The "big tent" of media literacy is getting bigger. That's the main reason why it was a joy to attend the NAMLE 2025 conference this year. Elizabeth Ortiz, Conference Co-Chair, welcomed attendees and emphasized that there's a moment for media literacy now that AI is on the rise.
Media Production Matters
On July 11th, the keynote address was offered by Christoph A. Geiseler, founder of One Minute Academy (OMA). He offers his insights on teaching video production in developing countries around the world. This talk made me think about the dialectic relationship between "media arts education" and "media literacy" and the deeper reasons why it matters.
Christoph introduced his approach to the technical skills of teaching students to use Adobe Premiere for video production. He featured one of his former students, Suad Alaggad, a young woman from Jordan, who was inspired to work in schools in Jordan, looking at how video production can be integrated into the classroom. There's no doubt about it, video production is a form of "learning by doing" that works to engage people's confidence in creative expression, and the One Minute Academy provides valuable structure that supports the needs of both students and teachers.
Alternate Realities
We're all struggling to address the hate and fear that corrodes relationships and reduces the quality of the public sphere in both our civic and personal lives. On July 12, podcaster Zachary Mack talked with Sean Rameswaram, co-host of Vox's Today about his dad, who is a believer in right-wing conspiracy theories. His experience was produced as an episode of This American Life called "Ten Things I Dont Want to Hate About You." Zack recounts the family tension and arguments that emerged after his dad challenged him to a $10K bet about his conspiracy theory beliefs. When your family members are extremists, life can be unsettling and your understanding of the world is impacted. Key insights: Try not be be disgusted by conflict entrepreneurs. They're just scared because, as Mack pointed out, "the world feels more unpredictable than ever."
Data Science and Media Literacy
Data literacy is a part of media literacy, too. University of Chicago's Zarek Drozda of Data Science for All wants to build student confidence about emerging technologies developing in Silicon Valley. Students need practical data literacy skills and habits to deal with the "data deluge," he says. The skills involved in critically reading charts and graphs is more important than ever when TikTok users are watching 30 - 90 short-form videos every day. This is where math teachers could really step up to the plate when it comes to media literacy. Learning to recognize bias in data sources and understand that data are mediated representations of reality is relevant to math, STEM, engineeering, health and medicine, and business.
The Future of the Field
Media literacy education is responsive to changes in media, culture, technology and society, and this is a great source of strength -- but it is also a bit of a challenge. As the practice of media literacy expands, it will be important to document the changing values and priorities of this global community.
Where is the future of media literacy education now headed? I would like to suggest an effort we used with success in 2013 at an in-person event in Los Angeles, where under the leadership of NAMLE president Erin Reilly, we addressed this question. Back then, we asked NAMLE conference attendees to generate a list of keywords that were important to them. Then, we asked them to prioritize them. Which keywords are most central to your practice of media literacy education? Participants could select only seven from the list below:
This activity provoked great small-group and large-group discussion, as I recall. The top keywords in 2013 were participation, inquiry, identity, learning, creativity, popular culture, literacy, social change, and critical analysis. This is not surprising because in 2013, we were becoming more adept at teaching about the brand-new world of social media, and we were just beginning to think about "digital literacy" and "news literacy" -- these terms were rather new back then.
Back in a world just before "fake news" became a thing, there were few keywords that addressed deep fakes or the dark triad of disinformation, propaganda, and hate speech, and concepts like dependence, addiction, platform power, attention economy, or surveillance capitalism were not on the radar screen. Who could imagine that in 2025, NAMLE members would spend so much time discussing media's role in promoting political polarization, mistrust of journalism, or extremism?
How do adapt the methodology for 2025? With a little help from ChatGPT, the transcripts of the NAMLE sessions could be synthesized to identify the top 30 keywords. Voting on the most important 3, 5, or 7 keywords should always be a values-driven activity.
I wonder: Perhaps this is a project for a doctoral student to take on. Certainly, under the new leadership of NAMLE's Interim Executive Director Donnell Probst, an activity like this could be a useful way to get all members of this diverse learning community an opportunity to consider the foundational values that will drive future of media literacy education.
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