media literacy in social media

Look back: the Arab Spring

What is so called “digital media literacy” or “new media literacy”? Apart form the debate in literature, I am now going to explore the term in a real example. When it comes to big event related to social media recently, we can not avoid talking about the Arab Spring. I will first look at the general view from different perspectives, and then dig into media literacy from two aspects, one from the activists, one from ordinary citizens, in the end, the importance of new media literacy will be discussed.

If the definition of media literacy is “the ability of citizens to use, understand and create communications”, then it is not unreasonable to say that the Arab Spring has use it to extreme, which even leads to the revolutionary wave of social changes. The revolutions of the Arab Spring were remarkable not only for the unexpected defiance of seemingly stable dictatorial orders, but because the Arab Spring has been hailed by NPR, the Washington Times, and numerous others, as ‘‘the social media revolution’’(Halverson et al., 2013).

There is no doubt that social media is one of the indispensable elements that makes the Arab Spring possible. A number of studies have looked specifically at the relationship between social media and the Arab Spring. In general, two sides of the debate are formed. For the scholars who focus on capabilities of social media—the nature of networks, speed of information flow, less strict information control compared to traditional media, the connection and coordination processes of social media is the core of the success of the Arab Spring (Howard, 2011; Tufecki and Wilson, 2012; Lotan et al., 2011). For the scholars who are more circumspect about the term “the social media revolu...

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...an hold the other estates accountable constitutes a fifth estate. In other words, the user generated contents are a vital force to keep an eye on the government and mainstream media. Indeed, many breaking news are now from social media, however, this does not mean that social media is a place of truth, on the contrary, it is a place full of rumors and lies. As a result, thinking independently and identifying truth from rumors, media literacy is highly required in this field. Only in this way, can social media be properly used as a fifth estate.

In short, new media literacy is important for both activists and ordinary citizens in Arab Spring, and when traditional media dysfunction in social movement, social media becomes the crucial information resources, however, rumors and lies on social platforms need to be identified by enhancing individuals’ new media literacy.