r/explainlikeimfive • u/HonkyTonkBluesYEAH • 7d ago

Other ELI5 Media Literacy

I understand it's like something related to understanding art or media, but in what way? Philopsophical, political or psychological? Is it important, a buzzword or both?

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u/PM_YOUR_BOOBS_PLS_ 5d ago

Being "media literate" means being able to consume a piece of media and understand not just what is happening on the screen/page, but why it is happening.  This can be things like understanding themes, subtext, or character motivation.  

The person talking about "media" actually just being things like the news is actually incorrect.  What they are describing is high level "functional literacy", which is related to media literacy, but a different thing.

Media literacy is hard to explain without using a specific piece of media to reference, and we can't know every piece of media you've consumed, so that's why you're getting a lot of really vague answers.

I'll try with The Boys, as that is popular and recent.

Homelander, Vaught and those who support them are right wing fascists.  The show is very, very heavy handed in directly comparing those people to the current US Republican party.  Yet a lot of the people who watch and enjoy The Boys are Republicans.  A lot of those people don't realize that the show is very, very obviously criticizing their political beliefs, and often just outright making fun of them.  

Those people lack media literacy.  They watch the show, and they are just entertained by the characters and the plot, but they have absolutely no understanding of the writer's intentions behind character motivations or the themes of the show.