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Media Literacy and Television Criticism

Enabling an Informed and Engaged Citizenry

California State University, Sacramento

Lawrence A. Wenner

Loyola Marymount University

Bruce E. Gronbeck

University of Iowa

This article argues that the concept of media literacy is strengthened when it is understood as media criticism. After briefly tracing the development from concerns about television in the early 1950s to the Aspen Institute’s 1992 call for media literacy, the article overviews several types of television criticism to illustrate how criticism embraces and moves beyond mere literacy to provide a vehicle for citizen empowerment and engagement. The conclusion reflects on the ethical impulse in media criticism and on how moral engagement with television by literate and critical citizens can serve to democratize public sphere policy debates over communication in the public sphere.

Key Words: television criticism • media criticism • media literacy • ethics • public sphere

American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 48, No. 2, 219-228 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0002764204267266


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