Submitted by: Amna

NUST Registration no. 10471820

MS Teams ID: amna.bsp20s3h@student.nust.edu.pk

BS Psychology 2020

Submitted to: Ms. Tashin Fatima

Subject: Mass Communication

Dated: 24-01-2021

Topic: Quiz 2 - Media literacy

In this today’s modern world, where everything is just a click away, much news circulate around
the social media and other platforms. With this ease come greater problems as to which news
is reliable and which is merely an attempt to mislead people. This sort of dilemma is not faced
by just a specific culture, it is everywhere globally. In order to overcome this dilemma, the
concept of media literacy is quite helpful for those who practice it. This can be easily
understood as the process of identifying different type of media. This helps us in distinguishing
between fake and authentic news.
Following are the considerations for evaluating media messages:

Is message Does
Credentials altering my message
of Author thoughts, benefit
actions? monetarily?
?

Author Reason the Audience How we

of message message is authenticate
message was created for the
message?

Below is the news article I chose for the quiz:

Link: https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/772627-ny-times-picks-lahore-as-one-of-the-top-
places-to-visit-in-2021

This article is written by the website “International The News,” in which the decision of New
York Times of listing Lahore as one of the top places to visit in 2021, has been discussed and
analyzed. Since, this is a news article, the intended audience is usual internet surfers who tend
to read online articles and international tourists who are in search of beautiful tourist spots
around the world. The purpose of writing this news article is to tell people that Pakistan, to be
more specific, Lahore, is a great place for the tourists. The format of the media message is an
online news article. The purpose for which I chose this article was that it portrays a positive
image of Pakistan, includes an account of an author who haven’t been to Pakistan in 12 years
and how beautifully honest that account is.

Q.1. Ans: When I saw the headline of the article, I thought that it isn’t an authentic article (till
now I didn’t see the author and the website). The reason for my disbelief was the fact that
Pakistan has always been considered a hostile and dangerous environment for tourists by the
Western countries. To say that an American newspaper of such a high repute, New York Times,
did the opposite of their beliefs against Pakistan by adding Lahore to the list of top places to
visit in 2021, completely caused this disbelief in me would be an understatement. Secondly, the
same newspaper, writes an article about Lahore not for its heritage, culture and hospitality, but
rather points out that smog is the fifth season in the very city of Pakistan, is a clear
contradiction to the news article I’ve chosen. Now a person like me who has a clear
understanding of the biased attitude of the Western media towards Pakistan, due its major
population of Muslims, will think that the very positive news about Pakistan is false.

However, after I answered the five questions, I got to know that I was wrong and that the news
is true. indeed. I was able to identify the website as a reliable one. I further read the article to
state its purpose above so I came across an account that was so close to reality and led me to
believe that the news is indeed genuine and authentic.

No, I don’t any other question need to be asked, as it is a news article and answering the
already given questions are more than enough for a person to determine the authenticity of the
media message.

Q.2. Ans: It is easy to practice media literacy on the internet. This is due to the fact that we’re
able to track down the author quite easily, and then check his/her credentials and reputation.
This tracking down of author and his/her repute serves a major step in determining whether
the media message is genuine or not. If the author is infamous or lost any lawsuit, we will
automatically ignore the news as we will have an idea that the person always does that and
misleads everyone. So based upon your past experience and observations regarding the person
you’ll simply not pay any heed towards the media message or news written by him/her. On the
other hand, if the author is neutral and of good repute, people will simply consider the media
message he wrote as true after taking other questions into consideration. So, in these ways,
media literacy can be practiced on internet easily.

As easy as it seems, it is not that easy to practice media literacy on television and radio shows.
This is due to the fact we don’t always get to know about the author on television and radio
shows. However, they are some other ways to practice media literacy on these platforms.
Firstly, having common sense and basic knowledge about certain things helps a lot. For
instance, we view a media message and then we think whether is news is even possible by
logic. Then using the prior knowledge we have, we can evaluate to what extent is the media
message true. Another way is to compare multiple sources to see any contradictions. Authentic
news is not contradicted, even in multiple sources from where the news has been propagated.

Q.3. Ans: Yes, I think public has a responsibility to be media literate. This is because in order to
become a responsible and aware citizen, they must be able to differentiate between what
media message is genuine and what is a mere source of misleading people for their own
personal or monetary benefits. By being media literate, the public will be able to have a better
understanding as to what should be believed and what should be ignored. When public will be
media literate, they can also perceive through the media messaged authored by different news
platforms that who is neutral and who is biased. For instance, during election campaigns, we
tend to see this a lot where news channels (not all of them) who are in the favour of certain
political parties give more and better coverage to the election campaign run by those political
parties. In these circumstances, the one with media literacy will switch to a neutral news
channel, so that he/she can get to know the manifestoes of all the contestants of election. This
will help him/her to choose a candidate to vote on fair grounds.

One other advantage of being media literate is that such person will be able to understand
which news platform is in the national interest and who is a threat to it. A few years back, Geo
News scandal portrays the very same thought where some media literate people chose to
boycott the channel, while those who were media illiterate, supported Geo news. Still, many
people can be seen watching and relying on the news and talk shows on Geo news. This shows
that these people are not aware of media literacy otherwise they wouldn’t be still watching
that change, especially when every Pakistani claims himself/herself a patriot.