ABSTRACT
If media literacy is considered a language, then, like any language, it must be continuously practised. For much of its history, there were no options to practise media literacy in a formal, classroom-based capacity at the higher education level. This hinders widespread access to and development of media literacy education throughout the US school system. On a broader scale, the application and integration of digital technologies are conceivably part of every professional job; college students who are not taught media literacy risk being less informed about the permutations of their job and more at risk of being manipulated by the media industries. This chapter reviews the history of media literacy education in the United States, including some significant theoretical divisions that have stunted the growth of the larger field, and concerns about the future of media literacy in higher education.
