By using mass media, especially new media, college students can find and download materials, get news information, write blogs, play games, shop, conduct online marketing, send and receive emails and send instant messages. It can be said that mass media has helped college students grow up healthily in many ways. But in some ways, at some time, they are actually "mediated" and have to accept the outside world that enters the field of vision through TV screens, computer screens and mobile phone screens. Sometimes, they will take the initiative to use the media and participate in the dissemination of information consciously or unconsciously. Therefore, how to improve college students' media literacy is a problem that college educators should pay attention to.
Media literacy education is to educate the public to have the ability to critically watch, listen and interpret all kinds of information transmitted by movies, television, radio, internet, newspapers, magazines and other media, including the ability to question, appreciate, respond and use the media, including the ability to produce all kinds of media information by using a wide range of information technologies. Its highest goal is to make everyone consciously use media services, improve and develop themselves, and establish a healthy and harmonious media environment.
Under the current complicated context and mode of information dissemination, it is not only the need for college students to grow up and become qualified citizens in the information age to educate them on media literacy and improve their ability and consciousness of media criticism. It is not only the quality education project of colleges and universities, but also the demand of society.
School: offer media literacy courses and provide a learning environment for media literacy.
Media literacy education originated in Britain in 1990s, and began to take shape in western countries since 1980s. In recent years, some colleges and universities in China have also started to offer "Media Literacy" courses. Such as Shanghai Jiaotong University, their courses focus on the characteristics of media, the interactive relationship between media and society, the choice of media information, the ability to understand, the ability to question and evaluate, and the ability to create and produce. This course is not only a professional basic course for students majoring in journalism and communication, but also an elective course for all students. Other colleges and universities should also teach these contents to students through various channels. Lectures, discussions and academic reports are all acceptable. Teachers can be professional teaching talents or employees hired from social media or campus media.
In order to cultivate and improve students' ability to analyze and interpret information, case teaching method can be adopted. We can make a comprehensive analysis of different reports of the same news event by different media at home and abroad, and let students understand why there is such a difference through the discovery and analysis of the differences. What do different trade-offs mean and what do they hide? This kind of analysis can help students have a more intuitive and emotional understanding of the production and communication process of mass media, and improve their ability to distinguish information, see clearly the information behind it and discover the news behind it.
Colleges and universities should also offer a series of courses related to computers and networks for all students, so that students can master the basic knowledge of computers in an all-round way, have the basic quality of creating and disseminating information, and improve the quality of creating and disseminating information.
College media can let some students participate in newspaper publishing and TV news production. At present, many colleges and universities have college student journalists' groups and college student news agencies. Under the guidance of newspaper and TV personnel, these students can participate in interview activities organized by university newspapers and TV stations, write news articles, shoot TV materials and be familiar with editing procedures. In the process of study and practice, I know that the information in the media is deliberately selected, combined and arranged, which embodies the editor's intention and conveys a certain sound, not purely objective, and not necessarily the true presentation of events.
The press corps further radiates this awareness and ability through various practical activities, such as making class tabloids, DV competitions, campus news blogs and so on. Let the students participate in the whole production process, so as to improve the overall practical ability of college students.
College students: actively improve their media knowledge, media ethics and media ability.
Only when college students realize the importance of media education to themselves can they actively participate in the study and practice of related courses, understand the characteristics of different media, accumulate media literacy knowledge and improve media literacy.
On campus, the media that students contact are mainly school newspaper, campus radio, campus TV and network. These media have their own communication characteristics. Network news is fast, informative, visited and followed by many people. The publication cycle of the school newspaper is a little longer, the information is a little behind, but the content forms are more diverse. The key is to be more authoritative and can be used as a witness to history. Radio can be heard in many corners of the campus, which is convenient and fast. The content and form can be lively, but it is fleeting. The news of campus TV stations is relatively monotonous, but the pictures can have a strong impact and appeal to the audience. Students should fully understand the characteristics of these media and lay the foundation for better participation.
Media morality originally refers to the moral concept, code of conduct and moral quality of social responsibility and obligation formed by people engaged in media work, and is a manifestation suitable for media activities in the social professional ethics system. The author believes that the media ethics of college students should include observing information ethics, not making or spreading false news by themselves, and respecting the privacy and rights of others. For example, in the blog, we should establish our own self-discipline mechanism, standardize the blog content, cultivate good blog literacy, and consciously maintain the network environment.
In order to improve the media ability, we should not only understand the function, ideology and commercial attributes of the media, but also understand the production process of mass communication content through class or self-study, and also actively participate in some activities. For example, participate in media practice activities organized by schools or teachers and actively participate in classroom discussions. Learn to treat the media correctly, use the media, learn to think critically, analyze and accept media information, consciously resist bad media information, and calmly face the challenges of the information age. So as to learn to use media resources to improve themselves, actively participate in social development, build a harmonious and orderly media ecological environment, and finally realize the perfect combination of people and media.
Beware of the "third person effect" obstacle in media literacy education
The "third-person effect" was first put forward by Davidson, a professor of sociology and journalism at Columbia University, in the article "The Third-person Effect of Communication" published in Public Opinion Quarterly 1983. The "third person effect hypothesis" means that people tend to overestimate the influence of mass communication information on others' attitudes and behaviors. When the audience is exposed to the spread of information, they will expect that the information will have greater influence on others than on themselves. In short, it is "the audience tends to think that the media has great influence on others and little influence on themselves", that is, "overestimate themselves and underestimate others".
On the one hand, the "third person effect" appears because of insufficient cognition or deviation, and more because of the motivation of safeguarding personal interests. Psychological research shows that people have a "self-help" tendency, and many people are unwilling to admit that they are negatively affected by bad information, because it is a kind of "criticism" to themselves, because it means admitting that they lack discrimination and resistance. Because of underestimating the influence of the media on themselves and relaxing the critical interpretation of the media content, people may ignore the adverse effects of media content such as violence and pornography on their own personality and relax their criticism and resistance to bad information; Being too confident in yourself may also make people lose their correct judgment. This is the obstacle of "the third person effect" in media literacy education. ②
The information spread by the media, whether positive or negative, correct or wrong, can only be critically accepted by the receiver through his own rational judgment. Therefore, clarifying the psychological misunderstanding of the "third person effect" and paying attention to the appearance of this phenomenon in the teaching and practice of related courses will play a better role in media literacy education.