MEDIA AND INFORMATION LITERACY

GROUP 2

How does Media and Information Literacy affect you and your understanding about media?

Media, as described by the internet, are communication channels through which news, entertainment, education, data, or promotional messages are disseminated. Media includes every broadcasting and narrowcasting medium such as newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, billboards, direct mail, telephone, fax, and internet. Thus, before being introduced to MIL, I had my own understanding and perspective about media. That is, media is just another source of entertainment to most people and especially the millennium. It is not useful since people are only talking about basic content of media like the internet. However, there is something behind which is far more better than all of it. With the help of MiL, I was able to understand the whole purpose of media and that, it is not only about entertainment. I realized that media has something more to offer. It has a lot of purpose and one of which is to communicate and gather relevant information. It is a gateway for us to have an easier access to those people we wanna talk to even when they are a thousand miles away. Media also exists for consumption. It has big influence in our society, it changes the way we think and interact with other people. Media ia a good help for us individuals since it gives information that can be used in many different fields like in school, in our work and even at home. Media has a lot of different functions and personally, I think the most relevant function is where media act as a channel of communication and information. Through that, we are able to communicate with people from all over the world with the help of social media networking sites like Facebook, Messenger, Twitter and a lot more. Also, since media reach out to public and provide us with many different information, we are always updated on current events going around the world. Media as well allow us to gather the information we need which can be helpful in our day to day living and also help us in the future. For example, broadcasting, wherein reporters would inform the public about the weather. It even informs the people on financial crisis or economic crisis. In that way, we are able to live in a convenient manner and that media makes the population smaller. One situation, I can recall wherein Media and Information Literacy has been very useful is every time there are fake news spreading around social networks. Fake news such as rumours. MIL has taught me how to deal with these situations and for me they are very useful. Upon handling with the situation, I usually should know the source of the information. Sources play an important role in a certain information and it is the one that makes the information relevant or true. Also, I compare the source to another sources for me to be able to know its consistency. Thus, having a lot of reliable sources makes the information valid. So in that way, I will be able to know wether it is true or fake.