Subject: Media and Information Literacy

Topic: Media and Information Literacy

Media Literacy – ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate information in a variety
of forms, including print and non-print messages.

I. Fundamental Elements of Media Literacy (Art Silverblatt, 1995)

1. An awareness of the impact of the process of mass communication.
2. An understanding of the process of mass communication.
3. Strategies for analyzing and discussing media messages.
4. An understanding of media content as a text that provides insight into our culture of our
lives.
5. The ability to enjoy, understand and appreciate media content.
6. Critical thinking skill enabling the development of independent judgments about media
content.
Critical Thinking - the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.
Critical thinking is thinking about your thinking while you’re thinking in order to make your
thinking better. (Paul 1992)

II. Logical Fallacies

1. Ad hominem – attacking your opponents’ character or personal traits instead of
engaging with their argument.
2. Strawman – misinterpreting someone’s argument to make it easier to attack.
3. Loaded question – asking a question that has an assumption built into it so that it can’t
be answered without appearing quality.
4. Begging the question – a circular argument in which the conclusion is included in the
premises.
5. Black or white –where two alternative states are presented as the only possibilities,
when in fact more possibilities exist.
6. Slippery slope – asserting that if we allow A to happen, then Z will consequently happen
too, therefore A should not happen.
7. Burden proof – saying that burden of proof lies not with the person making claim, but
with someone else to disprove.
8. Composition/ Division – assuming that what’s true about one part of something has to
be applied to all, or other parts of it.
9. Bandwagon- appealing to popularity or the fact that among people do something as an
attempted form of validation.
10. Appeal to emotion – manipulating an emotional response in place of a valid or
compelling argument.