By: Russ
Lord Puttnam on Media Literacy / Creative Commons
We just received the full-text of Lord Puttnam’s recent keynote speech at the Ofcom / IPPR Media Literacy Seminar (email us at blog@ofcomwatch.co.uk if you want a copy - it does not appear on the Ofcom website). Here are some nuggets:
[M]edia literacy is about creating something positive - it is about empowering people by providing them with the cultural awareness, the critical knowledge and creative skills which will help them to understand the way the media shapes the way in which we view the world. At its heart media literacy is about audiences.
Firstly, if our sense of the world is increasingly shaped by electronic media, then in order for individual citizens to really make sense of this world, to navigate their way through it more effectively, they must be equipped with the ability to understand the means by which the media is able to shape, represent, and indeed misrepresent that world.
The digital world poses a number of challenges around the question of value � most specifically the value of intellectual property rights. In the past, much of the premium value attached to IP rights was a natural consequence of its scarcity. How do we ensure that the value of IP still inheres in a world in which the IP itself is infinitely reproducible, frequently at zero marginal cost?
I don�t for one moment believe that everything should be free, but I equally don�t believe that putting all copy-write material under lock and key is the answer either � especially when public resources have been involved in helping create that content in the first place. That�s why I personally welcome initiatives such as the BBC�s �Creative Archive� and the Creative Commons movement � they represent fresh, innovative thinking about maximising the benefits of Intellectual Property in a digital world.
What the U.K. needs is a Jamie Oliver-type celebrity figure to step forward and be the poster-child for better school lunches … I mean … media literacy. (Kelvin MacKenzie? Camilla Parker Bowles?) Send nominations to: blog@ofcomwatch.co.uk
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