About > Understand Media Information
Understand Media was founded by Nick Pernisco with the sole intention of educating the community about media literacy issues. Mr. Pernisco is an Associate Instructor in Santa Monica College's Communications Department, and an Adjunct Instructor in California State University, Northridge's Cinema and Television Arts department. He has been involved in the media literacy community since 2005, but has been producing media professionally since 1996.
Since media literacy is something that affects all of us, Understand Media contains resources for teachers of all levels, parents, children, and the general community. Resources include lesson plans for teaching media literacy in the classroom, helpful books about media literacy and media issues, and links to numerous websites that help deepen the understanding of media in our society.
Articles about media are also provided for download and use in the classroom and in general discussions. The site also features multimedia presentations of key issues, available in both audio-only and in video formats.
We also pride ourselves in being on of the only media literacy sites in the United States to provide resources in Spanish.
Consulting and Training
We have developed customized curriculums for explaining the concepts of media literacy and media education, and how these concepts can benefit various organizations. We can tailor our workshops and seminars to an organization's specific needs, taking into account education level and time constraints.
Understand Media also occasionally provides community workshops open to the general public. These workshops help provide a media literacy foundation to people not directly involved in education or business, such as parents.
For more information about our seminars and workshops, please contact us.
Content Accessibility Policy
Understand Media's first priority is to spread the values and concepts of media literacy throughout the world, to the most amount of people possible, through the use of original content available on the site. Because of this, the content on Understand Media is provided free of charge.
The materials may also be reproduced for use in classrooms, but may not be posted on other websites. If you find an article or resource useful, please link to the page on Understand Media on which the content is available.
For more information about this and other legal policies, please visit our legal section.
Site Advertising
Understand Media is proud to present our content with no third-party advertising. This means that we do not accept money or barter exchanges for any ad, banner, or content on our site. We are committed to bringing you only the best material we possibly can, and this can only be done free of bias by not accepting money or gifts from any person or organization. We do however use Google AdSense ads on our site, as this helps pay for our expenses and does not introduce a bias that would affect the content. This way, you can be assured that any content you see on the site is content we personally believe will be of use to you.
We also work with our sister organization, Carmelina Films, to present information about media literacy resources to our site's visitors. Understand Media and Carmelina Films are tight as glue, so you can be sure that both organizations have the same ideologies and goals. All proceeds from the sales of the video resources are reinvested directly into creating new and exciting content for Understand Media and Carmelina Films.
