ABSTRACT
This essay explores theoretical understandings and practical applications of ecomedia literacy as an educational response to our ecological footprint and mindprint. It connects the Covid-19 pandemic with the environmental crisis and demonstrates how education’s technological response to the pandemic contributes to environmental troubles. The authors explore how Big Tech positions media literacy as personal responsibility, which diverts accountability from the environmental impacts of technology. When students are trained for the information economy, they are prepared to facilitate the destruction of the planet. But students can learn skills and aptitudes that allow them to meaningfully address the climate emergency. Media education should guide students to deconstruct the myths repeated frequently in commercial media, such as the idea that we are all equally impacted by climate change and we are all equally to blame. The framework of ecojustice argues that in order for our current system to operate—especially the global production chain and lifecycle of technology—it requires disposable populations and sacrifice zones. The authors offer suggestions for how media educators can incorporate ecojustice and ecomedia literacy into their curriculum and identify strategies for aligning ecomedia into traditional areas of a media literacy curriculum.
