media literacy

Empirical base of this article is comprised of five monographs by A.V. Fedorov and his colleagues published from 2013 to 2015. The author highlights several, from his point of view, the most urgent and important issues touched on in the writings considered. An idea is substantiated that necessity to develop social and political model of media education is becoming patently obvious nowadays.

In modern science, attempts to measure media literacy / media competence are made from time to time. However, those who try to do it usually employ different theoretical premises, interpret phenomenon under consideration in their own ways, and, as a result, use various criteria for evaluations. Based on the analysis of more than hundred most oft-quoted (both in foreign and Russian scholarship) definitions of media literacy, the author offers his own conception of the term and puts forward the way it can be measured.

Based on public surveys results’ analysis, the main features of Russia’s youth disposition towards politics are considered in this article. The author describes the media component of the youth political culture within the context of the degree to which their media literacy is formed and suggests pessimistic and optimistic tendencies the phenomenon under consideration has.

The main methods to counteract manipulative techniques used by mass media for political purposes are considered in this article. Among others, the author argues the necessity to compare information from different news sources, to check credibility of the facts conveyed by journalists, and to evaluate the extent to which a story is balanced.

Certain premises of the federal laws of the Russian Federation (i.e. «About Mass Media», «About Information, Information Technologies, and Protection of Information», «About Providing Access to Information Concerning State and Municipal Bodies’ Activity») conducive to the media literacy formation are considered in this article. Political dimension of media literacy is substantiated.

Certain premises of the key Russian legal documents (i.e. Constitution, Doctrine of Information Security, and Conception of State Information Policy of the Russian Federation) conducive to the media literacy formation are considered in this article.