Showing Up for Media Literacy: A Reflection

By: Erin McNeill, Founder & CEO of Media Literacy Now

As I get ready to make room for the next MLN chapter, I took a look back at the blog posts I was writing early in my media literacy journey. Here’s one that brought the research down to a personal level in my family.

April 19, 2010

It was Friday: pizza and movie night. We were watching a slow-moving drama, Neverland. The movie had nothing in it that was particularly frightening or disturbing. But at one point, the four children in the movie were in a park together and my kids were certain that the children were about to be kidnapped. They expect something dramatically bad to happen even in a mild drama.

It’s an illustration of a point Sharon Lamb made in her presentation [Packaging Boyhood, at the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood conference], in which she noted that so much in movies and other media, especially when directed at boys, is “over the top.”

“You see a bus coming, you know it’s going to blow up,” she said. And not just once, but there will be multiple explosions. She described an opening scene in the Fantastic Four movie. A movie about superheroes would be something that would be attractive to children. But in this opening scene, a man jumps from one of the twin towers on 9/11. This is just too traumatizing for many of the children who are going to want to see the movie.

If children develop a constant sense of anxiety whenever they watch a movie, what is that doing for their development? Can that state of anxiety spill over into real life?

Well, that was an interesting dive into history, and so relevant to today’s concerns about mental health and digital wellness. This journey started when I showed up. There was something I cared about, and I went to a conference in Boston in 2010. I learned a lot and met so many other people who cared about this thing, and it was fun. Later, when I needed people to help advocate for a bill in the Massachusetts State House, those were the people I turned to, to show up and speak about the need for media literacy education in K-12 schools.

Thank you for showing up for what you believe in, and helping Media Literacy Now grow in influence and impact. I’m asking you today to keep on showing up. Show up in your community and for your community. And if you believe we should be equipping kids and teens with media literacy skills and tools, please continue to show up for Media Literacy Now.