12 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

DIVISION OF CITY OF BOGO

Buac, Cayang, Bogo City, Cebu

Senior High School

MEDIA AND INFORMATION
LITERACY
Quarter 1
SLK 1

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 FOREWORD

This Self-Learning Kit of Media and Information Literacy is organized based on the
scope and competencies stipulated on the Curriculum Guide intended for this Learning
Area. It intends to develop a holistic understanding of how media operates as an
industry, how it generates content, how it influences audiences and how its force and
influence shape social beliefs.

This kit also aims to guide students to become multi-skilled in different ways of
learning, literate in the modern trend of technology and become effective in using
media and information in different contexts. Furthermore, it gears towards honing their
communication skills, creativity, social, and media literary in the global arena.

This is designed as self-instructional which means that students shall

accomplish the activities by themselves. They may ask guidance from their parents,
elder siblings or other family members if difficulty arises. This kit shall be retrieved and
shall not be used as answer sheets. Students shall use a separate paper for the activities.

NOTE: THIS IS A DRAFT LEARNING MATERIAL SUBJECT FOR

FURTHER QUALITY ASSURANCE AND APPROVAL.

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 Module 1

COMMUNCIATION IN MEDIA AND

INFORMATION

What I Need to Know

At the end of this module, the learners are expected to:

• distinguish the difference between interpersonal communication and mass
communication;
• identify elements of communication present in a given situation;
• describe how communication is influenced by media and information; and
• reflect on the importance of media and information in communication.

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 What I Know

A. Arrange the jumbled words below and place in one of the boxes. One the space
provided below the box, write a word that you can associate with the word inside the
box.
COMINACTIONUM EDIAM NATONIFRMIO
SEGAMSE AIEORPELRSNNT

____________________ _____________________ ___________________

_____________________ ________________________

B. Identify the following social media applications apparently used today.

1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8.

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 What is In

Read the statements below. Then, provide your answers by completing the letters inside
the boxes in each number.

1. It is where the message came from. It can be a person or an organization.

U E

2. It is the response generated by the message that was sent to the receiver through the
channels.

E D A K

3. The one who gets the message that was transmitted through the channels.

R C I E

4. The actual act of sending the message.

R N M I T G

5. It enables the act of sending or transmitting. It could be telephone, radio, television or

print media.

H N E S

6. It is the process by which a message is translated so it can be transmitted and

communicated to another party. It is how you compose your sentence as you
communicate

E O I G

7. It is the process by which the receiver translates the sender’s thoughts and ideas so
they can give meaning.

D C I G

8. It is something that interferes in the transmittal process.

N I E

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 What is New

Activity 1
1. Check out a message you just recently received from your mobile phone.
Note: To those who do not have phone, you may use letter that you received. You may
also use an article from any print materials.
2. Analyze the message guided by the following questions:

1. Where is the message coming from? (2 pts)

2. How is the message sent? (2 pts)

3. Who is the receiver? (2 pts)

3. After you have responded to the above questions, try to push your analysis a little further
by pondering on these questions:

4. What form did the sender use so that the message can be transmitted to the
intended receiver? (4 pts)

4. Try visualizing the process that starts with the sender and ends with the receiver. Fill in
the diagram below. (10 pts.)

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 What is It

In general, communication refers to people or groups of people imparting or exchanging

messages through speaking, writing, gestures, or even using other symbolic forms by utilizing
a variety of channels for sending and receiving. Communication plays an essential role in our
daily lives.

Turow (2009,7) defines messages as “a collection of symbols that appear purposefully

organized (meaningful) to those sending or receiving them.”
Think about how many ways by which you send a message to somebody. I a face-to-face
communication, you try to use your body to say something, stress a point, or even to express
emotions. You can speak with a louder voice to emphasize a point, you can cover your face to
express sadness, or chuckle to express amusement. Your shoulders shrugging will probably say
you have given up or you simply do not know. In case you are not able to communicate in a
face-to-face manner, you can send a letter, an electronic mail, or use one of the many platforms
of the internet for chatting.

Types of Communication

People communicate face-to-face with someone they know or someone who is a complete
stranger to them. In whatever way, they are engaging in interpersonal communication. Turow
(2009,8) defines interpersonal communication as “a form of communication that involves two
to three individuals interacting through the use of their voices and bodies.”

There are times when you cannot and need not to talk face-to-face, so communication
becomes mediated through the use of devices such as pen, telephone, or computer. This is
known as mediated interpersonal communication. Technology stands in between the parties
communicating and becomes the channel by which the message is sent or received.

It is also useful to distinguish between different types of communication depending on the

number of people involved and the purpose driving the exchanges. Mall group communication
involves discourse between three or more persons. Your class being divided into small groups
to work on a class activity is a fine example of small group communication.

The same goes to your barkada huddling over a magazine and exchanging thoughts on the
issue being talked about in an article.

People communicate differently in a working environment, and this type of interaction is to

as organizational communication. An e-mail sent by the school principal to all the academic
personnel to communicate a new policy is an example of organizational communication. These
messages flow through faculty meeting, memorandum posted in the bulletin boards for the
personnel to see, or in conferences and seminars.

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 Public communication involves one person communicating to a large number of people.
The priest who stands before the congregation to deliver his homily is also engaged in a face-
to-face public communication in the same manner that a politician who stands in the municipal
plaza trying to win over a voting population. The mayor or local government official standing
before his constituents, exhorting them to be vigilant as they prepare for the coming of a storm,
is also a form of public communication.

All these forms of communication delivered face-to-face or through mediating channels,

involve messages.

What makes up a message? It may seem like a simple term but it deserves more serious
attention. Let us try to unpack the word.

Mediated Interpersonal Communication Breakdown

In November 8, 2013, Typhoon Yolanda (international codename “Haiyan”) lashed out in

the provinces of Leyte and Samar. Once of the strongest storms ever recorded in history.
Typhoon Yolanda killed an estimated 10,000 people.

The capital city of Leyte, Tacloban, bore the brunt of the storm along with adjacent
municipalities like Palo and Tanuan. Tacloban lies in a cove where the sea water narrows,
making it more vulnerable to a phenomenon called “storm surge”, which was largely
responsible for the 6,290 dead, 1,785, and 28,626 injured in the storm’s aftermath (DOST
Project NOAH Blog).

What could account for the huge number of dead, missing and injured?

While it is true that the extent and magnitude of the expected Typhoon was communicated
as part of pre-disaster readiness, there was a term that did not get across the intended receives.

The term was “storm surge”. They did not know what a storm surge was. They did not
know that it could be deadly, that the strength of its waves could topple houses and kill huge
numbers of people in the low-lying areas.

“There was a difficulty in explaining to the public what a storm surge is. We were aware
of the height, but not the strength”, Romualdez said (GMA News 2013). Apparently, the
information disseminated failed to convey the deadly threat.

The misconception of storm surge is the main factor that brought massive deaths and
destruction to Tacloban City.

Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary, Sonny Coloma, insisted the

government had sufficiently prepared for Yolanda – pre- positioning disaster relief items and
launching massive citizen information campaigns, but admitted that “perhaps we could have
communicated the danger better”. Even the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and

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Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) admitted that while all necessary public
warnings were issued, there could have been more precise information in explaining to the
public the magnitude and gravity of a storm surge.

When tragedy strikes, it is normal for citizens to lose faith in the communication networks
and systems that are managed by the government. Now, PAGASA is bent on working with
linguists to ensure that people understand threats posed by nature’s wrath, including typhoons,
floods, earthquakes and other calamities.

COMMUNICATION VIS-À-VIS MASS COMMUNICATION

Let us start off with the texting phenomenon to illustrate how communications are affected
by media and information. When you send a text message to another person, you are using the
cellphone as a means of communication. Your message sent through the cellphone is
transmitted by the signals provided by the mobile phone company and lands to the intended
receiver’s cell phone. It is a form of mediated interpersonal communication assisted by the
technology provided by cellphones.

However, as attested by the EDSA II phenomenon, cellphone technology was significantly

used to topple a government, as illustrated in the article of Vicente Rafael, “The Cellphone and
the Crowd: Messianic Politics in Contemporary Philippines,” (See
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/5t1376v0).

The phenomenon started out quite easily. On January 16, 2000, a text message landed on
somebody’s phone enthusiastically calling out concerned citizens to mass up at the EDSA
Shrine, after 11 senators voted to block the opening of a sealed envelope that contained the
evidence of President Estrada’s corruption and hidden wealth. The public responded with
outrage over the apparent move to block the truth. The text message could have borne these
words: “FULL MBLSN 2DAY AT EDSA” “(Full, mobilization today at EDSA”) and “GO 2
EDSA WEAR BLCK BRING UR FRENDS” (“Go to EDSA, wear black, bring your friends”).
By 8:00 p.m., around 20,000 had already gathered at the EDSA Shrine, and the days that
followed saw more people, not just from Metro Manila but from the nearby provinces as well.

According to McQuail (1969, 2), mass communication “comprise the institutions and
techniques by which specialized groups employ technological devices (press, radio, film, etc.)
to disseminate symbolic content to large, heterogeneous, and widely dispersed audiences.”

McQuail’s definition signals us to two basic concepts which cue us to the defining features
of mass communication – first, technological devises and second, the magnitude and scope of
its audiences.

Is the EDSA II event, propelled by texting as Rafael (2003) contends, a form of mass
communications or just a more complex illustration of mediated interpersonal communication?

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 These two forms of communication are very much interrelated. Technology brings
symbolic and complex messages to large, heterogeneous, and widely dispersed audiences.

The example above illustrates that sometimes mediated interpersonal communication

resembles mass communication in its ability to reach large numbers of people. The texting
phenomenon that toppled a president happened because people were connected through their
cellphones, and the rate of connection increase exponentially. One text message was forwarded
to probably five to ten, or perhaps even more recipients. Imagine how the numbers multiplied
exponentially. It reached such a number that translated into warm bodies in EDSA.

In this case, the similarity between interpersonal communication and mass communication
is the ability to both to reach huge numbers of recipients or audience. However, the difference
also becomes apparent. The most important differences relate to these three elements: 1) the
source of the message, 2) the process of transmittal, and 3) the way feedback is generated and
sent.

For instance, your friend Sandy is the president of a broad coalition advocates for good
governance. He has been relentlessly engaging in various sectors of society to expose
corruption in the government. He comes to your house to tell you that plans of massing up the
EDSA shrine are now in place, and many like-minded organizations are supporting this move.
He visits to your house so you can have a face-to-face communication; this is interpersonal
communication.

Suppose he is unable to drop by your house and, instead, sends you a text message; this is
mediated interpersonal conversation. Since he is a leader of an organization, his associates find
it appropriate to record in video camera a short spiel where he makes an appeal to his friends
from all over the city to come and join the rally at EDSA. The video message lands in your
email. This is a fine example of mediated organizational communication.

However, it is highly possible that your friend Sandy is invented to a talk show, so he can
inform the public of his call to a rally at the EDSA Shrine. Here is where you encounter his
appeal that is persuasive enough to get you and your friends to pick up your bags and head to
the EDSA Shrine.

The three levels of communication mentioned above achieved the same purpose, albeit in
rather different ways and through different channels. The last one – the opportunity for Sandy
to be guest in a talk show – uses a media organization that is vast, complex, and highly
structured. This is where the difference lies.

To get Sandy as a guest entailed a series of processes. A production meeting for the week’s
episodes generated a series of actions that allowed network executives to determine the priority
issues of the day. They have probably thought that the call for a president’s ouster is imminent
and that the coalition representing this call is broad enough and deserve to be heard by the
viewing public. Sandy is contacted by the network executives, and is adequately oriented on
the nature of the program and the questions that may be asked by the panelists. It is also likely
that Sandy was provided some tips on how to convey his message and how to avoid certain

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words that may seem politically incendiary to the Board of Censors or even to the advertisers.
In a way, these institutions that are external to the broadcast network have stakes in the
programs that are aired. Let us try the chart the nature of Sandy’s messages using the 7 element
or cycles of a message.

Mediated Interpersonal Mass Communication

Communication
Message Sandy talks to his friends and colleagues in Sandy’s organization, the
a meeting, over coffee, sends e-mails, and Kongreso ng mga
text messages, informing them to the Mamayang Pilipino or
planned mass action at the EDSA shrine. Kompil, is interviewed as
part of the featured in the
primetime news, Sandy and
his colleagues turns up at a
late-night talk show and at
the end of his 15 – minute
spiel, he gives a persuasive
call to action. Flashed on the
screen are the e-mail
addresses and the telephone
number of the organizers of
the mass action.
Source Sandy himself, as the leader of the The television programs.
organization
Encoding Sandy composing the message himself The format of the news
program and the talk show
that is able to accommodate
the message of Sandy as a
concerned citizen and leader
of political organization.
Channel The phone, the cell phone, and the e-mail Broadcast network
Receiver Dozens of individuals The millions of people who
are tuned in the television
program
Decoding The dozens of individuals who receive Messages of the audience
Sandy’s e-mails, phone calls, and text who are tuned in to the show
messages
Feedback The returned phone calls, e-mails, and text The number of people tuned
message sent to Sandy up and expressed support for
Sandy’s call
Noise Could be glitches in the Internet Words or ideas that members
Interference connection, the hums in the telephone lines, of the audience cannot grasp
or too many text messages being sent or language they cannot
understand

Interpersonal communication, inasmuch as it is mediated by technology, appears to be

limited in each reach; mass communication, however, is able to reach huge audiences at the
same time. Mediated interpersonal Communication too appears like messages created by

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individuals or perhaps teams, while mass communication is created by huge, mostly powerful
and extensive organizations.

In the examples we have cited earlier, the huge number of Filipinos who gathered at the
EDSA Shrine in a mass action that showed popular sentiments against an equally populist
president, was a combination of both mediated interpersonal communication and the reach of
mass communication. While the first one involved the crafting of messages by an individual,
the second one involved a media organization that has the capacity to command a huge
viewership.

A telephone conversation between the President of the Philippines and his Chief of Staff
qualifies as interpersonal communication. But the President and his Chief of Staff appearing
before national television to communicate a call or rally the people to action, would then
constitute mass communication.

The involvement of huge and expansive organization is central to the idea of mass
communication. Mass communication is carried out by organization which is part of a bigger
assembly or network of institutions that form an industry. Like the manufacture of products in
a factory assembly line, they produce media in an industrialized setting, involving a remarkable
size of workers with specialized knowledge, machinery, technology, and channels of the
distribution and dissemination of knowledge.

What’s More

Activity 2. Accomplish the Venn Diagram below. Compare and contrast mediated
interpersonal communication and mass communication.

,, ,,

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Activity 3. Identify the elements of communication used in the given situation. Use the table
below.

Situation: Mrs. Diosdado gives her instructions to the students in her online class. Then the
students ask Mrs. Diosdado for clarifications.

Mediated Interpersonal Communication

1. Message

2. Source

3. Encoding

4. Channel

5. Receiver

6. Decoding

7. Feedback

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 What I Have Learned

Reflect on the learning that you gained after taking up this lesson by answering the
questions below.
1. What is the importance of media in communication?

2. How will you be an effective communicator in using media?

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 What I Can Do

A. Complete the table below. Cite one situation of a mass communication and fill in the
table based on the elements of communication used in the situation. (2 pts. each
element)

Situation:

Mass Communication
Source

Encoding

Channel

Receiver

Decoding

Feedback

B. Write at short narrative paragraph after accomplishing the instructions below. (10 pts.)

Interview an elder in the family, preferably someone removed one or two

generations from you. If you do not have that elder in your family, perhaps you can turn
to your immediate community. Make them recall the forms of media that they used either
as sources of information and entertainment. Engage them in a freewheeling interview
session where they can enjoyably go down memory lane and share with you their sources
of media and information.

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 ASSESSMENT

A. Write MIC if the situation falls to mediated interpersonal communication and write
MC if the situation belongs to mass communication.

______1. Your elementary best friend sent you an invitation for her house blessing
through telegram.
______2. The school principal sent a copy of his report by fax.
______3. Kathryn Bernardo shared her success life stories in People Magazine.
______4. Someone expressed public apology over the radio.
______5. A robbery that happened occurred in our barangay last night appeared on the
newspaper.
______6. Some of the letters of Dr. Jose Rizal to Leonor were published in many books
worldwide.
______7. Your teacher gives you a call informing that you are officially enrolled.
______8. Gov. Gwen on her live speech in a Facebook page expressed her dismay to the
people who did not seriously follow quarantine protocols.
______9. Since there should be no face-to-face transaction between the teachers and the
students, the SSG President sent his project proposal to the SSG Adviser through email.
______10. Raffy Tulfo in his program made a “prank” to Ivana about disobedience to
quarantine protocols.
B. Identify the elements of communication present in each number.

1. Invitation to the mayor

2. Your classmates disagree your opinion that you shared about Anti-Terrorism Bill.
3. The SLK distributor gives you or your parent instructions on how to use the SLK.
SLK distributor stands as ____________.
4. Your teacher adviser monitors the class accomplishment in SLK through messenger.
Messenger serves as the _____________.
5. You listen and comprehend the instructions given by the SLK distributor.
6. You could not listen carefully to your teacher when he/she was giving instructions
because your siblings were shouting at each other.
7. Greetings on your birthday
8. You felt discouraged when your classmate informed you that you failed in the
entrance examination. Then you still responded positively. Your reaction serves as
__________.
9. You affirmed to the teacher’s statement.
10. Your teacher listens to your opinion about a certain topic.

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