Media literacy and COVID-19 communication: Work and home sphere differences

Abstrak / Ringkasan

<p>As a learning process wherein we ask questions to enhance knowledge, <em>media literacy</em> offers a powerful lens for examining how people practice communication across diverse applied contexts such as professional communicators shaping messages about COVID-19. Borrowing a page from Renee Hobbs’ (1998, 1999, 2010, 2011, 2021) media literacy education research, we sought to compare/contrast media content creators’ (journalism, advertising, public relations, marketing communication) information-seeking behaviors during the 2020-2022 COVID-19 pandemic for both their paid work and unpaid volunteer work, as well as for their own and family edification. Blending the media literacy lens with social construction theory (Berger & Luckmann, 1967), our survey findings collected at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 suggest that professional communicators (N=174) relied more frequently on <em>media sources</em> (64.9%) for COVID-19 information for work (paid and unpaid) and on <em>people</em> such as medical professionals (51.5%) as sources for COVID-19 information for their own personal and family use. Other findings detail professional communicators’ use of media literacy learning processes of accessing, analyzing, creating, reflecting, and taking action.</p>

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