(2020). InfoBase.com. Retrieved 2025,.
What Exactly is News Literacy?
The authors of this week’s reading by stating that news literacy was a concern prior to the emergence and steep rise in “fake news” media. They begin their article by writing “Concerns about the ability of global audiences to navigate contemporary news environments prompted researchers, educators and librarians to create news literacy initiatives well before concerns about ‘fake news’ rose to a fever pitch in recent years.” (Tully et al., 2022). This week’s reading defines news literacy as “knowledge of the personal and social processes by which news is produced, distributed, and consumed, and skills that allow users some control over these processes” (Tully et al., 2022)
Media Literacy vs. News Literacy: How the Two Differ
Media literacy is a multidimensional critical thinking skill (Leaning, 2017; Potter, 2010) that isn’t all that common in today’s society. It’s a similar concept to news literacy; however, one significant difference is that it’s a broader term, covering all media, not just news. Media literacy is defined as the ability of media users to critically access, understand, and evaluate messages from different forms of media as well as to make independent judgments about media content (Buckingham, 2015; Leaning, 2017; Livingstone, 2004). In my opinion, the emergence of AI and the increased number of scams people of all ages fall for make media literacy even less common than it was five years ago. My best friend’s mom fell for an AI photo when we were on spring break last year which exposed me to the declining rate of media literacy.
One difference between news literacy and media literacy is the scope of the concepts. News literacy can be considered a specific category of media literacy that focuses on journalism while media literacy is an umbrella term that provides the foundational skills for understanding all forms of communication and media. Another difference between these two concepts is that news literacy is confined to identifying credible and trustworthy journalism while media literacy is more broad aims to help people analyze and identify media messages in general which include recognizing bias, persuasion and representation. One overlap between these two concepts is that both teach individuals to critically think and analyze the media they’re consuming, along with evaluating sources, recognizing bias, and questioning or challenging the intent and impact of the messages.
This comparison enhances my understanding of news literacy by clarifying its focus. By contrasting the two concepts, I saw that news literacy is a specialized concept that focuses on the skills of fact-checking, identifying credible sources, and understanding the journalistic process.
References
Buckingham, D. (2015). Defining digital literacy: What do young people need to know about digital media? Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 10, 21–35.
CrashCourse. (2018, February 27). Introduction to Media Literacy: Crash course Media Literacy #1 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AD7N-1Mj-DU
Jones-Jang, S. M., Mortensen, T., & Liu, J. (2021). Does Media Literacy Help Identification of Fake News? Information Literacy Helps, but Other Literacies Don’t. American Behavioral Scientist. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764219869406
Livingstone, S. (2004). What is media literacy? InterMedia, 32(3), 18–20.
Leaning, M. (2017). Media and information literacy: An integrated approach for the 21st century. Oxford, United Kingdom: Elsevier Science & Technology.
Luo, Y. F., Yang, S. C., & Kang, S. (2022). New media literacy and news trustworthiness: An application of importance–performance analysis. Computers & Education, 185, 104529. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2022.104529
Potter, W. J. (2010). The state of media literacy. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 54(4), 675–696. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2011.521462
Tully, M., Maksl, A., Ashley, S., Vraga, E. K., & Craft, S. (2021). Defining and conceptualizing news literacy. Journalism, 23(8), 1589–1606. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849211005888
(2020). InfoBase.com. Retrieved 2025,.
