AN OVERVIEW OF UNESCO ACTIVITIES IN CONNECTION WITH MEDIA LITERACY (1977-2009) Adnan ALTUN  ABSTRACT UNESCO has provided important contributions in the attracting attention to and the development of media literacy education through its conference, symposium, seminar, research and publications which it organized and supported. The efforts moved into the international arena with Grunwald Declaration on Media Education in 1982 came to a head with “Paris Agenda or 12 Recommendations for Media Education” in 2007. UNESCO continues to organize and support activities related to media literacy. In this study, the investigation of activities was aimed. Document analysis method has been applied and, the individual studies supported by UNESCO and the institutional studies organized by UNESCO have been examined. In fact, the latter has been more carefully considered to reveal its view on media literacy education. As a result of this investigation, it has been exposed that UNESCO had a systematic approach to media literacy education. The approach has been analyzed under the specific headings: “concept of media literacy”, “media literacy education” and “the guidelines on media literacy education (curriculum, teacher training, research and international cooperation)”. Especially the guidelines has provided important clues for states about how to process on media literacy education. In conclusion, either policy makers or researchers should know that UNESCO, as an actor, must be followed carefully for development of media literacy education. Keywords: UNESCO, education, media literacy education. INTRODUCTION One of the main activity fields of The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is education. This Organization, which has regarded the education as the key of social and economic development since the day when it was founded in 1945, deals with all stages of education starting with preschool education up to university education and vocational education, and, at the same time, concentrates on the subjects such as education policies, equality of opportunity in education, formation of global education policies and strategies. One of the education policies it endeavours to form is media literacy education. Beginning from the end of the seventies, UNESCO has intensified its concentration on media literacy education. The fact that media became a means of public discourse for the public as of 19 th century has played a great role on this intensification. Having taken the power of vision -besides the audio- on its side especially after the invention of television, media has increased its domain of public discourse and its favourable / unfovourable effects making use of the power of being capable of omnipresent. Keeping in mind the reflection of this power into politicial field, UNESCO asked the following crucial question; ... “Indeed, how can anyone become a fully functioning citizen in a democratic society if he/she is manipulated by commercial media?” (UNESCO, 1990). This is really a crucial question for media literacy education. As Masterman (1985: 11) has expressed, the vast majority of young adults rate television as being their most important source of political information. In a world in which images are fast becoming of greater significance than policies, in which slogans often count for more than rational argument, and in which we will all make some of our most important democratic decisions on the basis of media evidence, media education is both essential to the exercising of our democratic rights and a necessary safeguard against the worst excesses of media manipulation for political purposes. In this section I have looked at the importance of media education for „democracy‟ only in the most limited sense of that word, that is, in relation to the processes of understanding explicitly political information, and of exercising one‟s voting rights once every five years. As I have already suggested, however, media education is also an essential step in the long march towards a truly participatory democracy, and the democratisation of our institutions. Widespread media literacy is essential if all citizens are to wield power, make rational decisions, become effective change-agents, and have an active involvement with the media. It is in this much wider sense of „education for democracy‟ that media education can play the most significant role of all. UNESCO had taken into account the importance of the media literacy efforts and exposed two studies toward the end of the 1970s. The first of these is the publication called “Media Studies in Education” printed in the year 1977. This study endeavours to demonstrate the state of “media literacy” and “screen education” in West Europe, the Soviet Union, U.S.A.  Assistant Professor; Abant İzzet Baysal University, Faculty of Education, Department of Social Studies Education.