Intermediality

Teachers' Handbook Of Critical Media Literacy

Ladislaus Semali, Ann Watts Pailliotet

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429979354
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Educación general

With the ever-growing proliferation of electronic and other popular media, the complexity of relationship between what students see and hear, what they believe and how they interact with one another underscores now, more than ever, the need for across-the-curriculum teaching of critical thinking, critical reading, and critical viewing skills. The emerging consensus is that teaching critical viewing skills bolsters students' abilities in traditional disciplines, combats problems of youth apathy, violence, and substance abuse, and improves students', parents, and teachers' attitudes' toward school.Intermediality: Teachers' Handbook of Critical Media Literacy challenges the practice of teaching the classics and the canon of acceptable literary works far removed from students' experiences, with emphasis on learning environment over the presentation of any specific or specified content. The authors, Ladislaus Semali and Ann Watts Pailliotet, present literacy education as ?intermedial? in nature?it entails constructing connections among varying conceptions and sign systems. Reading printed texts requires more than simply decoding letters into words or sounds; it involves finding meaning, motive, structure, and affect. The same goes for reading the electronic text. The authors argue for the discourse of literacy to take up a critical stance by examining a whole wide array of texts that form the meaning-making process of the looming information age.Intermediality examines, extends, and synthesizes the existing literary definitions, texts, theories, processes, research and contexts. It brings into focus the possibilities of working with media texts to address questions adapted from linguists and literary educators. Thus, in this book, critical media literacy becomes a competency to read, interpret, and understand how meaning is made and derived from print, photographs and other electronic and graphic visuals.

1 Introduction: What Is Intermediality and Why Study It in U.S. Classrooms?

Ladislaus M. Semali Ann Watts Pailliotet

This book grew out of reflections emerging from conversations among teachers attending the 1996 National Reading Conference (NRC) Media Literacy Study Group. At this meeting, these educators posed many questions: Given the rise of mass media and technology in contemporary social and educational contexts in the United States, how might our conceptualizations of literacy change? What counts as the text of literacy? What theories best help us understand evolving definitions, texts, and practices? What research is needed to understand individuals, texts, classrooms, and society? What are the implications of new conceptualizations of literacy and conditions for instruction and learning? Intermediality is a response to these concerns and needs, specifically responding to questions about relations among knowledge, power, identity, and politics, in connection with issues of justice, equality, freedom, and community.

The term intermediality arose from the authors' ongoing discussions during the conception and writing of this book. As critical educators, researchers, and authors of this volume, we are deeply concerned with meanings of many sign systems, including language. The concept of intermediality has intrinsic value for advancing our thinking on the use of multiple texts, especially those represented on videos, the Internet, and CD-ROM materials, to develop dynamic learning environments. Our main task in this volume is to demonstrate how intermediality can stimulate thinking in a manner in which multiple texts can be used to create classrooms where community is valued and developed, where students are encouraged to learn privately and collaboratively, where multiple viewpoints are heard and respected, where both the teachers and students generate issues and problems they think are important to pursue. Stimulating students' learning in the study of multiple texts provides a dynamic way for helping students understand the complexity and multiple uses of information they are learning. As will be illustrated in this volume, intermediality provides a methodology to read printed and visual representations of meaningful ideas and the influence of multimedia on learning, pedagogy, and social practices in educational communities.

Even as we use the term intermediality in this volume, we realize that educational terms such as this have potential to construct and replicate power relations, often reducing teachers' capacities to understand or act (Goodman, 1992). We know, however, that all definitions have shifting denotative and connotative meanings (Barthes, 1957). All understandings of language are, by nature, incomplete (Benveniste, 1986). On the one hand, many educational definitions are broad but vague. They allow people to reach consensus on an abstract, intellectual level, but may fail to provide means for personal interpretation and pragmatic, observable actions or results. On the other hand, narrow, specific, rigidly defined terms often are elitist, exclusive, overly prescriptive, dogmatic, or irrelevant to individuals in actual classrooms (Mosenthal, 1993). Moreover, much educational language "has failed to offer a meaningful alternative vision ... of organization, curriculum . . . and actual practice" (Goodman, 1992, pp. 273-6) because it fails to connect theory to real-life conditions, people, and actions in classrooms. The authors of the various chapters of Intermediality document the thinking and practice of progressive educators, attempting to eliminate inequalities of learning and instruction that have made their way into classrooms based on social class. We provide a basis for a more inclusive or multicultural education that is sensitive to a wide array of antisexist, antiracist, and antihomophobic classroom-based curricula and policy initiatives.

Guiding Principles and Theoretical Bases for Intermediality and Critical Media Literacy

The following dictionary entries offer partial views of intermediality. In the next section, we articulate the principles and premises that guide our intermedial thinking and critical media literacy practices.

Inter: "between ... among ... within ... combining form meaning ... with or on each other ... together," (Guralnik & Friend, 1964, p. 761); "mutual . . . reciprocal . . . international . . . interdependent" (Pritchard, 1994, p. 437).

Media/medium: "something intermediate ... middle state or degree ... an intervening state through which a force acts or an effect is produced ... any means, agency or instrumentality ... environment ... any material used for expression or delineation" (Guralnik & Friend, 1964, p. 914);"a position, condition or course of action midway between extremes ... an agency by which something is accomplished, conveyed or transferred ... a means of mass communication ... the communications industry or profession.... means of expression as determined by the materials or creative methods involved ... an environment in which something functions and thrives" (Pritchard, 1994, p. 519).

Mediacy: "of or in the middle ... neither beginning nor end ... intermediate" (Guralnik & Friend, 1964, p. 913).

Mediate: "to be in an intermediate position or location ... to be an intermediary or conciliator between persons or sides.... to be a medium for bringing about (a result), conveying (an object), communicating (information) . . . dependent on acting . . . connected through some intervening agency . . . related indirectly. . . . friendly intervention ... by consent or invitation" (Guralnik & Friend, 1964, p. 913); "To resolve or seek to resolve differences by working with all... parties" (Pritchard, 1994, p. 519).

Debates about educational terms and definitions are indeed important and will likely continue in the future, but these issues are not the focus of our book. Instead, we offer educators diverse, real-life images of intermediality. Through case studies, we illustrate how critical media literacy's theoretical concepts mediate actual classroom practices. This text is neither an abstract treatise nor simply a how-to handbook of intellectually ungrounded instructional activities. In the following chapters, the authors present varied portraits of teachers and students employing scholarly reflection and pedagogical action to transform themselves and their lives. Our goal is to show how critical scholars and educators construct dynamic middle grounds, embracing relations among theory and practice. It is our hope that in-service educators, preservice teachers, scholars, and researchers who read this book will critically question the authors' ideas, examine their practices, and reflect on their results, in order to create their own relevant, dynamic intermedial definitions and outcomes in schools and society.

Intermedial theories: "to resolve or seek to resolve differences by working with all... parties ..." "with or on each other ..." "together," ... "mutual ... reciprocal ... international ... interdependent" (Guralnik & Friend, 1964).

Over the years, both of us have read widely and taught in many contexts. We've discovered that scholars in disparate fields—literacy media studies, critical theory semiotics, discourse analysis, social sciences, reader response, and composition—have many mutual and reciprocal views. Our own personal theories about teaching and education have arisen "between," "among," "within," "with or on each other," as we've identified, synthesized, and implemented interdependent ideas from diverse academic disciplines. Intermediality, at its core, arises through these connections. For us, critical media literacy is the bridge among ideas, disciplines, people, texts, processes, and contexts, educational purposes and outcomes, theory and praxis.

Intermedial texts: to be a medium for bringing about (a result), conveying (an object), communicating (information) . . . combining form meaning ... any material used for expression or delineation.

We define texts broadly. Intermediality requires expertise in understanding and generating not only print media but also visual (Considine & Haley, 1992; Lester, 1995), oral (Goody, 1978), popular (Bianculli, 1992; Witkin, 1994), and electronic sources (Reinking, 1995); student-generated texts (Bissex, 1980); life experiences (McCaleb, 1994); cultural/social events (Barthes, 1957); and combinations of media (Flood, Heath, & Lapp 1997).

All texts share common elements, including conventions, genres, and structures (Burton, 1990; Frye, 1957; Lusted, 1991); metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980); signs, symbols, and signification (Barthes, 1957; Bopry, 1994; Saint-Martin, 1990); images (Barthes, 1971; Pettersson, 1992); discourse patterns (Goffman, 1981; Moffett, 1968); levels of meaning (Herber & Herber, 1993; Himley, 1991; Messaris, 1994; Kervin, 1985); rules or grammars (Gumpert & Cathcart, 1985); and rhetorical devices (Lusted, 1991; Ohlgren & Berk, 1977).

Texts are not value-neutral, unchanging, "objective" artifacts; they convey shifting meanings and reflect cultural ideologies (Althusser, 1986; Derrida, 1986; Fiske, 1989). For us, texts are bringing about (a result), conveying (an object), communicating (information); combining form meaning; any material used for expression or delineation. Educators can (and must) teach students varied processes to access, construct, connect, and analyze texts in order to understand and evaluate tacit and explicit meanings.

In an attempt to establish a more comprehensive term that includes all textual analysis, information literacy has emerged in recent years as an all-encompassing ability to process all texts that transmit information of any kind. Information literacy is applied to the skills involved in deciphering or sifting through the layers of information. According to the U.S. Department of Labor Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS), information literacy is necessary for preparing students for the 21st century. Many different educational groups in this country echo this call and recognize the importance of information literacy. For example, in 1991, the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) adopted goals of information literacy as follows: Information literacy equips individuals to take advantage of the opportunities inherent in the global information society. Information literacy should be a part of every student's educational experience. ASCD urges schools, colleges, and universities to integrate information literacy programs into learning programs for all students (American Association of School Librarians, 1996). Also, this imperative has been emphasized by the National Forum on Information Literacy (NFIL). NFIL challenges teachers to open up classrooms for intermedial enterprises. To become effective information users, students must have frequent opportunities to handle all kinds of information. By integrating information literacy as part of every subject across the curriculum, students will be able to locate, interpret, analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and communicate information. Also, they will have unlimited access to multiple resources in the classroom, the library media center, and beyond the school walls.

Intermedial processes: dependent on acting ... a position, condition, or course of action midway between extremes ... an agency by which something is accomplished, conveyed, or transferred ... means of expression as determined by the materials or creative methods involved ... of or in the middle ... neither beginning nor end.

The rise of mass media and technology in society and schools has led to new understandings of what literacy and learning entail (Bianculli, 1992; Foster, 1979; Levinson, 1994; Papert, 1980). Flood and Lapp (1995) propose a "broader conceptualization in which literacy is defined as the ability to function competently in the 'communicative arts,' which include the language arts as well as the visual arts of drama, art, film, video, and television" (p. 1). Others posit we have entered a "post typographic world" (McLuhan, 1962; Reinking, 1995) in which new languages are arising through new media environments (Altheide & Snow, 1986; Edwards, 1991; Carpenter, 1960). In particular, there has been growing awareness and analysis of visual languages in recent scholarship (e.g., Flood & Lapp, 1995; Goodman, 1992; Lester, 1995; Messaris, 1994; Saint-Martin, 1990). In response to changing media environments and languages, educators must develop new ways of teaching, learning, and understanding literacy processes (Kellner, 1995)

We believe that modern literacy is intermedial; that is, requires the ability to critically read and write with and across varied symbol systems (Barthes, 1974; Fiske, 1989). By reading, we don't just mean passively receiving information or decoding print; by writing we mean generating texts through a myriad of media forms.

All texts are constructions—that is, they involve active, varied transactions of meaning making. Rather than receiving information in a conduit, linear fashion, people interact with ("read") and mediate texts ("write") to develop understandings (Barthes, 1974; Britton, 1985; Evans, 1987; Rosenblatt, 1978; McLuhan & Fiore, 1967; Smith, 1984). These transactions have neither beginning nor end clearly defined. They involve complex, multiple, simultaneous, and recursive processes (Bissex, 1980; Elbow, 1985; Flower, 1989; McLuhan & Fiore, 1967). Readers/writers/audiences employ many senses (Barthes, 1974; Perl, 1980; Pike, Compain, & Mumper, 1997), intellectual processes (Britton, 1985; Calkins, 1983; McLuhan, 1964; Ong, 1986; Messaris, 1994), and emotions (Brand, 1987; Lester, 1995; McLuhan, 1964) to access, construct, and interpret textual languages.

Texts, as well as processes for understanding and constructing them, are connected. Readers/writers/audiences do not create meanings in isolation. Instead, they draw from experiences of other texts, connecting past and present understandings (Bakhtin, 1988; Cooper, 1986; Goody, 1978). Since all texts share common elements, processes developed in one form of communication support others. Reading, Writing, speaking, listening, thinking, acting, and viewing are synergistic, interdependent, and interactive processes (Flood & Lapp, 1995; Neuman, 1991; Sinatra, 1986; Watts Pailliotet, 1997). Teachers need...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Editors' Foreword
• 1 Introduction: What Is Intermediality and Why Study It in U.S. Classrooms?
• 2 Deep Viewing: Intermediality in Preservice Teacher Education
• 3 Intermediality in the Classroom: Learners Constructing Meaning Through Deep Viewing
• 4 Preservice Teachers' Collages of Multicultural Education
• 5 A Late-'60s Leftie's Lessons in Media Literacy: A Collaborative Learning Group Project for a Mass Communication Course
• 6 The Power and Possibilities of Video Technology and Intermediality
• 7 A Feminist Critique of Media Representation
• 8 Critical Media Literacy as an English Language Content Course in Japan
• 9 Critical Viewing as Response to Intermediality: Implications for Media Literacy
• 10 Intermediality, Hypermedia, and Critical Media Literacy
• 11 Afterword
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Index