Media Competence. Articulated Proposal of Dimensions and Indicators

The changes occurring in the media environment over the last decade force us to revise the parameters from which media education is to be implemented today, in a new age of communications. This article seeks to provide some criteria that media education or media literacy should follow, and especially a coordinated proposal of dimensions and indicators to define the new media competence. The proposal has been made by the authors of this article from the contributions made by 50 renowned Spanish and foreign experts in Media Literacy. The proposal focuses on six major dimensions: languages; technology; interaction processes; production and dissemination processes; ideology and values, and the aesthetic dimension. And it is structured around two areas of work in every dimension: the production of their own messages and the interaction with outside messages. We propose to develop this media education in the context of participatory culture, combining critical and aesthetic thinking with the expressive capacity; the development of personal autonomy with social and cultural commitment. Finally, we propose to combine technological revolution with neurobiological revolution, assuming changes produced in the conception of the human mind, especially as regards the importance of emotions and unconscious processes over reasoned and conscious ones.