Information and Media Literacy (IML) enables people to interpret and make informed judgments as users of information and media, as well as to become skillful creators and producers of information and media messages in their own right.
Prior to the 1990s, the primary focus of Information Literacy has been research skills. Media Literacy, a study that emerges around 1970s traditionally focuses on the analysis and the delivery of information through various forms of media. Nowadays, the study of Information Literacy has been extended to include the study of Media Literacy in many countries like UK, Australia and New Zealand. The term Information and Media Literacy is used by UNESCO to differentiate the combined study from the existing study of Information Literacy. It is also defined as Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the United States. Educators, such as Gregory Ulmer, has also defined the field as electracy.
IML is a combination of information literacy and media literacy. The purpose of being information and media literate is to engage in a digital society; one needs to be able to use, understand, inquire, create, communicate and think critically. It is important to have capacity to effectively access, organize, analyze, evaluate, and create messages in a variety of forms. The transformative nature of IML includes creative works and creating new knowledge; to publish and collaborate responsibly requires ethical, cultural and social understanding.
Read more about Information And Media Literacy: 21st-century Students, Teaching and Learning in The 21st Century, Students' Struggle With Media and Information Literacy, Information and Media Literacy in The Curriculum, Barriers To Information and Media Literacy
Famous quotes containing the words information and, information and/or media:
“So while it is true that children are exposed to more information and a greater variety of experiences than were children of the past, it does not follow that they automatically become more sophisticated. We always know much more than we understand, and with the torrent of information to which young people are exposed, the gap between knowing and understanding, between experience and learning, has become even greater than it was in the past.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“Computers are good at swift, accurate computation and at storing great masses of information. The brain, on the other hand, is not as efficient a number cruncher and its memory is often highly fallible; a basic inexactness is built into its design. The brain’s strong point is its flexibility. It is unsurpassed at making shrewd guesses and at grasping the total meaning of information presented to it.”
—Jeremy Campbell (b. 1931)
“The media no longer ask those who know something ... to share that knowledge with the public. Instead they ask those who know nothing to represent the ignorance of the public and, in so doing, to legitimate it.”
—Serge Daney (1944–1992)