The Salzburg Academy’s Imperative

Media Literacy & Global Change

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Paul Mihailidis, PhDAssociate Professor,

Emerson College, Boston MA

Director, Salzburg Academy on Media and Global

Change Associate Director, Engagement Lab

What does social change look like today…

LEZEM is a platform that seeks to actively engage the youth of Lebanon in the country’s civil life. We work together to identify major obstructions to social development in our community, to propose solutions & find effective ways of implementing these solutions.

MAPPING POLICE VIOLENCE

What do these examples have in common?

The utilization of media tools, platforms and processes designed to gather individuals committed to positive change, and to facilitate action in support of that change.

What Conditions Support Civic Action?

connectivity

mobility spreadability

MEDIA

CITIZEN

Networked Public Sphere

Networked Public Sphere

Mobility

Internet access v. mobile phones

– 7+ billion people on Earth– Only 40% have access to

internet http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/

– 75% have access to mobile phones (2012)

This has become a 'Tethered Generation'

"The logic of digital media, on the other hand,allows the people formerly known as the audienceto create value for one another every day” – ClayShirky

Connectivity

Networked Publics

1. The space constructed through networked technologies

2. The imagined community that emerges as a result of the intersection of people, technology, and practice (19)

Global Internet Traffic

Real time: http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/dataviz1.html

Web Connection Density

“…the technical resources that make it easier to circulate some kinds of content than others, the economic structures that support or restrict circulation, the attributes of a media text that might appeal to a community’s motivation for sharing material, and the social networks that link people through the exchange of meaningful bytes” (Jenkins, Ford, Green, 4).

Spreadability

What Does One Second on the Internet LookLike?

How Does Media Literacy Support Civic Action?

Media LiteracyLiteracy

Read Write

ANALYSIS EXPRESSION

…with all media texts available in the 21 st century

Expanded concept of literacy

An emerging disconnect in this approach to media literacy

Critical Engagement with Media

Critical Engagement with Society

Even Academy Students struggle with connecting media analysis to

social action• Apathy Narratives• Awareness-Action Gaps• Self-Consciousness & Public (dis)comfort

with online expression and engagement• Borderless Cynicism – what can we really

do?

Critical Inquirythe ability toanalyze,evaluate, andproduce mediamessages,and;

Critical agencyto use media toengage in,responsible,inclusive, andactive dialog inlocal, national,and globalcommunities

Media Literacy as Civic Agency:Connecting analysis to action

• ACCESS to media as a human right • AWARENESS of messages as portrayers of

values, norms, and contexts • ASSESSMENT of the techniques media use to

present information• APPRECIATION for the value of media to provide

for communities in connective and dynamic ways.

• ACTION to encourage better communication across cultural, social, and political divides

AN ECOSYSTEM FOR MEDIA LITERACY