Education and Communication Public Policy: Discussions and Developments

Relations between citizens and mass media are becoming increasingly complex, making it necessary to plan and design education in a hypermediatic society, where new challenges arise: education has got the primary responsibility of training citizens to consume and produce in a media ecosystem with great capacities and potentialities for new audiences. In this strategic relation between education and communication, public policies should strengthen a framework that encourages personal empowerment, combining creativity with understanding of the structures, processes and techniques that enhance critical consumption. This paper offers an overview of the advances that have occurred with regard to the new media literacy, based on content analysis, from the definition of this concept by UNESCO in 1979 to the present, through “New Curriculum for Teachers on Media and Information Literacy” of 2011 and “Mapping Media Education in the World” of 2009. Additionally, we deal with the main discussions held in a global context because it is imperative to reinforce the value of diversity in the face of the great convergence challenge. The empowerment of citizenship is an unquestionable value that will be beneficial to their cultural inclusion and their critical participation in the media sphere, so that they become media and digital prosumers, and to this effect public policies in education and communication must continue advancing and joining efforts.