By Laila Abdel Aal Alghalban
The first thing we do the moment we open our eyes, while still in bed, is stretching our hands to get our mobiles, checking messages and emails, scrolling through our favorite sites and platforms. Completely submerged by a hectic and restless drive to go on, we remain the day long willingly and enjoyably hijacked by heavily-armed media: news, movies, music, games, ads, etc. Going outdoors, we find ourselves flooded by billboards , banners, posters, mobile and fixed screens, and even during waiting for the traffic light to go red, we find someone tossing flyers or leaflets in our cars. Unfortunately, most of our media meal is unhealthy, toxic, and manipulative. I am not a techno-distopianist, but we have to admit this fact. How can we become media literates and save our time, energy and brains? How can we have the ability to analyse and criticise the media we are exposed to? How can we avoid being passive recipients or falling victims to media manipulation and bias? How can we construct and consume a more healthy media diet? And when we create media, how can we steer clear of being biased and media abusers? These are some of the most frequent questions raised currently in what we can call the media-literacy turn.
Digital Egyptians
According to “We Are Social” report, every day witnesses the flocking of over one new million people to the digital world, “ despite controversy around privacy, hacking, fake news and all other negative aspects of online life, the world continues to embrace the internet and social media.” Egyptians come sixth in the average time spend on social media, with the average user appending three hours and nine minutes, and fourteenth in the annual increase in the number of Facebook users. The report shows that in addition to social media platforms, Egyptians’ search preferences for sports, games, songs, translation, weather and Alyoum Assabee top Google search queries. The report also mentions that most of internet users in Egypt are males.
A poor appetite
Paradoxically, most Egyptians seem to have a poor appetite for searching for the Egyptian Knowledge Bank as well as other data deposits. Not surprisingly, high school students use the tablets given to them by the Ministry of Education in scrolling through the social media platforms and playing games during school hours, many national newspaper reported. Given the enormous impact of media on children that sometimes pushes them to commit suicide, hold extreme ideologies, get involved in terrorist crimes, get brainwashed by cult and spiritual leaders, lose their inner peace and develop various types of addiction, media literacy becomes a necessity.
24/7 for 75000 years
Media literacy is a hot spot in world debates. Almost four billions of people around the world have access to free and open media. Interestingly, browsing and processing the massive amount of current data on the internet needs someone to stay online twenty-four hours a day, for over 75,000 years, most probably sipping toxic materials. Media has played a role in changing the mass opinions and beliefs in a lot of taboo issues. For example media, whether it is drama, movies or music, has played a role in changing the American people’s opinions about homosexuality from a massive opposition to a rising rate of approval. Ironically, on social media a globally famous network as Netflix is being criticised for “shoving non-mainstream agenda in our throats”, as many people say.
The threshold tactics
Media has adopted in many topics the threshold tactics that rely on presenting a topic that is controversial and may be rejected by the society in small doses and then repeating them over time, so the threshold of people rejection decreases until the taboo becomes a reality. On the other hand, there are no open discussions nor a real education of young people about these topics, so everything they perceive from media is going to their brains without critically thinking of it.
A priority to nations and individuals alike
Accordingly, having a mindful, media-literate citizen becomes a priority to nations and individuals alike. Last October. 2019, the Annual Media Literacy Week in the United States celebrates its fifth year. People from all walks of life were invited to participate. The event usually focused on embracing and disseminating a national critical culture that would help individuals and the whole society to cultivate a critical mindset without losing the pleasure of media consumption. Incorporating media literacy in academic courses has been a repeated call. Offering technical help, the American National Association for Media Literacy asked participants or volunteers to hold workshops, give talks, hold webinars, organise screen discussions at their workplaces or in their communities, help kids and students to create media, observing the ethical requirements and advocate for authorising the teaching of media literacy, among many other activities. Participants were also asked to share their ideas and projects. Similar weeks are organised in other countries and international organisations. Media Literacy Week, an annual event taking place every November in Canada, and Global Media and Information Literacy Week, another annual event organised by UNESCO, are two fascinating examples. Let us hope that Egypt would organise a similar week in the near future.
Who, how and why?
To cultivate media literacy, three main questions should be raised and addressed. Who makes media? How this is done? And why? Media makers, corporations, or individuals, are giant money makers; media is not made to entertain and educate in the first place. Media makers have their own agenda which includes, other than making money, promoting certain ideologies, breaking the taboos, advocating the rights of certain groups and pushing them to become common and chasing and even stigmatising those who oppose them. So, media is significantly impacted by the biases of its makers.
Finally, for space limitations, let us hopefully see how communities can put more effort in equipping young people with effective media literacy in another article.
By Dr Laila Abdel Aal Alghalban
Professor of Linguistics
Faculty of Arts
Kafr el-sheikh University
Email: [email protected]
