Prasun Sangroula

Dictionary of Media and Communication defines media literacy as “an in-depth knowledge of how the media work and how they might influence audiences”. In general, it is an idea that enables us to interpret and analyse the news or information presented by the media.

Rapid Growth
With the pace of time, the numbers of media outlets are growing rapidly throughout the world. Every media outlet has its interest and ways of presenting the information. The different media portrays the same incident differently due to which audiences get baffled and become detached with authentic information.
Still, there is a large number of people who do not critically analyse and interpret the news information acquired from the media; they easily believe in that obtained information and involves in creating misunderstanding among the people. For instance, these days we get a lot of news regarding pandemic and political affairs, not all of the news comes up with similar information. Each of them has different views, which confuse the audience, create misunderstanding, and even spread terrors.
So to overcome this situation, awareness of media literacy can be very much fruitful.  
 As we all can see the practice of disseminating fake news has taken a larger space all around the world, the trend is unrestrainable. The business of clickbait is massive. In a time like this, the concept of media literacy must attain every corner of the world. But unfortunately, it is not happening and the concerned authority also seems to be unenthusiastic regarding the issue created by the absence of media literacy.
Meanwhile, some countries are highly focused on media literacy and they even have a separate policy for it.
Ireland has its association for media literacy known as Media Literacy Ireland (MLI), which is committed to the promotion of media literacy across Ireland. Similarly, countries like Finland, Sweden, and Netherland teach school children about digital literacy and critical thinking about misinformation. As a result, these nations’ tops a list of European countries deemed the most resilient to disinformation. 

Nepali Scenario
The different report suggests that the status of Media literacy in Nepal is in a progressive state but still many things are needed for its growth. 
If we go to any school-based in Nepal and ask students about media literacy, there is a greater chance that only a very few will respond to it. This is because the schools over here have not prioritized media literacy as an important subject as the above-mentioned nations did.  
Not only the general audiences are illiterate about media literacy but also the ones who are involved in media are also unknown about it. There are still big numbers of media who depend on unauthenticated sources. They do not analyze or interpret the information obtained from the sources and such action develops disinformation. Online media and YouTube journalism are largely found of following such practices.
Reportedly, 67.9 per cent of people are literate in Nepal but the number of media-literate people is still unknown because until now no scientific survey has been done to find it out.

Measures To Be Taken
We have several organisations who are involved in teaching things such as handwashing behaviour, the importance of planting trees and among others but the one who actively works for the development of media literacy are very few in numbers.
Therefore, to improve the status of media literacy of Nepal few things can be done immediately. Firstly, Akin to Ireland the government of Nepal should also form an association for the progress of media literacy.
Secondly, the curriculum at the school level should be updated by including the courses of media literacy. Thirdly, the Mainstream or popular media should take the lead to improve the situation; they should frequently aware audiences about media literacy or can even develop a separate section for it.
And lastly, the concerned authority should establish a platform where the various issues of media literacy can be discussed.

(Sangroula is pursuing a Master's degree in Journalism and Mass Communication)