The Core Concepts: Fundamental to Media Literacy Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

“New media” does not change the essence of what media literacy is, nor does it affect its ongoing importance in society. Len Masterman, a UK-based professor, published his ground-breaking books in the 1980’s and laid the foundation for media literacy to be taught to elementary and secondary students in a systematic way that is consistent, replicable, measurable and scalable on a global basis – and thus, timeless. Masterman’s key insight was that the central unifying concept of media education is that of representation: media are symbolic sign systems that must be decoded. This paper explores the development and the application of the Core Concepts of media literacy, based on Masterman’s groundbreaking work, in Canada and in the U.S.