Every Song is a Sermon

It’s a safe assumption that at some point in your early years you learned the alphabet. It’s one of the most important things for young learners to master as they begin their academic education. You sang the songs, colored the pictures and little by little learned that letters were important.

Letters came together and became words, and words became sentences, and sentences became paragraphs. Paragraphs became chapters and books. It’s called literacy, but did you know that there is something known as media literacy? Learning how to analyze media and take every thought captive is a subject known as media literacy. 

MEDIA LITERACY?

Media literacy is a term that has been coined to describe the ability to recognize and understand that all media has a message, and those messages have an impact in our lives. The Wikipedia page about Media Literacy says “Media literacy encompasses the practices that allow people to access, critically evaluate, and create or manipulate media”

Relating to critical evaluations it says, “Critical analyses can include identifying author, purpose and point of view, examining construction techniques and genres, examining patterns of media representation, and detecting propaganda, censorship, and bias in news and public affairs programming (and the reasons for these).”

A CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW?

Media Literacy classes are taught in many public schools but not from a Christian worldview. Unlike reading, we don’t need schooling or curriculum to learn how to watch TV, listen to the radio, play a video game, surf the web, or interact with a smartphone or tablet. On the other hand, we do need to be trained to recognize what is being taught and the impact of those messages.

Too often we buy into the deception that it’s just entertainment. But it’s not just entertainment. Let me say that again — it’s not just entertainment. Here’s a slogan I came up with years ago…

Every song is a sermon,

Every movie a message,

Every TV a teacher,

Every word a weapon,

And a picture is worth a thousand words.

It’s a catchy way to remind you that all media has a message.