Poole Part 2, Media Literacy

The second part of the passage written by Poole, is focused on media literacy and how three groups interpret the media that they read. The people represented were categorized intro three groups, Muslims, Contact, and Non-contact. Poole shows how these people interpret the media that they read and what is "important" to them in the text, specifically their knowledge of media bias, and the misrepresentation of Muslims in the media.

Depending on which of these three categories that the person can be placed in, how they used the media to support their "claims" varied (Poole 233). For non-Muslims that were part the non-contact group, meaning they have no contact with Muslims, relied on a certain media source heavily for their information. They displayed "selective perception" where they would choose on quote form the text to focus on and make it fit to their needs or claims (Poole 233). Though the groups presented different ways of using the information, they all had the mistake of misreading articles in common. They all have a tendency to skim read something if it is of no significance or value to them, which results in only pulling information they need that most appropriately fill the blanks they need for their view of the event.

A major part of how informed a person is has correlation to what they read. For example, participants that read regularly, but only picked up a tabloid were far less informed. People who showed little interest in reading news, listening to news, or watching the news had little knowledge about current issues (Poole 237). Some cultures have such close ties to their newspapers, that the papers only printed what that particular group of people wanted to read. Little historical knowledge, as well as the inability to argue for their readings was extremely evident in the non-contact group. For shear lack of any minority groups, there was a since of the "Other" group and the issues plaguing them (Poole 238).

Poole wants to reiterate that we are not only influenced by the media, but our ability to decipher the media and recognize the bias in it, as well as, the direct influence around us directly affects our perception of a particular group of people, particularly Muslims in this case.