• What is media literacy? Why is it important? Why is it dismissed? Why should you aim for varied views but the factual consensus in your PLN?

Media literacy is how people gain, understand and process information of the mass media. Media literacy is important because it allows all kinds of information to be sorted in the way that makes the navigation of searching more efficiently and effectively. It also enables users to use critical thinking skills to deeply understand the provided materials. It is dismissed because some individuals might overlook its importance and mistakenly think that exploring the mass media is just a piece of cake and requires no specific skills or efforts. Seeking varied views matters because it guarantees that the perspectives are inclusive and  comprehensive. Factual consensus can provide individuals with a standard for judgement in PLN, but critical thinking needs the diversity of opinions to be persuasive and reliable.

  • Open dialogues about media literacy and factual information can create conflict, why does this happen?

This could happen due to several reasons. First, people tend to hold confirmation bias when navigating the media. We often pay more attention to and agree more with the information that would strengthen our existing opinions, which would then result in the conflicting statements. Second, the conflicts may result from individual’s different cultural and political backgrounds. With diverse beliefs and ideologies each person holds, media literacy discussion could be controversial. It is difficult to challenge a person’s cognition and perspectives formed for years, especially if they are not open-minded. Third, as we are faced with a huge amount of information, it is very likely to encounter fake or hype news that intend to mislead the public’s opinion. Moreover, there is actually very little information that can be counted as factual. How many are the real objective ones among those so-called facts? Therefore, we should be careful and critical when viewing and judging media information.

  • What is the benefit of having a PLN that values media literacy?

There are many benefits of having a PLN that values media literacy. One of them is that retrieval skills and critical thinking can be trained and mastered. The process to access, create, and analyze all sorts of information enables people to better identify valid and reliable resources and less likely to be misguided in social media. Another benefit is to foster an awareness of being a responsible digital citizen, which is a critical one as good digital citizenship is the foundation of normal operation for the mass media. This also enhances the harmony of community engagement. Finally, valuing media literacy protects and improves the development of professional information. Professionals can also benefit from it and create more specialized knowledge in the designated field.