Media literacy

Media literacy is the skill of understanding the nature of communications, particularly in regard to telecommunications and mass media.

The concept applies to a variety of ideas that attempt to explain how media convey their messages and why.

Major topics discussed as a part of media literacy include

• The technology of telecommunications
• The business aspects of mass media such as broadcasting
  • In particular, this includes the business and function of advertising
• The interaction of media and government
• The nature of journalism and the problem of media bias
• The sociopolitical[?] nature of the media's content such as the depiction of social stereotypes and violence.

The concept of media literacy as topic of education first really arose in the 1980s and has become a standard topic of study in school in many countries.

Proponents of media literacy include:

• Marshall McLuhan - An early Canadian theorist into the nature of media
• Noam Chomsky - An American linguist and political analyst is most famous for his observations about corporate media's role in propaganda which he phrased as the manufacturing of consent.