The Popular is Political: What Studying Popular Culture Can Teach Us About Media Literacy and Building An Informed Citizenry

By Simi Situ

If you ask any communication scholar worth their salt about the current state of media literacy, they will probably tell you it’s on the decline. Recently, the general public has taken notice of the growing issue of media illiteracy. On Twitter, the canned response to bad-faith arguments or misreadings of the latest blockbuster movie is “Open the schools!” or a sarcastic “Media literacy is so important…”

In light of frequent calls for more media literacy from academics and certain sectors of social media users, what exactly is media literacy, why is it generally misunderstood, and what can we learn from the intersection of media literacy, education, and pop culture for the masses?

My journey with media literacy began long before I knew what it was. Any memory I have after the age of 10 is punctuated with tiny screens. I grew up in the depths of YouTube, developed my sense of self, community, and friendship through Instagram, and still have lingering habits from the hours of reading strangers’ blogs about my favorite musicians and actors on Tumblr.

I don’t quite remember what it was like to exist offline, but eventually, my affinity for online spaces also became an obsession with consumption. In my senior year of high school, I was faced with writing an essay that could help me afford the next four years of my education. I had to explain myself, and my 17-year-old self summed it up plainly: I watch, read, and listen to everything I can get my hands on. Then, I watch, read, and listen to other people–strangers online, podcast hosts, journalists–processing their feelings about their own consumption.

In short, media literacy includes decoding media messages (including the systems in which they exist), assessing the influence of those messages on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and creating media thoughtfully and conscientiously. Flash forward a few years from college application, now with nearly two communication degrees in hand, my education has given me one invaluable lesson about media literacy: The more you learn about media literacy, the more you realize you will never stop learning how to be media literate.

If we can all agree that the practice of media literacy is necessary and essential to exist sanely online and offline in 2024, then my main concern is that most people will probably learn it by accident or not at all. In the U.S. at least, the demonization and denigration of popular culture and mass media discount the roles of political and media literacy, especially for young people.

Americans are taught to think that Taylor Swift, the Super Bowl, and House of the Dragon are divorced from how they vote. Since the 2016 election and the start of a global pandemic, voters are becoming more and more aware of how intertwined popular culture and politics actually are. Look no further than Politico and Fox News having to reckon with “kamala IS brat.” 

The tools of media literacy (decoding messaging, assessing their influence, and intentional creation), are the basis of creating an informed democracy and a citizenry that can advocate for itself when a government fails to serve it. At the same time, acknowledging that the popular is political also opens up a world of more enjoyment of and closeness to the media we love the most.

Despite the privilege I’ve had to formally study it, I may find popular culture more confusing than I did just a few years ago. The difference now is I have the strategies and stamina to keep figuring it out, and that process is one of my favorite things. After the fall semester of my sophomore year, I founded ‘for breakfast,’ a pop culture blog where my friends and a few hundred strangers get to watch me practice media literacy and pop culture criticism in real time. 

As media and pop culture consumption continue to increase, it’s hard to say whether media literacy will increase with it. While I’m optimistic, I do know that media literacy is most often learned in community. It’s watching an MCU blockbuster with your friends and having a long conversation. It’s joining subreddits and following podcasts that help you understand that show you just binge-watched. While I don’t consider myself a media scholar just yet, my number one tip for becoming media literate: Don’t do it alone!