacy has been referred to as a new literacy that enables the audience's ability and the formation of critical thinking in their minds.

As media has advanced and developed, human society has entered a new phase in which media has become one of the main components of social life in human societies. Media literacy, which is essentially the science and art of regulating relationships between the audience, media, and social and cultural norms, is considered one of the important and effective factors in the level of development of societies.

If we consider two functional areas for media literacy, these two areas are:
1- Access to media productions and training on how to use and benefit from them
2- Critical understanding of received messages from media and active action in confronting received messages.

One might wonder why media literacy and its education is so emphasized in various societies today?

Living in a global society and having easy access to thousands of media outlets and messaging services can lead to passivity, confusion, and life challenges for someone who lacks even a minimum level of media literacy. This is because the negative and destructive effects of mass media and informational bombardment in today's networked society and the information society ahead are so great that they affect all aspects of life from entertainment to economic activity, from education to socialization, from family to lifestyle, from social relations to political relations.

Therefore, the importance of media literacy and its education for all members of society is an inevitable necessity due to the information bombardment in the era of media-informed societies. The importance of its place is such that it is gradually entering an important part of the formal education and training system of different societies and is an important principle in the process of proper socialization.

Since an active audience who has equipped themselves with media literacy looks critically at messages published by the media, analyzes them, and challenges them, they become involved in the process of producing and disseminating messages. They analyze the various dimensions of a message, reflect on the content of received messages, and know how to select and choose, neither suffering from "information overload" nor confused and mentally disturbed to the extent that it reduces their satisfaction with life.

For this reason, communication experts emphasize that a media-literate audience chooses its media and uses the messages published by that media rationally, purposefully, and effectively. They evaluate received messages with critical thinking and assess the credibility of the content published by using relevant sources. They understand the power of media messages, understand the level of impact of the received message, manage it, and know that media messages affect their beliefs, values, and behaviors, and not only understand multiculturalism but also respect diversity of opinions and can actively and creatively share their own views with others with the help of media.

When the audience becomes equipped with such abilities, and all members of society are equipped with media literacy, the negative and destructive consequences of information bombardment and media wars are greatly reduced, and society is safe from the harmful challenges of the present era.

Therefore, opinion makers emphasize the importance of media literacy and suggest that we educate citizens in media literacy so that we can raise citizens who are inquisitive, creative, knowledgeable, and thoughtful. By strengthening the critical dimension in their minds, we can make them participatory, creative, and active. Media literacy not only provides extraordinary facilities and access to media and media messages but may also have adverse effects. Therefore, the categorization of media literacy education for citizens is of great importance, commensurate with their age, cultural patterns, and profession. Since different levels of media literacy education have distinct functions, what a communication expert learns and utilizes in their research may not only be detrimental to an ordinary citizen but may also become a tool for the citizen to become a problematic and costly character for society. Categorization of media literacy education is of special importance and status, and, in the author's opinion, it should be included in a country's formal education framework to be monitored accordingly.

What the author suggests as an effective and non-harmful functional prescription in the field of media literacy for citizens is media literacy education and games through active participation of family members in the process of recognition, reception, and dissemination of media messages. Families should not only know the technical use of media tools but also, while watching a clip, film, written content, cartoon, music video, news, and the like, they should not be mere passive viewers. Instead, they should analyze the received message components, distinguish between daily realities and imagination used in media production, analyze the visual attractions of the media content, and avoid building certain mentalities such as violence, and be inquisitive to challenge scenes and narratives. They should also consult and discuss creating a website, building a channel on social networks, producing content, and the like, alongside the concepts taught to students, learners, and religious students in formal education programs, and programs that are published by the official media for the general public in the form of publicly available content and non-classification in terms of specialized concepts. This can promote media literacy education in a society and family-centered media literacy education, and promote it in society.

*Graduate of Sociology, Communications, and Journalism/journalist and editor-in-chief of IsalNews Agency

end item/*

Family-oriented media literacy education, an evolutionary branch of academic media literacy education

Differentiating the effect of social enterprise activities on health

Making norms to tackle global challenges: The role of Intergovernmental Organisations

American Militarism, Its Agents, And Its Next Target: Iran