MEDIA LITERATION AS A MEANS TO REDUCE THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF MEDIA DUE TO COVID-19 VIRUS

Abstract

Advances in information and communication technology produces a variety of media that can be used as a means of communication. The emergence of diverse media is not always followed by public awareness to provide true information to others. The issues circulating around the current phenomenon are very difficult to sort out due to too many existing media. The tendency of people is accepting issues without criticism. The phenomenon surrounding the covid-19 virus has been widely reported by various media: both true and untrue news about the Covid-19 virus is circulated widely in various media. This of course has led to prolonged public unrest and polemic. Seeing this, of course there is a need for media education in the community to be more critical in digesting the information provided by the media. Indonesia having the largest number of ethnic groups in a country certainly feels important for media education so that the public is smarter and responsible for using existing media. This research uses descriptive qualitative method to be able to give a picture to the public about good media education and the importance of being critical. The results obtained are the need for media education to the public so that people are more critical in receiving information. Media education can be done formally or informally. The development and increase of critical capacity of the community is important to filter the exposed overlapping information.