This article argues that the concept of media literacy is strengthened when it is understood as media criticism. After briefly tracing the development from concerns about television in the early 1950s to the Aspen Institute’s 1992 call for media literacy, the article overviews several types of television criticism to illustrate how criticism embraces and moves beyond mere literacy to provide a vehicle for citizen empowerment and engagement. The conclusion reflects on the ethical impulse in media criticism and on how moral engagement with television by literate and critical citizens can serve to democratize public sphere policy debates over communication in the public sphere.
Altheide, D. L., & Snow, R. P. (1979). Media logic. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
2.
Aufderheide, P. (2004). A report of The National Leadership Conference on Media Literacy. Media Literacy Review. Retrieved from http://interact.uoregon.edu/MediaLit/mlr/readings/articles/aspen.html
3.
Booth, W. C. (1998). Why ethical criticism can never be simple. Style, 32, 351-364.
4.
Carroll, N. (1998). A philosophy of mass art. Oxford, UK: Clarendon.
5.
Carroll, N. (2000). Art and ethical criticism: An overview of recent directions of research. Ethics, 110, 350-387.
6.
Christians, C. G., Fackler, M., Rotzoll, K. B., & McKee, K .B. (2001). Ethical foundations and perspectives. In Mediaethics: Cases and moral reasoning (6th ed., pp.1-30). New York: Longman.
7.
Firestone, C. M. (2004). Foreword. The report of the Aspen National Leadership Conference on Media Literacy. Retrieved from http://medialit.org/reading_room/pdf/358_AspenFrwd_Firestone.pdf
8.
Fiske, J. (2004). Popularity and ideology: A structuralist reading of Dr. Who. In L. Vande Berg, L. A. Wenner, & B. E. Gronbeck (Eds.), Critical approaches to television (2nd ed., pp. 86-109). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
9.
Habermas, J. (2000). Moral consciousness and communicative action. Cambridge, MA: MITPress.
10.
Hadas, M. (1962). Climates of criticism. In R. L. Shayon (Ed.), The eighth art (pp. 15-23). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
11.
Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Willis (Eds.), Culture, media, language (pp. 128-139). London: Hutchinson.
12.
Johnson, N. (1970). How to talk back to your television set. New York: Bantam.
13.
Kubey, R., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Television and the quality of life: How viewing shapes everyday experience. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
14.
Mellencamp, P. (Ed.) (1990). The logics of television: Essays in cultural criticism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
15.
Merrill, J. (1999). Overview: Foundations for media ethics. In A. D. Gordon & J. M. Kitross (Eds.), Controversies in media ethics (2nd ed., pp. 1-25). New York: Longman.
16.
Messaris, P. (1994). Visual literacy: Image, mind, and reality. Boulder, CO: Westview.
17.
Minow, N. (1961, May 9). Television and the public interest. Retrieved from http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/newtonminow.htm
18.
Murray, J. P. (1995). Children and television violence. Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy, 4(3), 7-14.
19.
National Telemedia Council. (1992r, Third-Fourth Quarte). Media literacy gains momentum. Telemedium, 38, 12-12.
20.
National Telemedia Council. (2004). About media literacy. Available from http://nationaltelemediacouncil.org/aboutml.htm
21.
U.S. Surgeon General’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior. (1972). Television and growing up: The impact of televised violence. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
22.
Vande Berg, L. R., Wenner, L. A., & Gronbeck, B. E. (2004). Critical approaches to television (2nd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
