RENEWING MEDIA AND MEDIA LITERACIES
What is it necessary to know about media to function effectively (socially, culturally, politically) today? Since Marc Prensky coined the term ‘digital native’ in 2001, it’s been commonplace to divide the community along generational lines – those born into a pre-Internet world and those born after the Internet was widely adopted. But is the idea of the 'digital native' a myth? Does the use of the term disguise real issues to do with access that are driven more by class, gender, geographic location and education? Are some individuals and communities being left behind?
Aside from questions of access, learning to work, create and live in a media environment like ours requires us to continuously learn new media platforms and technologies. How does vernacular media literacy (learning by doing) produce different kinds of outcomes to state-sanctioned media literacy education of the kind found in ACMA’s Cybersmart program? How are changing competencies and understandings of media literacy affecting different modes of media production? Do creative media practitioners have to think about how they go about the business of making media to take account of the different media literacy levels of their audience?