Visual and media literacy are both concepts that are becoming more and more important these days.
The amount of information available and the different forms in which that information is conveyed to an individual today is constantly increasing.
This blog posting attempts to distinguish between visual and media literacy.
Visual literacy refers to the ability to analyze and understand images.
There is a nice description of this on
Wikipedia.
Media literacy also deals with the ability to analyze information, but it is a more encompassing term since it applies to analyzing and interpreting any message regardless of the form of media.
One key difference between media literacy and visual literacy is that media literacy also applies to the creation of the messages.
The term visual literacy does not apply to one’s ability to create an image.
To highlight these similarities and this key difference, I’ve provided an example.
If I were to create a picture, visual literacy would apply to others ability to analyze and interpret the meaning in the picture.
Media literacy would also deal with the interpretation of the meaning in the picture, but would also be applicable to my ability to create the picture.
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