Discussing Media Literacies: Comparing Latvian and US practice and promise

• In Event: Aspects of News-Making in the Baltic States

Abstract

Media literacy in Latvia maintains a focus upon detecting and providing skills for refuting propaganda messages sent through pro-Putin sources. In instances of teaching, the stress is to “arm” the public with a set of practices associated with defense of the home-nation.

The exploration of media-message resistance and resilience as concepts are not well-established. In instances we observe, in Latvia the emphasis on the “correct” media messages and preferred interpretations have not-disclosed, but nonetheless embedded biases supporting official, governmental “readings”, which support hegemonic values. The arguments of Hall (1982), Fiske (1991), Morley (2022) and others, aligning cultural studies with power relations, highlight this relationship which we also discern from our deep reading of the messages of “mainstream” media sources. We also attach the media ethnography practices of “thick description” (e.g., Geertz, 1973) to our understanding of the messages of interest.

We find, within the domain of “national security” media literacy, the strongest instances of training directly adhering to official codes and conclusions. Nuanced or “both-sides” thinking is considered a weakness of interpretation in Latvia. In contrast, the US sample splits clearly along political divides.

We criticize the validity of “resilience” as the sole response to the problems of national security and advocate for a broader definition of the activities and practices of media literacies (e.g.,Hobbs, 2022), which would well-serve a future-focussed reconsideration of the media literacy field and its goals.

Short Bio

Barbara Ruth Burke

Barbara is an Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota Morris. Her research explores online community building, and the reciprocal nature of media messages and ideas about identity. She earned her MA in Telecommunication Arts from the University of Michigan, and her MA and PhD in American Studies from Purdue University. In addition to working in mass media, she has taught at Ivy Tech Community College (Indiana), has been a Guest Instructor at the University of Iceland, and a Fulbright Scholar at Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences (Latvia). Barbara is a planner for the 20th (International) Media Education Forum.

Liene Ločmele
Liene's research interests lie in the interpersonal and intercultural aspects of human communication with a focus on the communication of identity in various contexts, e.g. education, migration, and media literacy. She is currently working as a lecturer in the Faculty of Society and Science at Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the area of communication, media, and culture. In 2009 she received a Fulbright Student Fellowship towards her PhD at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, USA. She holds a MA in Intercultural Communication from the University of Jyväskyla in Finland.

Authors

• Barbara Ruth Burke, University of Minnesota Morris

• Liene Ločmele, Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences