What does "media literacy" mean?

Looking at the latest edition of Ofcom's Media Literacy Bulletin (available at)http://www.ofcom.org.uk/advice/media_literacy/medlitpub/bulletins/issue17.pdf you'd be forgiven for thinking that media literacy is mainly about protecting yourself from risk. Interesting and important though much of this news is, it is very much at odds with the Charter for Media Literacy (http://www.euromedialiteracy.eu/) and with established practice in schools (in so far as there is any). I note that the new Media Education Research Journal (whose call for papers is at http://www.cemp.ac.uk/merj/) invites papers on the relationship between media education and media literacy.

It's always seemed perfectly logical to me that media education is a process and media literacy is an outcome, but what seems to be developing now is a dangerous and unnecessary split between the protectionist/technicist positions that identify with "media literacy", and the media educators. The situation is further complicated by the fact that most languages don't have a good translation for "literacy": they'll tend to use a word like "alfabetisacion" which connotes basic decoding skills of rather than the "three Cs" of cultural awareness, critical skills and creative abilities, as endorsed in the Charter. It's encouraging that both the French and the Arabic-speaking nations have given up on translating "media literacy" - for them it makes better sense to dicsuss media education, which is after all the practice we're all interested in.

The European Commission's Communication on Media Literacy in the Digital Environment (see
http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/media_literacy/docs/com/en.pdf) does at least include versions of the "three Cs", but then, the Brits have never been known for their European communal spirit. For example, for some bizarre reason the UK's "Media Literacy Task Force" has insisted on setting up its own website for the Charter for Meda Literacy, despite using a Charter that is identical wth the European one (see http://www.medialiteracy.org.uk/). So now there are two databases for supporters of the Charter: a European one with versions of the Charter in nine languages, and several hundred signatories (unfortunately they are not numbered) and a UK one with 145 signatories (plus some foreigners, who are not listed). How sad!