Open Media Literacy Manifesto

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Antonio Lopez:

"Humans are learning creatures. We evolve through sharing. Everyone has something to contribute to the cultural commons. And the cultural commons must remain open.


Meanwhile we are being globally mindfraked by less than a handful of multinational corporations. Our education system is crumbling and being ripped to shreds. The public good is being put into debt slavery for the global banking and finance system. It is clear the enclosure of the commons cannot happen without corporate media’s complicity with the neoliberal agenda and its daily propagation of free market propaganda.


Most importantly, our planet cannot be sustained by further growth. That means consumerism as we know it must end. But corporate media won’t tell you that.


Yet there is hope. Participatory and open media are alive and evolving. People are sharing and doing stuff for free. They are giving time and creativity away because it feels good and it is fun. But enclosure always lurks behind our backs. We have to be vigilant.


So now our education practices should reflect the open culture. We can’t afford not to.


But when it comes to media literacy, we have some cultural barriers. Media education is as old as mass media, and therefore has modeled its approach on mass media.


The mass media of the industrial era has shifted radically. But media literacy has not. Often times media literacy is just anti-media, and still thinks the way industrial media thinks. Often it focuses on content and information, but not practice or lifelong learning.


We have content literacy, tool literacy, image literacy, information literacy. But what about open culture literacy?


Media literacy books, videos and tools are often copyrighted and locked behind walled gardens. A media literacy documentary should not cost $100. Media literacy curriculum should not cost $100. Media literacy education should not cost anything. It should be free.


Nor should we brand or market our materials for corporations.


We have no business with standards, we have no business with testing. We are in the business of freeing education and opening culture.


Therefore, it should be resolved that our resources be put on the Web for free; that we take down copyright barriers and prohibitive institutional pricing of our tools and give them away." (http://mediacology.com/2012/03/21/open-media-literacy-manifesto/)