“Media and information literacy is important to the rapid growth of media and ICTs. It sees media and information literacy as vital to the empowerment of people, ICTs in education, and equitable access to information and knowledge.” -UNESCO
To be media and information literate is to understand how to use media and information properly on the web and to understand how it works and how to evaluate different types of it. Because the world is rapidly growing and continuously evolving and developing, anyone of this century should be able to utilize and understand the media and information we see and incorporate into our daily lives on the web. Media and information is vital to the empowerment of people because it allows us to speak up without fear, hesitation, or dfoubt about our thoughts, feelings, and opinions because it is our right. It is valuable to information and communications technology because media and information have always been a part of ICTs, and it would not even be half as effective without them. Media and information is used everywhere and is seen all around us in everyday of our lives as seen on televisions, radio, on the web in numerous different websites, in our homes, schools, and offices, and is also used to educate and well-inform everyone all over the world.
I, for one, am media and information literate and self-sustainable with my knowledge and education even since I was just a little girl. I remember when I was six, my mother set up for me a desktop computer and connected to it a USB stick (that was the WiFi), and she told me that, whenever she’s out at work and not there to help me with my homework, I could just use the computer, enter the Google website, and just search for anything. With this, I used media and information literacy to its highest advantage, being able to gain any knowledge or information by just operating and searching through the databases of Google in a computer. (And it was fun playing computer games with it as well!)
Because of media and information literacy, I was able to attain this much knowledge by myself, without the help of people, with just the open resources any of us can find on the internet. Now, by just utilizing the internet and being literate, I was able to study many languages and courses in numerous subjects that have well helped me gain in my own benefit and potential for myself. I also believe that anyone could learn anything and everything they want by just being well-educated and informed on media and information literacy.
stvrdust 