MEDIA INFORMATION LITERACY

© angelica garcia

THIS REVIEWER IS NOT FOR SALE.

Identifying Fake News

1. No identification
- List of names of persons who are accountable for the content it holds
- Names are for accountability

2. Unidentified aggregation
- Websites which aggregate and curate content nowadays do not only share content but
create their own reports from other news sources.

3. Article submission news sites

- These don’t satisfy any journalistic criteria and should be dismissed as a news source.

4. News Trending Sites

- Sites that pick-up selectively from viral and trending posts in the internet.

5. Satirical Sites
- Uses humor, irony, exaggeration, and ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity, or
vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topics.

Communication
 A process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system
of symbols, signs, or behavior.

Literacy
 Ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, and compute, using printed
and written materials associated with varying contexts.
 Involves a continuum of learning, wherein individuals are able to achieve their goals, develop
their knowledge and potential, and participate fully in their community and wider society.

Media
 Physical objects used to communicate with, or the mass communication through physical
objects such as television, computer, films, etc.
 Traditionally, media are source of credible information in which contents are provided through
an editorial process determined by journalistic values and where editorial accountability can
be attributed to an organization of a legal person. In more recent years, the term media is
often used to include new online media.

Media Literacy
 It is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media in a variety of forms.
 Aims to empower citizens by providing them with the competencies (knowledge & skills)
necessary to engage with traditional media and new technologies.
  Framework that provides the tools and techniques to navigate media & its myriad of
messages.
 Ability to understand & use mass media in either an assertive or non-assertive way, including
an informed and critical understanding of media, the technique they employ, and their
effects.

Information
 Broad term that covers processed data, knowledge derived from study, experience,
instruction, signals, or symbols.

Information Literacy
 Ability to recognize when information is needed and to locate, evaluate, and effectively
communicate information in its various formats.
 Includes competencies to be effective in all stages of the lifecycle of documents of all kinds,
the capacity to understand the ethical implications of these documents, and the ability to
behave in an ethical way throughout these stages.
 Set of competencies for obtaining, understanding, evaluating, adapting, generating, storing,
and presenting information for problem analysis and decision-making.

Technology Literacy
 Ability of an individual either working independently or with others, to responsibly,
appropriately, and effectively use technological tools.
 Using these tools, an individual can access, manage, integrate, create, and communicate
information.

Media and Information Literacy

 Set of competencies that empower citizens to access, retrieve, understand, evaluate, and use,
to create as well as share information and media content in all formats, using various tools in a
critical and ethical manner.
 Essential skills and competencies that allow individuals to engage with media and other
information providers effectively, as well as develop critical thinking and lifelong learning skills
to socialize and become active citizens.

Harold Cottam
 Wireless operator on the RMS Carpathia when the SOS from the sinking Titanic was sent. He
used wireless telegraphy to communicate with RMS Titanic and mobilize rescue operations.
Known as "Titanic's Unsung Hero"

The Evolution of Traditional and New Media

I. Pre-industrial Age (Before 1700s)
- People discovered fire, developed paper from plants, and forged weapons and tools with
stone, bronze, copper, and iron.
- Highly characterized by people’s ability to harness whatever is available in nature to be
able to convey their messages
- Towards the end, the development of the printing press was the "world-changing" event in
the pre-industrial age.
 - 35000 BC: Cave Paintings (used wall and charcoal, blood, mud, dirt or anything that would
etch on the wall)
 A Chauvet Cave in France contains one of the oldest cave drawings.
- 4500 BC: Papyrus in Egypt
 Papyrus was made from plants (oldest papyrus was recovered around 2015-2016, which
was dated 4000-5000 years ago; it contained all the plans on the construction of the
pyramids of Giza: Diary of Merer)
 Developed Hieroglyphics and Cuneiform
 Rosetta stone: without it, the people would never understand what the letters in the
hieroglyphics contains. It is one of the earliest examples of people using multiple
languages and translating it so people could understand (hieroglyphics, demotic,
Greek).
- 4500 BC-2400 BC: Clay tablets in Mesopotamia
 Size was big as an iPhone
 Contains very small messages
 Code of Hammurabi: law code of King Hammurabi. A stone tablet that contains the
rules of the land. Harsh laws were in the stone tablet. Located in Paris.
- 130 BC: Acta Diurna in Rome
 "Gazette" or their version of the newspaper
 Contains small updates from the government
 Either in marble, copper, bronze, gold, or silver or anything expensive.
- 5th Century: The Mayan Codex
 Made by the Mayans (earliest civilizations in the world)
 Was questioned
 Contains about their rituals, religions, and inscriptions of their different gods, deities.
- 2nd century: Dibao in China
 Wood blocks made it possible for Chinese to communicate
- 220 AD: Printing press
 Prior to the printing press, all forms of communication (e.g. books) were given to those
who had money
 Because of the printing press, there became a mass printing of books and certain
ideologies
 The Bible was one of the first books published through the printing press

II. Industrial Age (1700s to 1930s)

- People used the power of steam, developed machine tools, established iron production,
and the manufacturing of various products (including books through printing press)
- Harnessing electricity for daily use is a characteristic of this age, as some of the
technological inventions developed with various electricity-related experimentations
- There was a rise in politically motivated movements and rapid economic developments.
This age saw the active role of technology in advancing the way people communicate
and share information
- Evident in the way the world shifted gears from being a predominantly agricultural
economy to a more industrialized economy
- As the time in the history developed, the people saw the use of the printing press. It
improved from its original version.
- 1590s: Publication of the first newspaper in Western Europe. It was called "Relation: Aller
Fürnemmen" by Johann Carolus
- 1690: Publick Occurrences, both Foreign and Domestic, the first newspaper published in
America, was printed by Richard Pierce and edited by Benjamin Harris in Boston on
September 25, 1690. It contained three printed pages and one blank.
- 1704: First newspaper advertisements appeared in Boston news-letter. The ads called for
the recovery of stolen goods, information about lost anvils, and even information about
real estate available on Long Island, New York.
- 1741: The American Magazine and The General magazine and Historical Chronicle were
the first magazines published in America (thought of by Benjamin Franklin)
- 1826: The first photograph (earliest known surviving photograph) was taken by Joseph
Nicéphore Niépce (first photographs were not printed on paper but on a steel)
- 1839: Frenchman Louis Daguerre ushered what we know now as photography using his
daguerreotype system of capturing images in flat copper plate sheets. (First picture of
humans on photograph was taken by Louis Daguerre; it usually takes 7 minutes for the
photo to "develop")
- 1844: Invention of the telegraph by Samuel Morse. The telegraph allowed rapid transfer of
messages via wires and cables
- 1876: From mere decoded messages, the human voice was next to be delivered through
the wires upon the invention of telephone by Alexander Graham Bell
- 1888: George Eastman invented the first easy-to-use handheld camera called the Kodak
Camera which uses rolled and perforated celluloid film
- 1877: Thomas Edison experimented with recording sound and music with his invention of
the phonograph. He also tried to create a camera that could take videos (kinetoscope).
 Fred Ott's sneeze and Carmencita Spanish Dance (can be viewed through a
kinetoscope)
- 1887: Emile Berliner successfully developed a sound and music system with the
gramophone which played back music on flat disks or records.
- 1895: First public commercial screening of a film by the Lumiere Brothers (Auguste and
Louis) entitled Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station/ Arrivee d'un trai en gare a la ciotat.
They made use of a cinematograph which had the capacity of a film projector to project
film to a big screen.
- 1902: Cinema pioneer George Méliés premiered a silent short film Le Voyage dans La Lune
or A Trip to the Moon. The film is now part of the top 100 films of all time.
- 1927: The first feature film originally presented as a talkie was the Jazz Singer released in
October 1927. A major hit, it was made with vitaphone, which was at the time the leading
brand of sound on disc technology.
- 1873: James Clerk Maxwell experimented with electromagnetic waves (or radio waves)
- 1887: Heinrich Hertz demonstrated the first transmission of radio waves
- 1894: Guglielmo Marconi became the first person to recognize the commercial viability of
the radio system in America when he took and improved the innovations of Edouard Banly
and Oliver Lodge
- Radio before was first used in the maritime industry at the onset of 1900s until it got heavy
communication and info usage in WW I, radio then became part of mainstream society
when the use became a commercial one. From radio's original purpose to improve
people's communication processes, it use crossed to entertainment use
 - 1927: American Philo (pronounced as "faylo") Farnsworth made the first television
transmittal of a picture
- 1930: Received the first patent of the electric television
- 1934: Made a public demo of the early prototype of the television

III. Electronic Age (1930s to 1980s)

- Invention of the transistor radio ushered this age.
- People harnessed the power of transistors that led to transistor radio, electronic circuits,
and the early computers.
- In this age, long distance communication became more efficient
- At a certain time in history, the industrial age and electronic age happened when human
beings realized the importance and relevance of information as a commodity. This means
that messages or pieces of information exchanged from one hand to the other with some
form of cost or economic transaction connected to it
- Characterized by the way humans consumed information in a rapidly developing age,
leading us towards what they call the information society.
- 1947: Invention of transistor, the first practically implemented device was a point-contact
transistor invented by John Bardeen, Walter Houser Brattain, and William Bradford
- 1949: EDSAC was invented by Maurice Wilkes (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic
Calculator)
- 1949: Universal Automatic Computer was created by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly
- 1950s: Transistor television and radio
- 1954: The IBM 704 was introduced. It is the first mass-produced computer with floating-point
arithmetic hardware
- 1970s and 1980s: Personal computers like the Apple computer 1, is a desktop computer is a
desktop computer released by the Apple Company in 1976. It was designed and built by
Steve Wozniak. Wozniak's friend, Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer

IV. Information Age (1990s to 2000)

- Internet paved the way for faster communication and the creation of social network.
- People advanced the use of microelectronics with the invention of the personal
computers, mobile devices, and wearable technology. Moreover, voice, image, sound
and data are digitalized.
- 1980s: Personal computers. It changed how people went by through the days; increased
people's productivity levels and became work-centric.
- 1990: First web browser was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He is the director of the world
wide web consortium, which oversees the web's continued development and is also the
founder of the W3 foundation
- 1993-1998: Originally the search engine used Stanford's website with the
domain google.stanford.edu. the domain google.com was registered on September 15,
1997. They formally incorporated their company, Google, on September 4, 1998 in their
friend Susan Wojcicki's garage in Menlo Park, California
- 1999: Creation of blogs (wordpress, multiply, tumblr, myspace)
- 2000s: Social networks were created (2000: myspace, 2002: friendster, 2004: facebook)
- 2003: Video chatting
 - 2005: Youtube. (First Youtube video: Me at the Zoo. Uploaded on April 23, 2005 at 20:27:12
PDT)
- 2006: Micro blogs like twitter
- 2010: Wearable technology, Cloud storage, Big data (summarized info regarding users)

Media and Information Literacy

 "Whoever controls the media controls the mind." (Perception changing)

Types of Media (areas where communication is shared)

1. Print Media
- Consisting of paper and ink, reproduced in a printing process that is
traditionally mechanical.
- Books: reading material that can either be fictional or nonfictional. In the past, texts are
written on parchment paper using a quilt, then paper are sewn together to form a book.
Today, texts are encoded and laid out using a computer, then sent to the printing press to
be mass produced.
- Almanac: detailed info about topics of special interest
- Dictionary: give definition, etymology, pronunciation of words
- Thesaurus: synonyms or antonyms
- Atlas: collection of maps
- Newspaper: printed on a daily or weekly basis that has sections that cater to the public's
interest.
 Types:
a. Broadsheet – more in depth discussion about issues, formal.
b. Tabloid – informal; a newspaper having pages half the size of those of a standard
newspaper, typically popular in style and dominated by headlines, photographs,
and sensational stories.
- Magazine: periodical publication released weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Contains articles
on various topics depending on the subject or area that the magazine covers. Looks more
attractive than a newspaper in terms of cover, design, layout, and quality of paper used.
- Journal: informative articles
- Newsletter: released weekly or monthly for special purposes
- Gazette: official government publication
- Pamphlet: a small, unbound booklet focused on a single subject, often educational in
nature.
- Brochure: small book or magazine that contain pictures and information about products or
services offered by a company or organization
- Leaflet and Flyer: printed sheet of paper which includes information about product for
advertising purpose. Leaflet is a small flyer. These are distributed and given free to targeted
customers to promote a product

2. Broadcast media
- Consists of programs produced by TV networks and radio stations. Broadcast media arts
include audio and video
- Radio: data is transmitted by the radio through electric currents or frequencies about 3000
hertz to 300 gigahertz. Can be set in an AM amplitude or FM.
  In Amplitude modulation, the amplitude of the radio signal encodes information.
 In FM (frequency modulation), a change in frequency is used to encode information.
- Television: most visible appliance at home.
 It is equipped with an electronic system capable of sending images and sounds by a
wire or through space.
 A TV has the capacity to receive and project transient images of fixed or moving
objects with sounds. Through its complex electronic system, it is able to transmit data
through the apparatus, which is capable of converting light and sound into electrical
waves and reconverts them into visible light rays and audible sound back to the
viewers.
 Sensitivity in creating content for TV is the fact that it is accessible for all.
- Film: also called movies or motion pictures.
 Films offer a variety of themes (drama, comedy, horror, action, animation, or
documentary) and genres.
 Films are series of images captured on film and projected on a screen.
 Challenge: How to make people watch them? (Paano pag-eeffortan paggastusan at
panoorin sa cinema ng mga tao?).
 Takes years in perfecting the material.
 "Visual Book"

3. New Media
- Internet is an electronic communications network that connects computer users through
various networks and organizational facilities around the world. This allows users to browse
different websites and communicate with each other through the web
- Web page: most widely used service on the internet. Consists of many web pages joined
by hyperlinks
- Hypertext: a software system that links topics on the screen to related information and
graphics, which are typically accessed by a point-and-click method.
- Instant Messaging (IM): user can interact with another user through online chat in real time.
Has the ability to transmit real-time text
- Email: messages distributed by electronic means from one computer user to one or more
recipients via a network.
- Distance Education: online classrooms, lessons, and courses
- Ebook: an electronic version of a printed book that can be read on a computer or
handheld device designed specifically for this purpose.
- Online Shopping: provides convenience to consumers as they can easily show at home.
 Provides consumers more choices of products with.
 A new and unique concept which is beneficial for budding entrepreneurs as they can
advertise their products easily and reach out to more consumers

Media Convergence
 Interconnects information with communication technologies, computer networks, and media
content.
 Example: Spotify, Apple Music (from music broadcast media); Phones (multipurpose); Actual
Print book to new media: EBook, audio books; movies: cinema to Netflix, iFlix, Google play,
YouTube; from tarp billboards to led billboards
Media and Information Sources
1. Indigenous sources
- Exists naturally in a particular region or environment
- Connotes that the person belongs to an ethnic tribe has preserved and still practice the
culture and tradition of their ancestors
- Oral tradition: elders recount their culture to their children and grandchildren through
legends, folktales, epics, mythologies, and folksongs. This became an avenue of
communal experience

2. Primary Sources
- Original materials such as artifacts, documents, recordings that came from first hand
sources.
- Relics: pottery, ornaments, accessories, and other objects found

3. Secondary Sources
- Documents after an event has taken place
- Give second-hand accounts about a particular event, person, or information
- Provide another angle and analysis
- One of the biggest libraries is in France: La Bibliothèque national de France

Information Literacy
 All information is good even when its bad

Qualities of Information Literate Persons

1. Distinguish which is relevant information among different sources.
2. Discover where to get information
3. Organize and classify forms of media to secure substantial information
4. Develop effective research skills needed for knowledge and comprehension enrichment

Big 6 Stage Model

 by Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz
 Helps anyone solve problems or make decisions using information

1. Define Information Needs or Problems

 Define information needed
 Identify the information needed
 What is my current task?
 What are some topics or questions I need to answer?
 What information will I need?

2. Information-seeking strategies
 Determine all possible sources
 Select the best sources
 What are all possible sources to check?
 What are the best sources of information for this task?
 3. Locate and Access
 Locate sources intellectually and physically
 Find information within sources
 Where can I find these sources?
 Where can I find the information in the source?

4. Use of Information
 Engage: read, hear, view, touch
 Extract relevant information
 What information do I expect to find in this source?
 What information from the source is useful?

5. Synthesis
 Organize from multiple sources
 Present the information
 How will i organize my information?
 How should I present my information?

6. Evaluation
 Judge the product for effectiveness
 Judge the process for efficiency
 Did I do what was required?
 Did I complete each of the Big 6 strategies effectively?

Mediums
 The medium is the message – Example: A written letter from your class adviser, Break-up
through text message
- The form of media itself affects the way we communicate

Media and Information Languages

 Languages – techniques or how something communicates to us. Depends on audience and
context.
 In media, languages are the technical and symbolic ingredients or codes and conventions
that media and information professionals may select and use in an effort to communicate
ideas, information, and knowledge.

Codes
 Codes are systems of signs which create meaning. They generally have an agreed meaning,
or connotation to their audience (Technical, Symbolic, Written, Audio)

1. Symbolic Codes
 Show what’s beneath what we see.
 Include language, dress or actions of characters, or iconic symbols that are easily
understood. For example, a red rose may be used symbolically to convey romance or a
clenched fist may be used to communicate anger. (Example: The film "Wizard of Oz" is
 full of symbolisms – e.g. Dorothy's Ruby Red Slippers symbolize her passion to travel
somewhere)
a. Setting – Time and place of the narrative.
 When discussing this, you can describe the setting of the whole story or just a
specific scene.
 A setting can be as big as the outback or space, or as small as a specific room.
 Setting can even be a created atmosphere or frame of mind. Sometimes just a
location and sometimes can even be a character (importance).
a. Mise En Scene – a French term that means "everything within the frame."
 In media terms, it has become to mean the description of all the objects within a
frame of the media product and how they have been arranged.
 An analysis of this includes set design, props, costume, staging, and composition.
 Costume Design: can show transition of people through their wardrobe.
Oftentimes is taken for granted.
a. Acting – actors portray characters in media products and contribute to character
development, creating tension or advancing a narrative.
 The actor portrays a character through: facial expression, body language, vocal
qualities, movement, and body contact.
a. Color – Have highly cultural and strong connotations.
 When studying the use of colors in a media product, the different aspects to be
looking at are: dominant color, contrast color, color symbolism. Can be a
psychological process and can create a theme from the atmosphere.

2. Technical Codes
 Specific in a media form and do not live outside of them. For instance, our
understanding of different camera shots and their connotations make sense when we
look and films and photographs. Includes camerawork, editing, audio and lighting
a. Camerawork – how camera is positioned, operated and moved for special effects.
b. Editing – process of choosing, manipulating, and arranging images and sound.
c. Audio – expressive / naturalistic use of sound. Can be diegetic or non-diegetic
 Diegetic – anything that is part of the scene and is naturally there. Sounds expected
from the film. If actor can see, touch, or hear it then it is diegetic; such as door
closing.
 Non-diegetic – neither visible on the screen nor has been implied present in the
action: narrator's commentary, sound effects, mood music.
d. Lighting – manipulation of natural or artificial light to selectively highlight specific
elements of the scene.

3. Written Codes
 Formal written language used in a media product.
 Can be used to advance a narrative, communicate information about a character or
uses and themes in the media product.
 Includes printed language (can see within the frame and how it is presented) and
spoken language (includes dialogue and lyrics).
Conventions
 Accepted ways of using media codes
 Closely connected to the audience expectations of a media product
 Different types of conventions include form conventions, story conventions, genre conventions
 "nakasanayan"

1. Form Conventions
 Structure of the form of media that we use
 Certain ways we expect types of media codes to be arranged
 Ex: Audience expects to have a title of the film at the beginning and credits at the end
 Newspapers have a masthead, the most important news on the front page and sports
news on the back page.
 Video games usually start with a tutorial to explain the mechanics of how the game
works
 Another example is continuity editing – most video forms follow a set of editing rules
and techniques called continuity editing which allows for the audience to easily
understand what is going on in a scene and who is talking to who

2. Story Conventions
 Common narrative structures and understandings that are common in storytelling and
media products
 Includes: narrative structures, cause and effect, character construction, point of view
 Film: "Memento" (started with the middle and the movie's climax was the ending. the
beginning of the movie was the end)

3. Genre Conventions
 Point to the common use of tropes, characters, settings, or themes in a particular type
of medium.
 Genre conventions are closely linked with audience expectations
 Can be formal or thematic

Ethical Use of Information

 Citing sources in form of footnotes, endnotes, bibliography
 Ethical way of declaring and protecting intellectual property of an individual.

1. Citation
 Used to inform the readers that certain text or ideas on the work came from another
source.
 APA: American Psychological Association; most common form of citation
 CMS: Chicago Manual of Style; notes-bibliography and author-date system
 MLA: Modern Language Association; commonly used in writing papers and citing
sources

2. Plagiarism
 Act of stealing from others, their thoughts or their writing and claiming them as one's
own.
  Using other people’s words and ideas without clearly acknowledging the source of
information

3. Copyright
 Set of rights granted to author or creator of a work to restrict others ability to copy,
redistribute, and reshape the content.
4. Fair Use
 Limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author
of the creative work.

5. Intellectual Property
 Overall law protecting copyrights and intellectual property creations including patent
and trademarks

6. Public Domain
 Concept of general welfare or benefit to the public as a whole in contrast to the
particular interests of the group.

Theories on Media and Information

1. Media Richness Theory – personal communication methods such as video calls and text
messages are more effective, since communication is directly sent to receiver. (Proponents:
Richard L. Draft and Robert H. Lengel)
2. Information Processing Theory – humans process information instead of merely responding to
stimuli.
3. Contingency Theory – the use of technology and other variables can change the behavior
and structure of organizations in order to complete tasks (based on Joan Woodward’s work in
1958)
4. Media Naturalness Theory – face-to-face communication is the most natural communication
method and messages are more clearly understood in person. The farther the sender and
receiver are from each other, the harder it is to process information and comprehend the
message.
5. Media Synchronization Theory – it is better for two communicating people to be present and
available in real time.
6. Conveyance – make something known to another person.
7. Convergence – come together to set a common interest, purpose, or goal.
8. Channel Expansion Theory – individuals choose media for communication based on their
experience in handling that media alongside the person he will talk with and the topic he will
discuss. (Proponents: John Carlson and Robert Zmud, 1999)