Media Literacy’s Role in Preserving and Redefining the Public Commons

When our editorial committee started planning for this issue, we were pondering how to address the extreme polarization we were seeing in the U.S. election campaign. In 2024, at least 64 countries were holding elections, highlighting the variety and fragility of democracy around the globe. Online digital spaces complicate the traditional concept of the town square in which individuals can bring diverse opinions together in a shared communal space because of the group’s proximity to each other. Online, in plural digital spaces, proximity is created through sharing common interests, thus other opinions are often not valued. We must consider the impact of public squares being hosted on private platforms that are not necessarily civic-minded. In trying to understand the causes of polarization, we needed to discover how democracy was being practiced in these spaces. Then we could ask ourselves what role media literacy education plays in upholding the values needed to maintain strong public spaces of discourse.

Finding balance where balance does not exist has added another dimension to this issue. As preparations for this journal were commencing, it became evident that media literacy was being subjected to some problematic rhetoric –misguided and also contextualized by misinformation. There was a gap between the understanding of media literacy to the general public and the way it was being weaponized unknowingly to most of us who have been doing this work in various sectors. It created more of a need for making media literacy education a part of the learning and the discourse that was surrounding the idea of a public commons, asking the question: Is media literacy a part of the public commons or is it an obstacle to understanding? Further, have media literacy educators forgotten that the public commons includes all people including those we disagree with as we share in those public spaces? These are questions that have lingered after this issue was proposed and the call presented.

We have to thank our guest editors for shaping and guiding this issue from ideation to publication. Michael Hoechsmann, Canadian professor from Lakehead University who focuses on digital and media literacies, cultural studies and education, is on IC4ML’s board of directors as well as the JML planning committee. His passion and interest in the topic helped shape the direction of this issue. He, in turn, invited his colleague, María Luisa Zorrilla, professor at Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos in Mexico whose work focuses on transmedia narrative, new literacies, and digital culture, to co-edit with him. During the year of a presidential U.S. election, having a Canadian and a Mexican perspective added a special dimension to the process. We are so grateful for their diverse, thoughtful approaches to leading the in-person discussions (We highly recommend watching the YouTube video of our Advisory Board discussion featuring Tanner Mirrlees!), guiding and editing the authors’ work, and shaping the discourse that is laid out in this issue.

It took us a bit longer than usual to get this issue to publication, partly due to a large response in article proposals, causing us to create two separate issues at the same time. Also, our organization’s board and editorial team were experiencing the beginnings of being “exhausterwhelmulated,” a term floating around social media that perfectly describes being exhausted, overwhelmed, and overstimulated all at the same time. From post-summer conferencing, national elections, and the fast pace of change, as well as the news, limited our time and bandwidth for processing daily information, adding to the fragmentation.

We, as media literacy educators, need to create and hold a safe, compassionate space for each other and those in our networks and communities, allowing us to pause, listen, and reflect together – the essence of critical thinking and media literacy – so we can focus on solutions and take action that will lead us to a stronger, more resilient digital public commons. This issue provides the beginnings of that thinking as well as the open doorway to communication that continues to garner the growing need for bridging difficult conversations within media literacy education.