ENTRY 5: Critical Thinking and Media Literacy

• Critical thinking: the ability that human beings have to analyze and evaluate sources of information to reach one or more conclusions about something.

• Media literacy: technical, cognitive, social, civic, ethical and creative skills that allow us to access the media, analyze the content critically and use it effectively, create and share it in a safe and responsible manner.

The media is very misleading, always covering politics, using ideologies as shields to defend themselves and attack others. Some news is presented half-heartedly so as not to affect the country's image or that of government officials who delude citizens with empty promises and proposals. Another thing very characteristic of the different media is that they show only the part of the news that is most convenient for them, showing a half-truth or false or invented information.

Thinking critically is a challenge, as putting ourselves to the task of questioning it is something we are not used to, but it is something we should always keep in mind when we see or hear the pile of news that comes out every day. The task of confirming a fact becomes more difficult when you investigate more in depth, because instead of getting more detailed information on the subject appear more things with the same title but with different information, which only bombard people with so much information that in the end you just have to accept that you can not always be critical and fully analyze the information provided to us.

Is there a solution to this problem?

The harsh reality is that there is still no satisfactory answer, but the best way to avoid falling into this web of sensationalism is to accept that we cannot always be critical, but we can learn to always question the important things, be impartial and even debate our knowledge. We also cannot let ourselves be manipulated and use media literacy to be more astute and form our own judgments through the true and false information we receive.