Multiple Media Literacies by Joshua Meyrowitz brings up a relevant question in his article: What is media literacy? Relevant this is because in discussion of media literacy and media specific analysis I was unable to answer this question. Secondly, Meyrowitz asks "what is media?" and posits that everyone certainly knows . . . which is not the case.
According to Meyrowitz media is "the most common conception of media is that they are conduits that hold and send messages" (Meyrowitz, 1998, p. 424) i.e. movies, radio, television, computers, etcetera. Thereafter, Meyrowitz clarifies what media literacy infers; "basic media literacy involves being able to access and analyze messages in a variety of media. Content literacry takes many forms. These include being able to decode and follow the intended manifest message; exploring intended and unitended latent messages; being aware of different content genres; being aware of cultural, institutional, and comercial forces that tend to lead to certain types of messages being constructed while others are avoided; and understanding that different individuals and groups tend to "read" the sam "texts" differently" (Meyrowitz, 1998, p. 426).
Another topic which Meyorwitz is media grammar literacy. On this note, media grammer literacy meant nothing to me initially but is a concept -now that I'm familiar- which I can employ to have a more profound read into media - in film for example. Basically, someone who is aware of media grammar and able to read it is "more likely taht other viewers to observe how nonfiction sequences (e.g., new and documentaries) are carefully crafted to look as fi tehy are not crafted, but simply real - what Gay Tuchman (1978) calls the creation of an "anra of representation" (Meyorwitz, 1998, p. 430).
In understanding media grammar I learned that is important to be aware of what these techniques are -the techniques that being literate in media grammar make apparent. For example, "low angle shots (camera below subject) are often used to suggest power and authority, though extreme low angles can be used to mock someone's sens eof self-importance. Level shots are typicall used to suggest someone is a 'peer' by journalist on themselves. High-angle shots (camera above subjet) are typically used to suggest that someone is small or weak.
The last concept I wanted to address is Medium Literacy - once again another topic with which I was unfamiliar. In a few words, medium literacy means that "each medium is a type of setting or enviroment that has relatively fixed characterisitcs that influence communication in a particular manner- regardless of the choice of content elements and regardless of the particular manipulation of produciton variables" (Meyorwitz, 1998, p. 433).
In application medium analysis concentrates upon the "unique communicaiton setting" which makes it different from other media and "face-to-face interaction" (Meyorwitz, 1998). Key to understanding or being literate in medium is being familar with what some medium are. The following is a list of different medium:
type of sensory info: visual, oral, etc
for of info within each sense: pictures vs. written word, click vs. voices
degree of definition/resolution/fidelity: radio voice is closer to a live voice than a tv closeup is to a live face
undirectional vs bidirectionality: radio vs telephone
Anyhow, the list continues on but that is a sample of extensive factors which I thought are important to conceptualizing medium. There are many more useful concepts addressed within this articule which facilitate a familiarization with media literacies and I listed a few which I found interesting. This article was useful in that it provides clear definitions and good examples for someone like myself who does not have any background with the notion of media or media literacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment