Never have the long and honourable pedagogic traditions of media education and critical literacy been more important than today, with the public facing an overwhelming, multi-media, globalised and fast-developing abundance, even overload, of mediated information and communication. Further, this mediated abundance must be addressed, for it does not merely relate to entertainment that is optional for people's lives. On the contrary, it is increasingly people's route to civic participation, education, employment, community engagement, commerce and social relations - if people do not participate, they will be excluded both digitally and also in many other ways too.