Education for autonomy in media societies

Abstract

One of the key objectives of the formal education in current democracies is to empower students. However, it seems increasingly clear that this objective has been to develop in media societies, in which the traditional and new interactive (Internet) media shape the thinking, the feeling and the acting of our students and of the general public. In this new context, educate for autonomy in audiovisual or media societies is, especially, educate for critical competence or skill for the media. But, what is this competence or critical skill? Which are the criteria that define it? In this paper we propose some elements that help define the critical component related to media autonomy: capacity for civic and humanistic interpretation of media content, reflection on the political and economic forces that are the basis of media messages, ability to understand how and why media content is produced, knowledge of the sources and intentions of the communication and, finally, skills related to communication technology.