Towards the Integration of Media and Information Literacy: A Rationale for a Twenty-first-century Approach

Media and information literacy are two related but distinct fields of intellectual enquiry and educational practice. Both fields are widely recognised as important aspects of general education and in a number of instances have been identified as integral to furthering the wider political projects of democratic citizenship and the enhancement of civil society (Correia, 2002; Hobbs, 1998; Martinsson, 2009). While the two fields have historically had different emphases, in recent years there have been several calls for the two fields to be integrated (Cheung, Wilson, Grizzle, Tuazon, & Akyempong, 2011; Leaning, 2009; Moeller, Joseph, Lau, & Carbo, 2011). A key issue with this is that historically the fields are quite separate and that they occur in different locations: media education in educational institutions and information education primarily in libraries.