New Civic Voices & the Emerging Media Literacy Landscape

The recent protests across the Middle East, generally referred to as the largest civic uprising enabled by social media platforms and mobile technologies, are actively reshaping how one thinks about citizenship, community, and participation in the 21st Century. Within these new spaces have emerged voices--largely those of everyday citizens--that are exposing corruption, demanding accountability, and maintaining a diverse flow of ideas and dialogue across communities, across cultures, and across divides. This article discusses the implications for media literacy education in light of these new societal shifts largely in and by social media platforms and mobile technologies, and lists three specific challenges facing media literacy. The author concludes that media educators can no longer afford to sit back and simply teach about media messages as they come. It is high time that media literacy become the proactive movement that enables the future civic voices of democracies worldwide to create the meaningful dialog, collaborations, and struggles that will hold civic societies together. In this sense, media literacy in the 21st Century will be about enabling new civic voices, ones that are tolerant, purposive, and that are active in the face of the global challenges.