The article substantiates that the temporality of being of the subject as synchronization of communicative, cognitive demands on a person with dynamic changes of information reality, is the basis for the development of media education. It is justified that the formation of competencies of the carrier of modern culture is a difficult task, since such traits as critical thinking, free possession of judgments about content quality, preventive measures in guarantees of dangers of communicative activity and others, fall into the scope of the main threats – leveling of important conditions of cognitive activity, multiplicity of models of communicative interaction, complex of semiotic systems of media culture, etc. Identified symptomatic cognitive features of the modern subject of information activity indicate the need for an urgent educational response, which means the formation of requirements and criteria for media literacy, a balanced approach to the consideration of temporality, procedural thinking in terms of knowledge, memory, self-identification. It is stated that mastering the semantics, topology, and navigation of the basics of audiovisual communication is an important vector of media education. The article emphasizes the importance of a comprehensive response from the education system to the civilizational challenges of the transition to the information society.