Media Issues

1. Media Issues Media Literacy

2. Today and Next Week Today: Exam Review Media Literacy Lecture Media Literacy Debates Next week: Test #1!

3. What is Media Literacy? • What is media literacy? • Who partakes in media literacy? • How do we learn media literacy? • What is the point of media literacy?

4. Media Literacy Media Literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate messages in a wide variety of forms. It is the process of critically analyzing and learning to create one’s own messages in print, audio, video and multimedia.

5. Do we think people are media literate? • Do we think media literacy mitigates media effects? • Is specific media literacy education necessary? • Is it possible to really define what media literacy is, and if it is….

6. What are the solutions to media effects? Is media literacy preferable to censorship? Is a ‘protectionist’ stance necessary or desired?

7. Should the focus of media literacy be to reverse dependence on media messages and persuade people to shift their interests to other things or other types of media?

8. What should the goals of Media Literacy be?

9. Concepts for Media Literacy • All media messages are constructed. • Media messages are produced within economic, social, political, historical contexts. • The meaning making process and interpretation involved in consuming media consists of an interaction between reader, text and culture. • Media have unique languages of construction. • Media representations play a role in people’s understanding of social reality.

10. Key Questions of Media Literacy • Who created this message and what is the purpose? • What creative techniques are used to attract and hold my attention? • How might different people understand this message differently? • What values, lifestyles, and points of view are represented in this message? • What is omitted from this message?

11. 7 DEBATES • Does ML protect kids? • Should media production be a feature of ML education? • Should ML focus on popular culture texts • Should ML have a political or ideological agenda? • Should ML be focused on school based environments? • Should ML be its own subject or should it be integrated into existing curriculum? • Should ML initiatives be supported financially by media organizations?

12. 1. DOES MEDIA LITERACY PROTECT PEOPLE?

13. Impact Mediation If you can be taught to deconstruct media texts, you won’t be taken in by the fantasy or commercialization or violence of the content. Do you agree?Is Media Education almost like a vaccination? Does media education protect people?

14. Media Theorist David Buckingham says focusing on problematic features of mass media we neglect people’s emotional engagement with the media---ignoring the real pleasure they get from the media.

15. Protectionist Stance • Leads to teacher telling students facts about media’s negative influence and manipulative power. • Students learn to parrot the facts but don’t necessarily learn the critical skills required to do their own analysis.

16. 2. Should media production be a feature of ML education?

17. Some theorists say you have to experience media creation before you can truly be a critical consumer of content. • Some theorists say creating content strengthens creative skills and helps people break down content they consume

18. Other theorists say media production skills merely copy and reproduce Hollywood techniques. • They say practically, media production is limited. It involves more equipment, classroom time and teachers than are available. • These theorists say media production takes away from the more important skills of reading and writing.

19. 3. Should ML focus on popular culture texts?

20. Typically education devalues popular culture. • Theorists say deconstruction and analysis of texts and narrative can be learned just as well by discussing Gossip Girl as analyzing Pride and Prejudice. • The primary question here is: To what extent do the skills of ML transfer from one genre to another?

21. Some theorists say that if the goal is transferring skills from education contexts to home contexts- the education must focus on popular culture texts.

22. 4. Should ML have a political or ideological agenda?

23. In other words- Some theorists think Media Literacy should serve a range of progressive goals (like reducing sexism, racism, violence or homophobia) OR They say ML chips away at manipulative propaganda and raises questions about the power dynamics of media messages.

24. These theorists say education is the primary method of social progress and reform. • Some of these theorists say students should learn critical autonomy. They need to discover their own beliefs and should not be pushed to accept any agenda. • SO, ml should not try to reproduce teachers ideas about media.

25. Others say media literacy may become a substitute for action instead of a spur to act. • They say there must be a clear link between literacy and advocacy.

26. 5. Should ML be focused on school based environments?

27. Some theorists say ML should happen at home with parents. • Others say the place is in after school activities. • Others say that schools should teach classics but should also analyze popular tv, film and magazines, etc. • Some say any ML in school will be a bottom up movement.

28. 6. Should ML be its own subject or should it be integrated into existing curriculum?

29. Those who say it should NOT be integrated say ML education requires particular training and shouldn’t be an afterthought. • They say it will always be at the margins, an extra, never truly valued. • Those who say it SHOULD be integrated say there is value in infusing ML concepts in all curriculums. • However- the texts used in the classroom are rarely considered beyond their function of sharing information (so not really ML).

30. 7. Should ML initiatives be supported financially by media organizations?

31. Those who support this say that media should play a role in ML. • Others say it creates a ‘strings attached’ atmosphere.

32. Essentially- media literacy must be a PEDAGOGY OF INQUIRY which is the act of asking questions about media texts. • ML must cultivate an open, questioning, reflexive, and critical stance towards texts. (Why might this be hard in a normal classroom?)