Media Is Us: Understanding Communication and Moving Beyond Blame

Elizaveta Friesem argues that instead of being worried about media or blaming it for what's going wrong in society, we should become curious about uniquely human ways we communicate with each other. Media Is Us proposes five key principles of communication that are relevant both for the modern media and for people's age-old ways of making sense of the world. In order to understand problems of the contemporary society revealed and amplified by the latest technologies, we will have to ask difficult questions about ourselves, and to rethink not only the term "media" but also the concept of power. Concluding with practical steps to build media literacy through the ACE model--from Awareness to Collaboration through Empathy--this timely book is essential for anyone who would use the new understanding of media to decrease the current levels of polarization.