lyrics save the day once again

So this week I’ve been reading about media literacy, which is problematic by itself. Media literacy as a concept assumes there is a skill set that can and needs to be developed (thereby privileging a certain way of being) about media. And, that this skill set will ultimately lead to an increase in civic participation, which is the end goal of most composition studies. So beyond privileging a certain way of being, media literacy as a concept also means there is one type of literacy, one way of reading information, one skill set, not multiple skill sets for different contexts. So, obviously problematic. Different students learn different things, different individuals will be drawn to different contexts. Finally, current media literacy studies are pushing for participatory media consumers, calling them various terms, but ultimately active media consumers.

Our class guest speaker is a journalism professor, who was using this definition to critique contemporary journalists who use an us against them model. So journalists frame issues as two sided, and lay out the two sides. They never leave room in the middle for the middle ground between issues. They never expect issues to be multidimensional.

So, as I was leaving class an Against Me song came on my iPod that was so fitting:
And we rock,
Because it’s us against them.
We found our own reasons to sing,
And it’s so much less confusing
When lines are drawn like that,
When people are either consumers or revolutionaries

So if we look at media literacy from an Against Me standpoint, the alternative to being a consumer is being revolutionary. They are clearly mocking the two sided set up of arguments, and their two groups are especially important for media literacy. With an increase in the number of blogs and web news sources many feel that news is becoming revolutionary, so we need media literacy, or a critical discourse about our news consumption. Other believe media literacy is a critical participation in the news discourse, and in seeking out information and its source for clarification. But, using the Against Me analogy, I feel this is just a way to make metadata less confusing, instead of truly talking about how to develop critical thinking skills about our consumption of information, especially when we actively participate in finding that information.