EDUCATION FOR MEDIA IN THE NEW TECHNOLOGICAL AGE – CHANGE OF DISCOURSE

Text topic: Digital Media Technologies

Text author: Раде Вељановски

The media are no longer a “mirror of society” but constructors of social reality and manufacturers of consciousness. The new technological age gives a strong stimulus to this transformation which further marginalizes the point and cognitive value of the message. These technologies emphasize the technological aspects, sensations of the new, spectacles of the form and the design, which are becoming a purpose in itself. Adding to all this the already observed concentration of information and the difficulty in content selection, the training for media usage and their maintenance on the socially acceptable and constructive level becomes a highly important topic. At the same time, the concepts of “the media education” and “education for the media” oscillate in their implications, alternately going back and forth in their meaning. This paper is trying to determine the evolution of the idea about correlation between the media performance and the educational process, in which at least two approaches are possible: the ability to increase the level of knowledge with the help of the media and the need for gaining skills in order to handle the digitalized media so they can be used to full potential.