Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action

The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation released a detailed plan that positions digital and media literacy as an essential life skill and outlines steps that policymakers, educators, and community advocates can take to help Americans thrive in the digital age.

Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action, by Renee Hobbs, Professor at the School of Communications and the College of Education at Temple University and founder of its Media Education Lab, provides four broad strategies and 10 specific recommendations on how to provide students and adults with the knowledge and critical thinking skills to sort through the overwhelming amount of digital information they receive every day in our media-saturated society.

The policy paper is the second in a series focused on implementing the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy’s 15 recommendations for creating healthy, informed communities across the country released last year.