A study on media literacy education in Canada Japan

One of the prominent necessities of the information age is the need for education in the 21st century. Due to the importance of media literacy education at present, its further study and analysis is expected. Since Canada & Japan are known as the pioneers in this field, the natural selection will put them into focus as a model. In this research, media literacy education in the two mentioned countries has been carefully studied, using the descriptive method. Our studies showed that contrary to what was expected, the schools in the various states of Canada did not follow a standard and uniform method for the education of media literacy, rather each state applied a more fitted version, which was tailored according to the requirements of each individual student and the particulars of the location within the state. In Japan, the ministry of post and telecommunications was the first organization to adopt the media literacy education and supervise its adoption. Since information literacy owns a higher priority in comparison with media literacy in Japan, its educational system has added information literacy as an optional part of its school curriculum all over the country. Information literacy focuses mainly on the efficient use of the teaching content and on increasing the skills of the Japanese students in using the computer. Such use of this education in the above-mentioned countries has left the students with more control and a better understanding of the media output. The students know what they really want from the media and can actively analyze and evaluate the media content to better understand the underlying message they convey.