Professor Jonah Rubin Explains the Importance of Media Literacy

The Abolition Lab, made possible by the Mellon Humanities Grant, formed the Media Literacy Team to promote media literacy and teach related skills to students, which is the ability to analyze and create impactful media. 

“Media literacy is the set of practices that are required to critically understand, interpret, and create diverse media. It could be how you understand your favorite movie, or the more recent example of a news report, which is what we are focused on,” Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology and member of the new Media Literacy Team, Jonah Rubin said.

Rubin believes it’s equally important for students of every major to experience the benefits of this project. 

“Part of a Knox education is producing the leaders for the future. To do that, you have to understand what’s happening through the critical lens, and learn how to make a difference,”  Rubin said.

In terms of resources offered, the Media Literacy Team is currently working on a library guide on how to navigate the library resources. In the future, new classes and assignments will emerge centered around media literacy. The Abolition Lab in Seymour Library will also be transformed into a production space and will produce materials such as podcasts and Tiktoks to critically engage with the rest of the world. 

To achieve its goals, the media literacy team has also taken an unusual approach.

“We want to interrogate what media has been traditionally, to which it has contributed to numerous social issues in the U.S. We want to think of the possibility of creating a media that is not guided by an unbiased agenda, but by a commitment towards exposing the current issues and creating a more just society,” Rubin said. 

According to Rubin, Knox students could see the fruits of the media literacy team manifest itself in the form of classes in the fall of this year. Thanks to the media literacy team, Knox took another step closer to its goal of teaching abolitionism.