This article presents a critical analysis of current developments of social media, particulary strategies of attracting media attention. Many youth-cultural orientated media reception studies ignore these problematic media developments (e.g. personalization, emotionalizing, dramatizing). There is an overestimation of individual possibilities to select media autonomously and to develop a critical distance to media presentations. At the same time many of these studies underestimate the relevance of educational and social resources as precondition for developing successful forms of media socialization. Based on this analysis the second part of the article outlines a historical overview and different dimensions: media criticism of everyday life, educational and journalistic media criticism. The final part emphasizes three important tasks in the field of media education referring to the analyzed issues and challenges: first the need of developing experiences and personality by using media; secondly to overcome forms of a ›middleclass-orientated‹ media education; thirdly to reflect and to redefine concepts of ›media competence‹, taking to a greater extend in consideration the relevance of target group orientated concepts, especially for children and young people who are living socially in difficult circumstances.