Introduction to Media Literacy

Great book with awesome examples.

College book

Product was delivered as expected.

All the information in the book can be found online. Unless the book is needed for your class and you’re going to be tested on exactly what the book says, then don’t waste your time or money.

There are like ten pages missing. I had an assignment due and was not able to turn it in bc I was missing half the chapter I needed to read. As you can see the book skips from page 138 to page 147. I did not rip out the pages or anything, as you can see the binding has not been tampered with. Hopefully it’s just my book and not others.

This book is an abridged version of Potter’s Media Literacy textbook and, like that book, its target audience is college students studying communications. It offers readers some important insights about media structures and about reflecting on the role that media play in our lives, and there is some value for teachers who want to see examples of how to explain selected and complex media literacy concepts. In a helpful framing, Potter divides media literacy (ml) into three key components: personal locus, knowledge structures, and skills. This acknowledgement of the role that audience plays – which stretches well beyond familiar debates over media effects – is a welcome addition to historical “Intro to Mass Comm” approaches that train their attention exclusively on the history, forms, and genres of various media. The book’s discussion of the distinctions between what serves commercial interests well and what serves the individual well is interesting and thought-provoking. And it provides important information about media concepts and practices like convergence, long tail marketing, psychographics, and puffery. There are even a few great activity ideas, like having small groups of students use their own devices to do identical Google searches and then compare results (which will be different because part of Google’s algorithm uses your past online activities to customize results).But it’s hard to recommend this book because reading it went something like this: interesting…interesting…useful…HUH? Quality content was regularly interrupted by things that made no sense, were flat out wrong, or contradicted a claim that the author made a few pages back.Here is a small sampling of the many oddities:* Readers might be surprised to find that things like posters, billboards, or bumper stickers, do not qualify as mass media. Also missing are all forms of mass media that are not commercial (e.g., independent, user-generated, government-created, public, etc.).* Potter plays a serious game of semantics – a game that is sure to be confusing to students and teachers. For example, he asserts with absolute authority that (unlike nearly everyone else who uses the term) “media literacy” is not about “critical thinking.” He opts instead to define ml as a “set of perspectives.” But when he starts describing its core skills, he writes about things like “analysis” and “synthesis” and being open-minded. In other words, critical thinking.His purported reason for rejecting the term “critical thinking” – that it has multiple, and sometimes contradictory, meanings – is specious. What scholars do in such circumstances is to define what they mean by the term and there is zero indication here of why the author chose not to go that route.Potter’s apparent need to disavow the field leads me to believe that he thinks his terminology is representative of ideas that are distinct from and superior to media literacy educators (like me) who stick with the focus on critical thinking. But what he calls for isn’t really very different than many critical thinking advocates, and he doesn’t do it as well as some others.*He uses the term “messages” in a bizarre way, e.g.: “Think about one of your favorite entertainment messages, like a TV series” (p. 24). This suggests that “messages” and media forms (like a TV series) are terms that can be used interchangeably. Unless you’re living in some alternate universe, they aren’t even synonyms. A TV series contains dozens (if not hundreds) of messages.* There is a haphazard citation of sources, even when making points that rely on specific statistics or research. Sometimes citations are provided and sometimes not. That’s an egregious problem in the media literacy world, where we teach readers to consider the source in order to evaluate claims.* Potter’s strategies lead students to employ a tunnel-vision focus on their own satisfaction. Kind of reminds me of the old “Army of One” campaign. To be sure, all education is about developing skills and knowledge in each student. And media literate students should certainly have the skills and disposition to reflect on their own interactions with media and the sources of their ideas. But Potter’s version of this borders on the narcissistic. I can’t say with certainty that this was Potter’s intention, but it would be very easy for a student to walk away from this book with the notion that the ultimate measure of success in becoming media literate is to answer affirmatively the questions, “Am I happy with my interaction with media?” and “Am I in control?”That doesn’t leave much room to think about social constructs or consequences. Using Potter’s logic, I should feel confidently media literate playing or creating video games laced with racist or sexist stereotypes as long as I’m conscious of and okay with my choices. Potter’s method wouldn’t require me to ask how my fun might harm others or question the impact my choices might have on my community or country. Contrary to Potter’s inward focus, media literacy actually demands more than achieving individual satisfaction.* Despite his story about developing a “media literacy” approach to teaching because a “mass comm” approach wasn’t adequate, Potter includes nothing on literacy. No theories of literacy. No compare/contrast between reading print and “reading” other media forms. And almost nothing on the “writing” (or production) side of literacy. It’s not even clear what he means by the term “literacy.” I doubt that he’d describe print literacy as a “set of perspectives.” I’m not clear about why he insists on using the phrase “media literacy” at all, especially when he uses it differently than the vast majority of media literacy educators.To be sure, there is some great stuff here. For example, the discussion of the relationship between entertainment, the real world, and knowledge structures (p. 135) is brilliant. It’s unfortunate that this strong content is so frequently followed by sections or assertions that make little sense. Much of this book will help sharpen students’ perspectives, but it is also likely to leave them confused. So if you’re having trouble making sense of a section, my recommendation is to move on. It’s not you.

This ebook has typos and is simplistic and - after leafing through it - I am trying to cancel my order but eAmazon is making that impossible. One more reason not to use Amazon.