Comunicar 39-ingles - Revista Comunicar

86Comunicar, 39, XX, 2012tegies for school environments, for parental environmentsand, necessarily, for professional media environments.Since we know that the media industriesare usually almost completely closed to such pedagogicalapproaches, it means that we will have to concentrateour efforts on the environments of academicmedia training, that is, universities and other mediatraining centres. Within this perspective, besides journalism,the other fields of major importance to be concernedwith media education and media literacy arefilm, videogames, music, advertising and, because allthe media tend to converge towards it, the internet.Some of these aspects were already raised in earliercontexts, in an attempt to develop some reflectionand discussion about their nature: «The Internet isactually the largest database for information support inthe daily life of individuals but even institutions andservices. Among those we can count students and teachers,but also media and opinion makers, as well asinformation providers including journalists. When it isessentially used as a path for communication channelsfor electronic messages, the web contains a series ofuseful information, presented by individuals, institutions,governments, associations and all types of commercialand non-commercial organizations. But whoare the gate-keepers of that electronic flow? Whomakes up the major streamlines of the global agenda?How and where are the most powerful editorial linesshaped? Beyond the boundless and instantaneous allocationof data, the Internet developed new ways forcultural, economic and social life. This development isrelated to communication instruments and access tothe communication and information industries. It isapparent in politics, education, commerce, and inmany other fields of public and private character. Allthese areas contribute to the rapid change of our traditionalparadigms of public sphere and space and wedon’t know yet if our position as individual and socialactors in the above is changing as quickly and maybewe are not yet completely aware of the implications ofsuch changes. The potential threat of widespread alienationin such new environments of media exposureshould not be dismissed lightly» (Reia, 2006: 123-134).6. Do we need Film Literacy?Film, is probably the most eclectic and syncretic ofall media and it has an incredible power of attractionwhich is replicated in all other media through theusage of film languages in any kind of media contexts:music videos to promote music; real footage to enhancevideogames; film genres and film stars to reachpublicity targets; film inserts and excerpts of all kinds in«YouTube», «Facebook», «Myspace» and millions ofother websites in the internet.Film, in its many different forms, became the mostcommon vehicle of those New Environments ofMedia Exposure, thus, becoming also one of the mostimportant instruments for a Multidimensional and Multi -cultural Media Literacy among the many differentmedia users, consumers, producers and «prosumers»of all ages, social and cultural levels, although differentlevels of media literacy, their nature or even their lackcan show differences or similarities, according to thelocal and global contexts where they are developedand practiced: «Appropriations and usage patterns ofthese media technologies are in many ways rather specific,so one of the main risks, in a media literacy context,is the danger of generalization about commonpatterns of appropriation. However, one general featurein our attitudes towards these media culturaleffects has been taking them as they were often ambivalent:television is still seen both as educational and asa drug; mobile phones are perceived both as a nuisanceand as a life-saver; computer games are viewedboth as learning tools and as addictive timewasters andfilm has been looked at since the very beginnings of the7th art as a medium of great educational power as wellas a medium with an enormous range of escapismdimensions» (Reia, 2008: 155-165).The urgency to approach film, its languages andappropriations as a main vehicle of media literacy hasalso to do with the enormous importance of thismedium in the construction of our collective memories.The richness and diversity of the film languages,techniques and technologies of film are seen as instrumentsof great importance, from the primitive films ofLumière and Mélies to the most sophisticated virtualinserts in YouTube. Their role as vehicles of artisticand documentary narratology and as factors of authenticfilm literacy, acquires an absolutely unquestionableimportance in any society that calls itself a knowledgeand information society as constructive contributionsto our collective and cultural memories.Having this in mind, specially within the new contextof media policies that are expected to be deve -loped all around the world and consequently somepossible new media and film literacy approaches, itwas a task of major importance to produce the thematicdossier of «Comunicar, 35» concerning the role of«Film Languages in the European Collective Memory»(Reia, 2010). Let us now see how its content can helpus to establish some links to the necessary global medialiteracy strategies that have to be drawn, especially in© ISSN: 1134-3478 • e-ISSN: 1988-3293• Pages 81-89