After months of advocacy by Media Literacy Now, we are happy to report that the Massachusetts Senate approved two bills today with media literacy components.

S.2343 requiring school personal financial literacy education, passed the Senate unanimously with a provision addressing the need for media literacy skills. Bill sponsor Senator James Eldridge spoke on the Senate floor about the importance of understanding media messages in personal financial literacy.

In addition, the popular bipartisan Civics education bill, S. 2355, which has received substantial local media attention, was also the subject of discussion on the floor. Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz, co-chair of the Joint Education Committee, gave an impassioned speech about the timely and critical need for civics education and made a point of stressing the new and necessary component of media literacy in such curriculum.

We are pleased and proud that legislators in Massachusetts have recognized how crucial media literacy skills are in various subjects, and we will continue our advocacy, including letting our readers know how they can support these bills as they now move toward a vote in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.