ABSTRACT
Reading and writing are two activities specific to human beings: animals do not read or write. From the beginning of human civilization until today, the concept of literacy has always been changing together with the ideas of culture and of the learned human with his or her social necessities of education, school goals and politics, and with the changes of communication languages and systems. Literacy must be examined from two points of view: the development of the human communication systems and, as a consequence, the emerging necessity to improve competencies in reading and writing texts. The latter view takes into consideration the role that school education plays today and considers its present difficulties and its mission in handing down knowledge and culture. In this essay, I first outline the reasons for the gap between school and mass media that several theories have highlighted and the features of the consequent education philosophies based on the idea of contrast and fight. Then, I argue that media literacy can be the foundation on which it is possible to build a positive and fruitful relationship between media culture and school education. Going through the history of the concept of literacy and taking into consideration the media literacy theories will show how media literacy practices not only function for education and cultural growth but also have important significance in human growth.
