News in the Digital Age - what does it mean for media literacy?

Abstract

It is now more than 10 years since the deadly July 7 bombings in London. With hindsight, and setting aside the human tragedy, the attack represented a defining moment in modern journalism when mobile phone images taken by those trapped in the wreckage of underground railway carriages opened up a new perspective in news gathering. Today, as consumers of news, we would be surprised not to see such “user generated content”, whether it be from the Boston marathon bombing, the beheading of an off-duty soldier outside his barracks in south London or the propaganda machine of ISIS. But the digital revolution encompasses far more than the uploading of mobile phone images. This paper explores just how the practice of journalism has changed in those 10 years that have witnessed an explosion of social media, the tortured introspection of the Leveson Inquiry and the surveillance society revealed by Edward Snowden. What does this mean for our concepts of media literacy and emotional literacy?