In the Weeks That Follow: Media Literacy and the Identity Politics of Terror
This post was originally published on Tangents USA. You can find it here. The Need for Media Literacy To contextualize my thoughts on the way we form our perceptions of humanity at large, I have a confession to make. I tend to watch the people through the windows of the apartments across from mine. I know that’s pretty much the definition of voyeurism, but hear me out. I do it because their mundaneness is comforting. It reminds me that what I’m seeing is a far more accurate depiction of the daily goings-on of the people in my own world and beyond. It is a relief to know that the guy cooking a quick dinner and the couple watching television are perhaps more common occurrences than the overwhelming amount of horrific events that my TV, computer, radio, and social media accounts report as the norm. It causes me to wonder whether our worldviews and the ways that we shape our understandings of humanity have become increasingly informed by the media rather than by the daily goings-on …