A Media
Literacy Menu
Ingredients
for Successful Media Studies by Canadian media
education expert Barry Duncan
The following observations are
designed to serve as probes and provocations to
uncover the essence of some important ideas about
media education and media studies. Based largely on the
experience of The Association for Media Literacy during the
last ten years, we hope these ideas and resources will
stimulate discussion and debate. This list is not carved in
stone; the ideas keep changing.
In the media
classroom, we want to pursue thoughtful media
analysis in which it is understood that class
discussions and reflection are the basis for
constructing new knowledge. In this
context, the classroom is a 'site of struggle' in
which meanings are negotiated. UK educator Len
Masterman insists that media studies should be
inquiry-centered, co-investigative, (it does not seek
to impose a specific set of values) egalitarian,
dialogic ( N.B. True dialogue is not conducted
through loose, rambling discussions
but dialectically, leading students to
critical autonomy. Such an expectation
implies that they are capable of making
independent judgments on future media texts.
1.) Teachers need to find a variety of ways of exploiting the 'teachable media moments.'
When excitement over a media text/event comes our way, go for it! Here is the most direct and relevant way to contextualize the key concepts of media: how media construct reality; the role played by media codes and conventions; the nature of audience, the role of media industries; and the pervasive impact of values and ideology. Encourage in-depth study through comparing the extensive media coverage of a major media event. Examples: the death of Diana; the coverage of Clintongate; the shootings at Columbine; the hyping of the Titanic and the new Star Wars films; the trend of artificially created bands like 'Nsync and the Spice Girls; and the impact of the 'reality television' phenomenon. Use plenty of surveys to find out what students already know about the media and duly note the wise guys in your class who are already pop culture experts.
N.B Starting in 2001, teachers will have access to a monthly pop culture with teaching strategies for some current teachable media moments, available from "Barry's Bulletin" created for Mnet Go to www. media-awareness network.ca and click on 'educators' or 'resources.'
2.) Make media production an integral part of your course.
As UK educator Eddie Dick pointed out, we want to have both "critical practice as well as practical criticism." Therefore, link your analytical examples with practical work- using camcorders, multimedia digitizing, Polaroid or digital cameras and try creating some satirical collages. Good equipment is desirable but not essential. Constructing storyboards and sequencing pictures can be done at little cost.
3.) Use all the key concepts of media to deconstruct media texts. While codes, conventions and aesthetics are generally well done, others are often neglected including the following:
i.) Audience: how each of us makes sense of any media text on the basis of our gender, culture , race, and our individual and collective needs. See (Buckingham,1990) and (Duncan,1996).
ii.) Institutions: focus on concerns about social, cultural and politicalrelations. Sites include: media representation of schools, hospitals, and the military.
iii.) Industry- including critical topics such as ownership and control, the impact of transnational corporations and the global economy; cross media merchandising e.g. Star Wars. Read about global media and merchandising strategies in Wolf: The Entertainment Economy. Lest the topic seem too abstract, use documentaries on Coca Cola, McDonald's and Nike. Help students investigate monopolies, the extent of corporate resources for advertising and the incredibly powerful role of public relations' initiatives Critical marketing has become the most important aspect of modern media. Read Naomi Klein's invaluable book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, Random House, 2000.) Finally, no media course is worth its salt if it fails to do an in-depth investigation of the commercialization of our schools, from Channel One and Pepsi franchises to corporate - sponsored classroom curriculum, including even media education resources.
4.) Place media literacy in the broader perspectives provided by cultural studies.
Now established as a kind of international consensus on theory, cultural studies provides important contexts for our media texts and helps us construct a suitable critical pedagogy. Cultural studies foregrounds gender, race, class, political hegemony and the dynamics of subject positioning. (As an aside, teachers of English should be doing more cultural studies approaches to literature and engaging in fewer literary approaches to popular culture.)
5.) Be up front about the importance of media pleasures - guilty or otherwise.
Academics can sure take the pleasure out of this pursuit ! But the notion of the personal satisfactions in media consumption and the joys of fandom, from admiring the Backstreet Boys to delving into quirky film noir movies, must be acknowledged; otherwise, the strident protectionist approach to media literacy will dominate. Teachers should begin by acknowledging their own problematic and contradictory culture passions and be prepared, when appropriate, to share them. Why not encourage students to write thoughtful
papers on their media pleasures and encourage them to use their media logs for open - ended responses?
6.) Learn from media professionals to see media and popular culture in action and be prepared to expand the territory of the subject.
Scan your community for potential speakers and field trips. Seek out film, television and sound producers, photographers, journalists, advertisers, public relations agencies, and media academics. Visit production houses including those for film, television and multimedia
technologies. Look for opportunities to watch the taping of regularly produced shows. Organize a trip to a shopping mall, a theme park, a video arcade or some upscale urban site that will reveal interesting social and semiotic analysis. Check out book and poster stores including comic book venues. Broaden the concepts of media literacy to include artifacts such as Barbie dolls, action figures, and Furbies and all manner of pop kitsch. By adopting an expanded definition of media studies, the view from the classroom on our communities will be richer and more complex.
7.) Where feasible, teach through concepts and important themes.
Tackle broad areas such as representation, narrative, audience and media industries rather than being confined to genre- specific approaches e.g. television in grade 10, the newspaper in grade 11. Such an approach may seem fine for a beginning teacher but this model is rarely productive in a field that is always crossing genres. See (Branston, 1996) and secondary school text by Barry Duncan et al. Mass Media and Popular Culture.
8.) Avoid the tendency to depoliticize media texts. Teach not only ''through' but also 'about' the media.
There are too many bland, soft landing, media literacy products in circulation. Without going on a crusade of media bashing fueled by moral panics, the media classroom deserves openness, intellectual rigor, loads of enthusiasm and a willingness to take risks. Model media texts with interesting ideological constructions and have students investigate examples which they might take for granted e.g. Coke, Nike and McDonald's commercials).
9.) Encourage oppositional readings of mainstream media.
Use the bounty of material on topics such as the Gulf War, the war in the Balkans, and the tobacco industry PR spin to demonstrate how the dominant media are able to manufacture consent. Encourage mainstream readings of popular television texts e.g. "Friends," "Dawson's Creek," and "Do you want to be a millionaire?" and then model some oppositional readings in
which you 'read against the grain.' Try to encourage students to transfer their insights gathered in the media classroom into other areas: the politics of schooling, the role of authority in the family, the world of work. Otherwise, much of our endeavor will have limited impact. ( Guard against playing the 'spot the stereotype' exercise as an end in itself.)
Incorporate in media studies the most useful insights of media critics such as Noam Chomsky, Herbert Schiller, Mark Crispin Miller but avoid being seduced into rigidly holding monolithic interpretations which may be occasionally tinged with paranoia. (See critiques of Douglas Kellner.)
10.) Face the challenges and controversies associated with teaching about
media representation.
Representation is generally considered the central principle in all media study, and we must be prepared to mediate its complexity. For example, in studying race and the media there is a danger of essentializing groups or 'the other,' of limiting the nature of difference through resorting to stereotyping. Today, the legacy of living in a multicultural society is the recognition that identity is an evolving, hybrid and unstable concept. This in-between state necessitates finding appropriate discourses. ( See Robert Morgan, 1997) Education critic Henry Giroux reminds us that today, by necessity, we are all border crossers. Welcome to the global village!
11.) Insist that students conduct original research when doing media projects.
Using ethnographic models, students can learn to effectively observe, interview, and record the opinions and descriptions of individuals and groups when they are researching the reasons for the popularity of TV programs, rock bands, and celebrities. Making students become avid
researchers will ultimately change the social dynamics of the classroom.
12.) Use appropriate instruments/rubrics for authentic media assessment.
To give media studies credibility and to overcome the dangers of arbitrary and subjective responses to student work, we need systematic approaches and easy-to follow models. As Kathleen Tyner reminds us, "When subject standards, classroom tasks, and student assessment are aligned, teachers can better recognize when learning takes place. (See also Chris Worsnop, 1999).
13.) Explore the richness of the many meaningful alternatives to mainstream media.
Access independent film and video e.g. Paper Tiger Television, experimental art which explores media connections. Look for media books and periodicals offering alternatives to mainstream media coverage. Subscribe to Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone by all means but include in your media perspectives periodicals such as Extra, The Media Studies Journal, Brill's Content, The Nation, Z, Cineaste, and Adbusters. As well, you might want to consider novels with media themes as a stimulating classroom resource such as, Burgess: Clockwork Orange; Kosinski: Being There; De Lillo: White Noise; Copeland: Generation X. and more recently ( 1997) Connie Willis: Bellwether.
14.) To stay relevant, media education must address comprehensively the new and converging communication technologies, from multimedia and Nintendo to the Internet.
The new media are reconfiguring media language, fostering hybrid identities and multiple literacies, and, as McLuhan noted, obsolescing aspects of communications discourse while retrieving others. Technotopic discourse seems to prevail and Microsoft Inc. continues to dominate the world- all of which should be grist for the media teacher's mill. Mediate thisvast cyber domain through applying the key concepts of media and see what important insights emerge. Regrettably, there is still a dearth of rigorous analysis supported by solid empirical data from the classroom. (See the work of Marshall McLuhan and Sefton-Green's anthology: Digital Diversions.)
15.) Media teachers need to connect with each other.
Given that our numbers are small and our educational clout often limited, it is of paramount
importance to connect with our 'interpretative community.' The qualified success of the Association for Media is largely attributable to our extensive collaboration in creating text books, newsletters, writing media expectations and new courses for education authorities and organizing workshops and international conferences such as Summit 2000. It is, therefore, essential that media teachers take out a membership in one or more North American media literacy organizations. (It is not enough to assume that key information will automatically reach you simply through subscribing to The Media L Serve.) We need to keep up with this constantly changing and exciting field and share ideas with our media education colleagues. Wish all of us good luck!
(This list, since modified from the original, was first published in "Telemedium, the Journal of Media Education," in 1998.)
Bibliography
Branston: The Media Student's Book; Buckingham, David. Watching Media
Learning; Duncan, Barry et al. Mass media and Popular Culture.
Harcourt-Brace, Toronto, 1996; Sefton- Green, Julian. Digital Diversions,1998
Kellner, Douglas. Media Culture; Masterman, Len. Media Education in 1990's Europe
Morgan, Robert. "Messing with Mr. In-Between: Multiculturalism and Hybridization." English Quarterly vol. 29, no 1, 1997
Schiller, Herbert. Culture Inc.; Tyner, Kathleen. Literacy in a Digital World
Worsnop, Chris. Assessing Media Work.
1.) Teachers need to find a variety of ways of exploiting the 'teachable media moments.'
When excitement over a media text/event comes our way, go for it! Here is the most direct and relevant way to contextualize the key concepts of media: how media construct reality; the role played by media codes and conventions; the nature of audience, the role of media industries; and the pervasive impact of values and ideology. Encourage in-depth study through comparing the extensive media coverage of a major media event. Examples: the death of Diana; the coverage of Clintongate; the shootings at Columbine; the hyping of the Titanic and the new Star Wars films; the trend of artificially created bands like 'Nsync and the Spice Girls; and the impact of the 'reality television' phenomenon. Use plenty of surveys to find out what students already know about the media and duly note the wise guys in your class who are already pop culture experts.
N.B Starting in 2001, teachers will have access to a monthly pop culture with teaching strategies for some current teachable media moments, available from "Barry's Bulletin" created for Mnet Go to www. media-awareness network.ca and click on 'educators' or 'resources.'
2.) Make media production an integral part of your course.
As UK educator Eddie Dick pointed out, we want to have both "critical practice as well as practical criticism." Therefore, link your analytical examples with practical work- using camcorders, multimedia digitizing, Polaroid or digital cameras and try creating some satirical collages. Good equipment is desirable but not essential. Constructing storyboards and sequencing pictures can be done at little cost.
3.) Use all the key concepts of media to deconstruct media texts. While codes, conventions and aesthetics are generally well done, others are often neglected including the following:
i.) Audience: how each of us makes sense of any media text on the basis of our gender, culture , race, and our individual and collective needs. See (Buckingham,1990) and (Duncan,1996).
ii.) Institutions: focus on concerns about social, cultural and politicalrelations. Sites include: media representation of schools, hospitals, and the military.
iii.) Industry- including critical topics such as ownership and control, the impact of transnational corporations and the global economy; cross media merchandising e.g. Star Wars. Read about global media and merchandising strategies in Wolf: The Entertainment Economy. Lest the topic seem too abstract, use documentaries on Coca Cola, McDonald's and Nike. Help students investigate monopolies, the extent of corporate resources for advertising and the incredibly powerful role of public relations' initiatives Critical marketing has become the most important aspect of modern media. Read Naomi Klein's invaluable book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, Random House, 2000.) Finally, no media course is worth its salt if it fails to do an in-depth investigation of the commercialization of our schools, from Channel One and Pepsi franchises to corporate - sponsored classroom curriculum, including even media education resources.
4.) Place media literacy in the broader perspectives provided by cultural studies.
Now established as a kind of international consensus on theory, cultural studies provides important contexts for our media texts and helps us construct a suitable critical pedagogy. Cultural studies foregrounds gender, race, class, political hegemony and the dynamics of subject positioning. (As an aside, teachers of English should be doing more cultural studies approaches to literature and engaging in fewer literary approaches to popular culture.)
5.) Be up front about the importance of media pleasures - guilty or otherwise.
Academics can sure take the pleasure out of this pursuit ! But the notion of the personal satisfactions in media consumption and the joys of fandom, from admiring the Backstreet Boys to delving into quirky film noir movies, must be acknowledged; otherwise, the strident protectionist approach to media literacy will dominate. Teachers should begin by acknowledging their own problematic and contradictory culture passions and be prepared, when appropriate, to share them. Why not encourage students to write thoughtful
papers on their media pleasures and encourage them to use their media logs for open - ended responses?
6.) Learn from media professionals to see media and popular culture in action and be prepared to expand the territory of the subject.
Scan your community for potential speakers and field trips. Seek out film, television and sound producers, photographers, journalists, advertisers, public relations agencies, and media academics. Visit production houses including those for film, television and multimedia
technologies. Look for opportunities to watch the taping of regularly produced shows. Organize a trip to a shopping mall, a theme park, a video arcade or some upscale urban site that will reveal interesting social and semiotic analysis. Check out book and poster stores including comic book venues. Broaden the concepts of media literacy to include artifacts such as Barbie dolls, action figures, and Furbies and all manner of pop kitsch. By adopting an expanded definition of media studies, the view from the classroom on our communities will be richer and more complex.
7.) Where feasible, teach through concepts and important themes.
Tackle broad areas such as representation, narrative, audience and media industries rather than being confined to genre- specific approaches e.g. television in grade 10, the newspaper in grade 11. Such an approach may seem fine for a beginning teacher but this model is rarely productive in a field that is always crossing genres. See (Branston, 1996) and secondary school text by Barry Duncan et al. Mass Media and Popular Culture.
8.) Avoid the tendency to depoliticize media texts. Teach not only ''through' but also 'about' the media.
There are too many bland, soft landing, media literacy products in circulation. Without going on a crusade of media bashing fueled by moral panics, the media classroom deserves openness, intellectual rigor, loads of enthusiasm and a willingness to take risks. Model media texts with interesting ideological constructions and have students investigate examples which they might take for granted e.g. Coke, Nike and McDonald's commercials).
9.) Encourage oppositional readings of mainstream media.
Use the bounty of material on topics such as the Gulf War, the war in the Balkans, and the tobacco industry PR spin to demonstrate how the dominant media are able to manufacture consent. Encourage mainstream readings of popular television texts e.g. "Friends," "Dawson's Creek," and "Do you want to be a millionaire?" and then model some oppositional readings in
which you 'read against the grain.' Try to encourage students to transfer their insights gathered in the media classroom into other areas: the politics of schooling, the role of authority in the family, the world of work. Otherwise, much of our endeavor will have limited impact. ( Guard against playing the 'spot the stereotype' exercise as an end in itself.)
Incorporate in media studies the most useful insights of media critics such as Noam Chomsky, Herbert Schiller, Mark Crispin Miller but avoid being seduced into rigidly holding monolithic interpretations which may be occasionally tinged with paranoia. (See critiques of Douglas Kellner.)
10.) Face the challenges and controversies associated with teaching about
media representation.
Representation is generally considered the central principle in all media study, and we must be prepared to mediate its complexity. For example, in studying race and the media there is a danger of essentializing groups or 'the other,' of limiting the nature of difference through resorting to stereotyping. Today, the legacy of living in a multicultural society is the recognition that identity is an evolving, hybrid and unstable concept. This in-between state necessitates finding appropriate discourses. ( See Robert Morgan, 1997) Education critic Henry Giroux reminds us that today, by necessity, we are all border crossers. Welcome to the global village!
11.) Insist that students conduct original research when doing media projects.
Using ethnographic models, students can learn to effectively observe, interview, and record the opinions and descriptions of individuals and groups when they are researching the reasons for the popularity of TV programs, rock bands, and celebrities. Making students become avid
researchers will ultimately change the social dynamics of the classroom.
12.) Use appropriate instruments/rubrics for authentic media assessment.
To give media studies credibility and to overcome the dangers of arbitrary and subjective responses to student work, we need systematic approaches and easy-to follow models. As Kathleen Tyner reminds us, "When subject standards, classroom tasks, and student assessment are aligned, teachers can better recognize when learning takes place. (See also Chris Worsnop, 1999).
13.) Explore the richness of the many meaningful alternatives to mainstream media.
Access independent film and video e.g. Paper Tiger Television, experimental art which explores media connections. Look for media books and periodicals offering alternatives to mainstream media coverage. Subscribe to Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone by all means but include in your media perspectives periodicals such as Extra, The Media Studies Journal, Brill's Content, The Nation, Z, Cineaste, and Adbusters. As well, you might want to consider novels with media themes as a stimulating classroom resource such as, Burgess: Clockwork Orange; Kosinski: Being There; De Lillo: White Noise; Copeland: Generation X. and more recently ( 1997) Connie Willis: Bellwether.
14.) To stay relevant, media education must address comprehensively the new and converging communication technologies, from multimedia and Nintendo to the Internet.
The new media are reconfiguring media language, fostering hybrid identities and multiple literacies, and, as McLuhan noted, obsolescing aspects of communications discourse while retrieving others. Technotopic discourse seems to prevail and Microsoft Inc. continues to dominate the world- all of which should be grist for the media teacher's mill. Mediate thisvast cyber domain through applying the key concepts of media and see what important insights emerge. Regrettably, there is still a dearth of rigorous analysis supported by solid empirical data from the classroom. (See the work of Marshall McLuhan and Sefton-Green's anthology: Digital Diversions.)
15.) Media teachers need to connect with each other.
Given that our numbers are small and our educational clout often limited, it is of paramount
importance to connect with our 'interpretative community.' The qualified success of the Association for Media is largely attributable to our extensive collaboration in creating text books, newsletters, writing media expectations and new courses for education authorities and organizing workshops and international conferences such as Summit 2000. It is, therefore, essential that media teachers take out a membership in one or more North American media literacy organizations. (It is not enough to assume that key information will automatically reach you simply through subscribing to The Media L Serve.) We need to keep up with this constantly changing and exciting field and share ideas with our media education colleagues. Wish all of us good luck!
(This list, since modified from the original, was first published in "Telemedium, the Journal of Media Education," in 1998.)
Bibliography
Branston: The Media Student's Book; Buckingham, David. Watching Media
Learning; Duncan, Barry et al. Mass media and Popular Culture.
Harcourt-Brace, Toronto, 1996; Sefton- Green, Julian. Digital Diversions,1998
Kellner, Douglas. Media Culture; Masterman, Len. Media Education in 1990's Europe
Morgan, Robert. "Messing with Mr. In-Between: Multiculturalism and Hybridization." English Quarterly vol. 29, no 1, 1997
Schiller, Herbert. Culture Inc.; Tyner, Kathleen. Literacy in a Digital World
Worsnop, Chris. Assessing Media Work.
Photo: Stellan Skarsgård as Prof. Gerald Lambeau in Good Will Hunting (1997)
© 2006 Sigrid Jones
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