Media literacy is a broadened understanding of literacy that encompasses the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media in various forms. It also includes the capacity to reflect critically and act ethically, leveraging the power of information and communication to engage with the world and contribute to positive change. Media literacy applies to different types of media, and is seen as an important skill for various contexts, including work, life, and citizenship.

Examples of media literacy include reflecting on one's media choices, identifying sponsored content, recognizing stereotypes, analyzing propaganda and discussing the benefits, risks, and harms of media use. Critical analysis skills can be developed through practices like constructivist media decoding and lateral reading, which entails looking at multiple perspectives in assessing the quality of a particular piece of media. Media literacy also includes the ability to create and share messages as a socially responsible communicator. The practices of safety and civility, information access, and civic voice and engagement are sometimes referred to as digital citizenship.

Many of the competencies that make up media literacy are derived from traditional literacy, though adapted for the modern age and digital landscape. These competencies include the ability to access information, analyze and evaluate messages, as well as creating content responsibly, while considering how it might influence the audience. Since social media is an extension of the broader online media environment, social media literacy has become increasingly relevant, functioning as a subset rooted in core media literacy principles. Researchers argued that a deep understanding of media literacy, done through media literacy education, can be especially important today, as it plays a significant role in assessing the credibility of new information. Short-form content's rise has made instant information sharing easier, often without verification. Due to their quick, catchy, and attention-grabbing nature, people consume and share them rapidly without fact-checking. This speed creates a cycle where misinformation spreads quickly before verification.

Media literacy education is the process used to advance media literacy competencies. It is intended to promote awareness of media influence and create an active stance towards both consuming and creating media. Media literacy education is taught and studied in many countries around the world. Finland has been cited as one of the leading countries that invests significantly in media literacy.

Education for media literacy often encourages people to ask questions about what they watch, hear, and read. Some examples of media examined include, but are not limited to television, video games, photographs, and audio messages.

Media literacy education provides tools to help people develop receptive media capability to critically analyze messages, offers opportunities for learners to broaden their experience of media, and helps them develop generative media capability to increase creative skills in making their own media messages. Critical analyses can include identifying author, purpose and point of view, examining construction techniques and genres, examining patterns of media representation, and detecting propaganda, censorship, and bias in news and public affairs programming (and the reasons for these). Media literacy education may explore how structural features—such as media ownership, or its funding model—affect the information presented. Media literacy is interdisciplinary by nature. Media literacy represents a necessary, inevitable, and realistic response to the complex, ever-changing electronic environment and communication cornucopia surrounding us.

The speed and reach of new information today may increase access to knowledge for a broader audience , but during an infodemic, when both true and false information spread simultaneously, it becomes much more difficult to determine what is accurate. When individuals encounter information for the first time, assessing its reliability can be challenging. Without strong media literacy strategies, the internet becomes even harder to navigate. This makes it important to recognize that no single strategy is sufficient on its own. Using a combination of different approaches is what truly helps individuals evaluate information more effectively.

As health professionals increasingly share advice online, media literacy may influence individuals' health decisions. While this trend expands access to health information at little or no cost, it can also complicate the identification of accurate versus inaccurate content. This challenge is partly due to the ease with which individuals can claim health expertise on social media without verifiable credentials, highlighting the role of media health literacy. The concept of media health literacy encompasses the skills and competencies required to grasp, and apply health information to positively impact one's own health and that of others. In a world increasingly saturated with media and digital content, these skills enable individuals to access and use health-related information and tools across various platforms, including television, the Internet, and mobile applications. Research suggests that these skills are associated with how younger individuals and older adults acquire and evaluate newly consumed information about their health.