MEDIA LITERACY AS A NECESSARY CONDITION FOR UNDERSTANDING NEW MEDIA

Text topic: Digital Media Technologies

Text author: Слађана Стаменковић

Digital media technologies allow new communication channels through which one can quickly find necessary information on the one hand, and on the other hand upload information of relevance. Both download and upload are quickly and easily available to everyone worldwide. It is interesting to compare the Internet with an “information buffet” from which the user takes as much information as necessary and whenever necessary. Such information may be used for the purpose of informing, educating, entertaining or business when there is no other efficient and quicker way. People and markets are linked. From the time in which the information and news were in the possession of a small number of people, we have arrived at the stage when the information is in the hands of most. We are now in the era of social media which helped create a most diverse content and exchange between a large number of Internet users, replacing the one-to-many process with a many-to-many process. Two-thirds of our waking state is lived with the media or the media in combination with another activity, whereby the media people gradually influence our perception of the meaning of life. Researchers warn of the impact of media depending on the degree of media growth and the need to create an institutional basis for introduction of media education into regular education programs.