The Benefits of Media Literacy

By

Chido Onumah

Thanks to advances in media technology, children and youth are inundated daily with media messages that affect them in different ways. From our local stations that are hooked up permanently to Western channels, to specialty channels that are available with the press of a button, to thousands of pirated CDs and DVDs on sale along the streets of our major cities, children and youth now have to contend with an unhealthy dose of sex, drug, alcohol, violence, and tragedy.

What do young people make of all this and how should they respond? Advocates of media literacy contend that for children and youth to be able to respond positively, they need a clear understanding of media and its influence. In a sentence, they have to be media literate!

If we consider the power of the ever-expanding social networking sites on the Internet like Facebook and MySpace, it becomes clearer that critical understanding of the media is one of the greatest cultural challenges of the 21^st Century.

Media literacy -- the ability to review, critique and digest information created and disseminated by media of various kinds – has become a vital skill for young people in many countries. Media literacy is an essential part of the school system in countries like Canada, the UK, the US, and Australia where “students are learning, both in school and out of school, to become critical thinkers and creative producers of media messages”.

Apart from helping children and youth think critically about various media, promoters of media literacy say it can mitigate the potential adverse effects of media and empower children and youth to make informed choices and produce their own media.

To create the environment for media literacy to flourish in Africa, the Youth Media & Communication Initiative (YMCI), British Council, Nigeria, and the National Film & Video Censors Board (NFVCB), three organisations whose activities focus on empowering children and youth and advancing the benefits of information and communication technologies, recently came together to plan the 1^st Africa Media Literacy Conference scheduled to hold July 30 & 31, 2008, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city.

The focus of this historic conference is on the importance of media education for children and youth in Africa. The conference will explore the roles of young people in a world of rapidly changing communication and information technologies. With outstanding, innovative, local and international media leaders as resource persons, the goal of this conference is to help create the conditions that would promote sustainable media education in Africa; promote democratic engagement for young people by developing continental youth media projects; develop policy documents that will facilitate the integration of media literacy into school curricula across Africa; and encourage the media to disseminate information and materials of social and cultural benefit to children and youth as well as develop appropriate guidelines for the protection of young people from information and materials injurious to their wellbeing.

Media literacy is not an attempt to scare people about the “dangers” of media. “It is about the importance of teaching young people to be critical of media rather than prohibiting certain types of media outright.” It has been argued that “to be most effective at protecting and educating their children about media, parents should watch television, talk about it and ask questions about it with their children in order to highlight positive aspects of media and also to intervene in media’s potential negative effects”.

This knowledge comes in handy when parents are not around to monitor what their children listen to or watch. Media literacy is about equipping children with the necessary tools to make critical decisions. It is about children and youth watching and listening to programmes meant for their age, not because their parents are around but because they know it is the appropriate thing to do.

The 1^st Africa Media Literacy Conference is billed as the largest gathering of youth media practitioners, editors, publishers, and media literacy educators on the continent. The purpose is to engage more young people in very meaningful ways as well as develop and deepen the interest in media education on the continent.

There is hardly an aspect of our personal, cultural, and social lives in Nigeria that remains untouched by modern communications technology. The need for children and youth to undertake critical study of new media technology and develop a keen understanding of the impact on their lives makes this conference imperative.

We need to promote media literacy as a key component in the education of children and youth. The necessary corollary to this will be to add media education and information literacy into teacher training curriculum.  

This conference comes at a time when there is an unprecedented campaign to pass the Freedom of Information Bill in Nigeria. The conference will lend it support to this campaign because media literacy is essential in the promotion of freedom of expression and access to information.

We will be investing in the future of this country and the democratic process if we are able to produce young, active, conscious citizens who are not only able to ask questions and reflect on information but are critically aware of the media and its impact.