Media literacy can be broadly defined as a person’s ability to access, analyze, and evaluate media information as well as create media in a variety of forms. While literacy is rooted within the traditional world of print, media literacy applies to all sorts of print and nonprint media including newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and other forms of audio, film, comic books, video games, advertisements, billboards, music, and information that users can find on the Internet. In other words, all types of mass media, popular culture, and digital media can be treated as texts.

Media literacy empowers people both to understand how media messages shape culture and society and also how to be creative producers of media messages. It is also important if individuals are to be ...