One Literacy and Multiple Intelligences? The Case of Media Literacy
One Literacy and Multiple Intelligences? The Case of Media Literacy

Summary/Abstract: Acceleration of globalisation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution expanded opportunities for intercultural interaction, facilitated by more accessible and affordable information and communication technologies (ICT). Media literacy as framed by UNESCO is to be interpreted as “[u]nderstanding and using mass media in either an assertive or non-assertive way, including an informed and critical understanding of media, the techniques they employ and their effects. Also the ability to read, analyse, evaluate and produce communication in a variety of media forms” (alias “the ability to decode, analyse, evaluate and produce communication in a variety of forms”). Furthermore, media and information literacy “refers to the essential competencies (knowledge, skills and attitude) that allow citizens to engage with media and other information”. Dynamic developments in the contemporary world brought about by the post-factual era and the COVID-19 pandemic reinforced the exposure of the public to misinterpretation. Being conscious of variable and increasingly multidimensional presentation in academic literature of what it takes to be literate, in our paper we reflect on media literacy alias a synergy of literacy and multiple intelligences. Since on 12 April 2022 UNESCO launched a global survey “Learning from the COVID-19 crisis to write the future: National policies and programmes for youth and adult literacy” addressed to all 193 UNESCO Member States to fill in the gap and collect information on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on youth and adult literacy, our online questionnaire is complementary in terms of scope (media literacy) and outreach (higher education students). The aim of this paper is to investigate awareness, understanding and interpretation of literacy as such, and media literacy in particular, within the cohort of native and international students at the University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia. The findings revealed a higher ratio of the general understanding of communication and its role in the society, but a lower ratio of awareness about literacy and media literacy. In the context of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives our main suggestion, therefore, is to reinforce the media literacy curriculum in terms of experiential learning in line with the so-called learner-centred approach to education when the needs/aspirations of individuals are placed at the centre and focus is on the experiences they bring to the learning situation

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