Wordy words

A list of definitions for some of the key terms used in my posts and that I have noticed in the media literacy/media studies literature. Feel free to let me know about any terms you feel are missing, or that you feel aren’t accurate.

Audience: Receivers of media texts who also bring meaning to texts by decoding encoded messages (Bowker 1991; Baker, Clark & Lewis 2003).

Bias: Preference or partiality that inhibits objective and unprejudiced judgment by unfairly guiding the reader’s opinion or skewing their views of an issue (Trafford 2007).

Critical media literacy: A teaching approach to media literacy that includes aspects of the inoculative paradigm/protectionist approach, media arts education approach and media literacy movement, but includes an understanding of corporate structure of media, power in the media, how power and information are linked, and how audiences can be empowered through media (Kellner & Share 2007; Mercado & Torres 2006).

Critical thinking: ability to identify and challenge assumptions, search for alternative ways of thinking and to summarize a reflective analysis (Ore 2005 in Bergman and Radeloff 2009).

Diegesis: A storyline or plot, usually for a movie.

Digital immigrants: Those born before the rapid infusion of digital technology and struggle to learn and apply new forms of information communication technologies (Considine, Horton & Moorman 2009).

Digital natives: Those who are fluent in the language and culture of information communication technologies, adjust easily to changes in technologies and use information communications technologies in creative ways (Considine, Horton & Moorman 2009).

Discourse: public language form that are naturalized and remain vested with sociopolitical value (Morgan 1998).

Hard news: Stories that deal with significant topics and events that people need to know to better understand the world (Trafford 2007).

Inoculative paradigm: A teaching approach to media literacy that sees media as having a powerful, largely negative influence over the audience, who, as passive victims, must be protected from media; also known as the “protectionist approach” to teaching media literacy. (Kellner & Share 2007)

Internet generation: Those born since the mid-1990s who have grown up with the explosion in information communication technologies; also known as the Google Generation and Generation Z.

Literary texts: Fiction created by an author for a particular consumer (Hobbs 2001).

Mainstream media: Those areas of the media that tend to be highly commercialized. Mainstream media products reach large audiences and tend to make big profits for their institutions (Baker, Clark & Lewis 2003).

Mass media: Communication tools conveying the same message to many people at the same time, i.e. Internet, television, radio, magazines, newspapers, billboards, commercials, video games, logos, slogans, clothing, music videos, advertising and song lyrics (Booth & Lewis 1998).

Media: Communication tools that allow people to share information, ideas and thoughts, i.e. telephones, e-mail, letters, pictures (Booth & Lewis 1998).

Media arts education: A teaching approach to media literacy that emphasizes teaching students to value the aesthetic qualities of media and media arts while creating media for the purpose of self-expression (Kellner & Share 2007).

Media literacy: the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and produce communication and information in a variety of forms and means. (UNESCO; retrieved from UNESCO website on Sept. 26, 2009)

Media literacy movement: A teaching approach to media literacy that teaches a series of “communication competencies” that include the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and communicate through media, but does not include critical pedagogy (Kellner & Share 2007).

Media literate: A person who can decode, evaluate, analyze and produce print and electronic media (Christ & Potter 1998).

Media studies: Specialist media education courses, whether as a separately examinable subject, or as specific modules or components within other subject areas or vocational training (Bowker 1991).

Media texts: Film, television, broadcasts and news created for a particular consumer (Hobbs 2001).

Medium: a means through which information is passed.

Metacognition: Awareness of one’s own thought process; for media literacy, metacognition relates to a students’ understanding of themselves as media consumers, media analysts and media producers (Ministry of Education, Grade 11 Media Studies curriculum guidelines 2007)

Millennials: A term used to define the generation born into a world that has grown up with media and information communication technologies; also referred to as Generation Y; usually refers to those born between the late 1970s and early 1990s.

Multimedia literacy: Being able to separate multimedia communications that others comprehend and to comprehend multimedia communications that others generate (Mayer 2008).

Multi-tasking: Scanning for relevant shifts in information flow while simultaneously taking in multiple stimuli (Jenkins et al., 2006, p. 35)

New Media Literacies: a set of cultural competencies and social skills young people need in new media landscape; involves ability to think across media, whether at level of simple recognition (identifying some content as it is translated across different modes of representation), or level of narrative logic (understanding the connections between how a story is communicated through different media) or at the level of rhetoric (learning to express an idea within a single medium or across different media) (Jenkins et al., 2006, p. 4 & 48)

News Hole: Amount of content a news provider needs to create in a news cycle. (Fleming, J., in Tyner, K., 2010)

Participatory culture: culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship that passes along knowledge from the experienced to novices (Jenkins et al., 2006)

Propaganda: Media use designed to influence behaviour and thinking of target audience towards a subject, product or objective (Mercado & Torres 2006).

Resonance effect: Repeating the same information, texts and images to create “facts” and acceptance of an agenda (Mercado & Torres 2006).

Soft news: Human interest stories designed to elicit sympathy, interest or fear to keep attention of audience; soft news is the opposite of hard news (Trafford 2007)

TAP Model of media education: An approach to teaching media literacy that involves understanding the relationships of and between the media texts, media audiences and production technologies and techniques (Duncan, D’Ioppolito, Macpherson & Wilson 1998 in Considine, Horton & Moorman 2009).

Texts: All kinds of work/forms of symbolic expression that convey meaning from an author to readers (Hobbs 2001).

Truthiness: quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true; popularized by media satirist Stephen Colbert  (Retrieved from Oxford Online on Oct. 26, 2009).

Understanding: Distinction from knowledge of skills: matter of being able to carry out a variety of performances (i.e. making predictions about what would happen if there were a snowball fight in space) and analytical thinking (Hobbs 2001).