Metaliteracy as the Goal of Media Education

Media change our culture. Complete and creative participation in culture requires at present new forms of knowledge, skills, and competencies. The aim of the paper is to present a possible direction for teaching about media. The considerations start with a discussion about the various approaches to media literacy. On the basis of the concepts of selected authors (Innis, Havelock, McLuhan, Flusser, Kittler, Ulmer), an attempt is made to describe the media dominated change in the culture that poses new educational goals before the system and enforces the application of new methods and tools. The category of metaliteracy performs here a heuristic function, which allows for the description of the problem in a new way, enabling fruitful analysis. Hence, it is shown that the ability to read and write is not sufficient for complete participation in culture at present. New forms of literacy, taking into account the domination of new media, have to be elaborated. The focus on electronic, information, or digital literacy, highlighted in the background literature, replaces old limitations by the new ones. The paper suggests that a new teaching strategy, based on the patterns of multiliteracy and metaliteracy, should be introduced. Only such a wellfounded strategy will allow the shaping of people capable of compete and creative functioning in the contemporary world.

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