Overview cont.

unveiled a one-billion dollar plan involving a massive advertising campaign designed to reduce drug use among the nation's youth (White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, 1998).

Because media exposure is widely acknowledged to shape the attitudes, perceptions and behavior of children and youth, a number of educators have used another approach that helps young people to critically analyze the media messages that promote unhealthful lifestyle choices and to also create their own messages using media and technology. Rising in prominence during the 1990s, this approach has been identified with various labels including 'critical viewing,' 'media literacy' or 'youth media production' or 'media education.'

The basic idea is to help young people from unwittingly being enculturated to substance abuse, aggressive behavior, developmentally inappropriate sexuality, or poor nutrition habits that might partly be the result of, or reinforced by, media exposure via television, film, music, newspapers, magazines, videogames, or the Internet. To carry out media literacy programs, prevention planners must be aware of current media messages, understand the nuances of how these messages may be interpreted, and know how to develop or obtain appropriate curricula. Usually, media literacy programs are delivered locally to a specific group of children or young people in a school, afterschool, or community-based setting.