Critical Media Literacy in the Times of Subjective Online Media Consumption

Abstract

Critical Media Literacy (CML) is a complex construct that includes a range of knowledge and skills. Due to its complexity, understanding and studying CML is a difficult challenge, starting with the definition of CML. It is ever more challenging to define and teach CML under the current media ecosystem, where online media consumption is highly subjective and varied. We present a conceptual framework to define and observe the subjective nature of online media consumptions as informed by information sciences and media studies. A multimodal observation of how the participants of our study consumed online media during the spread of the global pandemic was analyzed using the framework. The findings manifest patterns of subjective online media consumption behavior as influenced by individual factors, but not by explicit tasks for media consumption. As such, authors present metaliteracy as an essential skill for individuals to develop subjective and personal CML.