Media Literacy: Why Is It So Crucial to Us

Today’s world, and especially the world of the media, is undergoing a revolution of unprecedented importance. In my opinion, its impact rivals that of the agricultural and industrial revolutions and, what’s more, it is still in its infancy. I am speaking of the information revolution: information has become available to everyone on almost any subject, and we are overwhelmed by it daily, in loads that are almost unfathomable and at the speed of light. As the poet Meir Ariel put it: “It travels without stopping. You jumped off today, and two years have passed, and here you are, left behind.”

Apart from a few exceptional individuals, we are all caught up in this information frenzy, affected by the fear of missing out (FOMO). The sheer volume of information flowing to us leaves no time or opportunity to delve deeply into it or examine it critically.

Recently, a new powerful factor has joined the overwhelming flood of information, artificial intelligence. This tool, with its immense power, can make our lives significantly easier but can also distort our perception of reality, leading us to believe in imagined or, worse, deliberately manipulated realities. With such tools, it is possible to put words into someone’s mouth, creating convincing statements that were never made or intended, and producing highly persuasive images and videos of events that never occurred. This can trigger a range of reactions from the audience, including mass anger, fear, despair, or even the creation of a false sense of peace and tranquility.

The primary danger in this situation is the intentional alteration of consciousness and control over citizens' minds in a manner that, until now, was in the realm of dystopian fiction and science fiction films. This concentrates almost limitless power in the hands of a few who control information sources and online interactions, as can be seen in the case of Elon Musk and the X platform.

Philosopher Herbert Marcuse has exposed, as early as the 1960s, the methods used by the capitalist West to control citizens' consciousness and make them compliant without the need for violent physical repression as seen in totalitarian regimes. One of these methods is transforming citizens into consumers, inundating them with products and convincing them to buy things they don’t truly need, thus making them work more and creating a false consciousness of happiness tied to owning things.

Marcuse's exposure of material methods of control also extended to the world of advertising and media as suppressors of genuine consciousness. These concepts, written in the last century, gain renewed relevance today and can be expanded to encompass the ongoing information revolution. The tools for controlling consciousness have become exponentially more powerful. Every piece of information that reaches a citizen can be monitored and altered to fit the desires of the controlling powers or external forces seeking to undermine citizens' perception of reality and control it.

This situation already exists and is intensifying daily. The dangers it poses to democratic regimes, freedom of thought and expression, and free will are immense. Anyone concerned about preserving a free and democratic way of life must act to mitigate the risks of this revolution, especially for the younger generation growing up within it, who may come to see it as a natural reality, with their consciousness shaped accordingly.

This situation imposes a special responsibility on those in charge of educating future generations to equip them with tools to confront these forces. It is no longer feasible to turn back and limit the power of new information platforms, and we have learned that such initiatives, including severe administrative and legal measures like massive fines and bans, are ineffective as technology advances faster than regulation.

Therefore, what can be done is to teach young people to be critical of media consumption, to question even what they see, to cross-check information sources to verify it, and to seek out hidden interests in the information they receive. They should understand and know the ethics and journalistic methods for fact-checking, recognizing deviations, and identifying suspicious writing and photography techniques.

The responsibility for this media literacy education mainly falls on the state and the educational establishment. However, professional journalists, journalists’ associations, and the Press Council also have a crucial role in this education, leveraging their experience and developed senses for detecting fabrications and hidden interests, to impart this knowledge to the younger generation. Educational programs and enrichment initiatives of this kind should be initiated in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and academic media circles, or even independently. These programs are essential to provide a defense against the risk of losing our intellectual independence and, consequently, our political independence.

This education should be prioritized and resourced, and we must mobilize our knowledge and abilities to this cause, because, truly, it is a matter than concerns our very existence as a free society.