In these heightened times of the use of social media, media literacy is a crucial tool to differentiate between misinformation and propaganda, to true facts. As the election rolls around on Nov 5. 2024, it is important to understand what media literacy is, how to utilize it to make decisions, and how to consume the various types of media with knowledge on how to interpret it.
Media literacy is a set of skills that help people to consume various media outlets such as social media posts and articles from broadcast and publication outlets, as well as real time broadcast videos and audio, according to medialiteracynow.org.
These skills help any age group on how to become a smarter media consumer, and especially helps navigate voters from propaganda and misinformation about a candidate’s words and policies.
Media literacy skills ensure individuals that the media being consumed is true and reliable, so that they can form their own opinion on what policies matter to them, and which candidate meets their interpretation on a better future for the United States.
To become more media literate, individuals, especially voters should carefully research and think about the background of the information being presented. This means researching about the author or creator of the media, questioning if this information is unbiased or not, and finding out the message the creator is trying to convey to the audience, according to namle.org.
Constantly checking the background information of your sources helps voters be more informed about possible propaganda and misinformation that can be said due to biased and skewed opinions from both parties, and ultimately becomes the core deciding factor of who to vote for during the election.
After acknowledging the background information, carefully digest the media, and interpret what message is being conveyed. This helps voters to come up with their own opinions rather than just blindly believing the surface material and context of the media in front of them. It also encourages voters to seek out more information to clear up confusions, or simply fact-check to make sure what they are being shown is true, according to dhs.gov.
To further avoid the spread of fake news and propaganda, it is important to be aware of a consumer’s part of the spread of misinformation.
This means avoiding sharing media that is uncredible and not fact checked and sharing media that is from a biased media outlet according to library.geneseo.edu.
Media Literacy ensures that individuals are being presented with true details and figures. Without utilizing media literacy skills on a regular basis, individuals can be subject to clickbait headlines, and innacurate news, which is extremely harmful to citizens and voters in preparation for the upcoming election.
By using media literacy skills on a day to day basis, people can be less worried on if their information is true or not, leading to a smarter society that questions the media and demands the truth, and only the truth from sources.
