Sarah Gretter makes a solid case for teaching children to watch commercials with their eyes wide open. She backs up her reasoning with study results. Media literacy is being able analyze and evaluate the messages we see in different media platforms.
. . . 80 percent of middle school students believed that web ads were real news stories. The same study found that more than 80 percent of high school students had a hard time distinguishing between real and fake photos.
Source: The Conversation, February 22, 2019. Link. For parents and others who want to empower children to be more aware of how commercials influence what they think and do, Gretter shares three ways to use media literacy skills to accomplish that end:
- Ask questions
- Use your senses
- Reflect
. . . viewers should be taught to look for motives, such as to inform, persuade or entertain . . . and, encouraged to ask what values are represented and reinforced.
INSIGHTS: For animal health pros who are working parents, grandparents or mentors, Sarah Gretter’s perspective expands our responsibilities beyond providing smartphones, gaming systems, streaming media and TV. I believe media literacy education fits into workplace training responsibilities, as well. Learning to reflect and discuss the techniques and motives surrounding labels, advertising and studies allows us to teach each other to make better sense of the many messages we see daily.