Media and Information Literacy

Types of Media We can start our discussion of media by defining and describing different kinds of media that children are using today. Modern media comes in many different formats, including print media (books, magazines, newspapers), television, movies, video games, music, cell phones, various kinds of software, and the Internet. Each type of media involves both content, and also a device or object through which that content is delivered. Print Media The term 'print media' is used to describe the traditional or "old-fashioned" print-based media that today's parents grew up with, including newspapers, magazines, books, and comics or graphic novels. Historically, only wealthy publishers had access to sophisticated type-setting technologies necessary to create printed material, but this has changed in recent years with the widespread accessibility of desktop publishing software and print-on-demand publication services such as Lulu.com (LINK). More r...

TECHNOLOGY LITERACY   Technology literacy means far more than just the ability to use computers and other machines. It implies an understanding of the factors involved in the creation and development of technologies and of the impacts of technology on society, on individuals, and on the environment. Ignorance of any of these facets can have serious consequences in a future in which technology will play an ever more determinant role. Unfortunately, the importance as well as the intrinsically interdisciplinary nature of technological literacy have not yet been perceived by the educational system and used to enrich the content of school curricula and of traditional liberal arts college curricula. The diffusion of technological literacy is an urgent priority in helping shape our culture, in providing a sense of optimism about our future, and in enabling us to avoid the disasters that the neglect of technology has wreaked historically on other societies.

        NEW INFORMATION AGE   The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, or New Media Age) is a period in  human history  characterized by the shift from traditional industry that the  Industrial Revolution  brought through industrialization, to an economy based on  information technology . The onset of the Information Age is associated with the  Digital Revolution , just as the Industrial Revolution marked the onset of the Industrial Age.The definition of what digital means (or what information means) continues to change over time as new technologies, user devices, methods of interaction with other humans and devices enter the domain of research, development and market launch. During the Information Age, the phenomenon is that the digital industry creates a knowledge-based society surrounded by a high-tech global economy that spans over its influence on how the manufac...

                                               How does Media Affect to our daily lives?                                              If one were to look back over the last decade and try to find some element that affected society as a whole from a technical standpoint, there would be a couple of possible contenders. The advancement of smartphone technology in such a short time is certainly impressive, for example. However, the impact of social media, while intertwined with the smartphone is something that made even more of an impression. Consider just how easy it is to see what is happening on the other side of the world, through the accounts of real people rather than filtered news channels. Twitter and Facebook were huge parts of the Arab Spr...