Definitions

Critical media literacy is the ability to use critical thinking and rhetorical reasoning to find, evaluate, synthesize, and create information in online environments. (Critical Media Literacy Collaborate at UNC Charlotte)

The Center for Media Literacy states that media literacy is a framework to access, analyze, evaluate, create and participate with messages in a variety of forms — from print to video to the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.

According to the National Association of Media Literacy Educators (NAMLE), media refers to all electronic or digital means and print or artistic visuals used to transmit messages. Literacy is the ability to encode and decode symbols and to synthesize and analyze messages. Media literacy is the ability to encode and decode the symbols transmitted via media and synthesize, analyze and produce mediated messages.