Media Literacy: An essential guide to the critical thinking skills for our complex digital world
The Amazon.com best-selling book has been completely revised, updated, and expanded in this 3rd edition.
Media Literacy is a critical skill students must learn to succeed in today's tech-driven, media-saturated society. This book helps students understand media literacy, and how to implement and share that knowledge with others. As an experienced media literacy expert and professor, Nick Pernisco provides a well-researched guide for learning this important critical thinking skill and using it in everyday life. This is a must-read for anyone interested in learning how to interpret the enormous amounts of information we are exposed to every day, both in traditional media and online.
The information we are exposed to each day is immense. This is due to a lower barrier to entry for media companies to deliver their messages, but also to the entry of non-professional media producers on social media. Anyone can have a Twitter or Instagram account, and anyone has the capability to grow their audience from nothing to millions of followers. How do these messages compare to the messages we get from our televisions? How have our smartphones changed the way we consume media? We clearly have an over-saturated marketplace for ideas, with too much information vying for our limited attention. This book holds the answer.
The 2016 election was another paradigm-shifting moment for our world. The election of Donald Trump made us pay closer attention to the news, and many people felt they were facing new levels of media intensity and messaging that had never been seen before. In this book, we also interweave lessons learned since 2016 and provide the tools necessary to understand our new world. The first and second editions of this book have been used by teachers and students around the world, and have sold thousands of copies in various formats. The books filled the need by teachers, students, and parents for a practical guide for explaining and using media literacy.
This book is perfect as a textbook for a course on media literacy, or as an undergraduate media or cultural studies course. It would also be an ideal text for homeschooling junior high or high school students.
The first edition of this book has been used by teachers and students around the world and has sold thousands of copies in various formats. The book filled a need by students, teachers, and parents for a practical guide for explaining and using media literacy. We are thrilled that the first edition made such a difference in the lives of many people around the world.
The second edition incorporated feedback from readers, many of whom enjoyed the first edition but wanted more.
This third edition is the ultimate edition of this book, being used in classrooms, for home study, and as a textbook for high school and college courses.
Praise for other editions
“Mr. Pernisco has provided a manual for understanding and teaching media literacy that is written in plain English. Teachers can take the activities provided and use them in their classroom tomorrow.”– Mathew Needleman, Instructional Technology Specialist, Founder VideointheClassroom.com
"By sharing his personal journey of discovery, Nick guides his readers to a richer understanding of what it means to be media literate in today's world. Nick's simple and direct writing style reaches all audiences. While much of the book is written for teachers, several chapters can be used directly with students from middle school to college very effectively.”– Karen Ambrosh, President, National Telemedia Council, High School English, Communication, and Media Teacher
