Welcome to Vagary Media Literacy!

Around the turn of the 21st Century, media technology was changing so quickly that it was profoundly changing how we communicate and interact with each other. Traditional media platforms based on the one-way model of communication were rapidly losing importance.

To replace them, new digital media platforms offered interactive forums for collaborative, creative, gaming, social, cultural, and other types of experiences, allowing users to connect worldwide.

In short, the Internet has become Pandora’s Box for information, entertainment, education, propaganda, espionage, art, journalism, public relations, disinformation, misinformation, and other types of influence, all of which are influencing our various cultures and societies, and all of which are governed very differently between corporations, industries, and governments.

Today, most of us live with an overabundance of content from omnipresent media devices, rendering traditional notions of media literacy outdated. In short, it needs to be updated with an interdisciplinary approach to reflect modern media platforms and touch on topics traditionally associated with philosophy, psychology, sociology, governance, neuroscience, media technology, and more.

My goal with Vagary Media Literacy is not to weigh in on what’s right or wrong, true or false, or good or bad, but to help audiences think critically about the media they consume and create. At the end of the day, media literacy is a journey of metacognition or self-awareness regarding how we develop our perspectives and interact with others. For this journey, Vagary Media Literacy offers bite-sized food for thought. Take it with a grain of salt.

Servus, 

Gilbert