Teaching Media Literacy

Belinha S. De Abreu

• Publisher: ALA Neal-Schuman
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780838917213
• eBook ISBN:
  9780838946121
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Scienze dell'informazione e biblioteconomia

Foreword by Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, Executive Director, National Association for Media Literacy Education
Preface by Denise E. Agosto

Though media literacy and information literacy are intertwined, there are important differences; and there has never been a more urgent need for an incisive examination of the crucial role librarians and other educators can play in teaching the skills necessary to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media. Media literate youth and adults are better able to understand the complex messages emanating from television, movies, radio, the internet, news outlets, magazines, books, billboards, video games, music, and all other forms of media.  In this book, international expert De Abreu melds advice from a diverse array of practitioners and subject experts with her own research findings to examine how consuming media and technology impacts the learning of K–12 students, tackling such paramount issues as

• fake news/alternative facts;
• critical thinking
• digital literacy and digital citizenship;
• social inclusion and equity;
• global interconnectivity; and
• social justice and advocacy.

PART I

Exploring Media Literacy

CHAPTER 1

MEDIA LITERACY

The Key to Critical Thinking

Media literacy, it seems, is a skill or a form of competency; but it is also about critical thinking, and about cultural dispositions or tastes. It is about old media and new media, about books and mobile phones. It is for young and old, for teachers and parents, for people who work in the media industries and for NGOs. It happens in schools and in homes, and indeed in the media themselves. It is an initiative coming from the top down, but also from the bottom up. In these kinds of texts, media literacy is also often aligned with other contemporary “buzzwords” in educational and social policy. It is about creativity, citizenship, empowerment, inclusion, personalisation, innovation, critical thinking . . . and the list goes on.

—David Buckingham

Media literacy is defined as the ability to access, understand, analyze, evaluate, and create media in a variety of forms. But what are “media”? In the broadest sense, media are the tools and systems that are used to store and deliver information and data to large numbers of people. Media are thus the pathways of communication that are used to reach, inform, entertain, or influence people on a wide scale. The media include television and radio, newspapers and magazines, advertising, movies and videos, book publishing, and photography, as well as various networks, platforms, outlets, and forums on the Internet. To put it briefly, the media are vehicles for mass communication.

The media can be subdivided into types, such as news media and social media. The news media deliver news to the general public, or to targeted segments of that public. The news media, in turn, can be broken down into three types: print media (newspapers and magazines), broadcast media (television and radio), and the Internet (online publications, news websites, etc.). Social media, by contrast, are interactive, computer-mediated technologies that enable users to create and share information and content with each other or to take part in social networking.

Media literacy involves critical thinking. To think that it does not would make the study of media literacy a passive undertaking, rather than an engaged dynamic. In truth, much of the media is consumed without a critical lens. The idea of media literacy is that we are actively involved in how we perceive, discuss, or consider the media we consume and the media we use in our lives.

The media brought us some of the most amazing stories of our times. They have become both a learning instrument and a source and generator of ideas. However, they have also become a source of mixed messages that are both negative and positive influences on our youth. What do we as educators need to teach about questioning television’s messages? Where in education does media literacy fit into our already overloaded school curriculums? How does the library media specialist help to integrate media literacy with the existing subject areas of the curriculum, thereby fostering new relationships with classroom educators?

Media literacy is vital to the growth of our students’ perception of the world around them. Consider the following statistics from the Stanford Graduate School of Education’s report “Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning”:

• • 82 percent of middle school students couldn’t tell the difference between sponsored articles and real news stories.
• • Most of the high school students didn’t bother to verify where photos online came from and blindly accepted the photos’ stated contexts.
• • Many high school students couldn’t tell the difference between a real news article and a real-looking fake news article on social media.
  • ◦ In fact, in one particular example, more than 30 percent of high school students who were tested thought a post claiming to be from Fox News was more reliable than one actually from Fox News.
• • Of the Stanford college students that were tested, more than 80 percent couldn’t tell that the biased content from independent news sources supported by groups like lobbying firms was less reliable than the content from mainstream news sources (Wineburg et al. 2016).

This study out of Stanford suggests that the media, which now dominate the lives of our youth, have not made them any more aware or critical of the messages in those media. Students now learn more from what they see on television or online than they do in the classroom. Yet, what they learn is not always accurate, reliable, free of bias, or fair.

Schools cannot remain indifferent to the massive amounts of media content that our students absorb. Schools are obligated to help students learn and understand their media-saturated world. Ignoring this point is detrimental to the continued progression of learning. We ask students to be critically literate in our content subject areas, but very often we forget to ask them to be just as literate about the media. Since the nature of mass media is so enticing and our students absorb this material so readily, there is no question that there is a need to improve and sharpen their understanding of those media. This is not to say that the role of teachers is to criticize our students’ choices of media; instead, our role is to ask them to think about those choices and their impact. Increasingly, students are swamped by information overload, and they are making decisions and choices based upon what they are told by the media or through the media.

Media messages have come to play an integral role in the growth and learning of today’s youth. Consider figure 1.1, which is a cartoon by the author of “Calvin and Hobbs.”

This cartoon’s statement is obvious: television is readily turned on and its messages are not always wanted, but they are forced upon all of us regularly. Children have less say on what those messages are than any other individuals, because they have not learned how to control their own environments. They are in many cases the sponges of learning that we most desire in school, but we must be very cautious with regard to the messages and influences they absorb from the mass media.

FIGURE 1.1 “Cardboard TV Screen” by Bill Watterson

(CALVIN AND HOBBES © 1990 Watterson. Reprinted with permission of ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION. All rights reserved.)

The classroom provides many opportunities for discussion on many media topics. Sometimes we are forced to discuss these topics because the news is so devastating or the topic is so all-encompassing. Yet, instead of discussing some of these issues, teachers often tend to shy away from them. At other times, teachers want to speak on important issues, but they are told to keep silent or to remain neutral by administrators. In both these cases, teachers cannot offer the opportunities for inquiry and guided discussions that would allow multiple voices and viewpoints to be heard.

Media literacy learning provides an open environment in which both students and the teacher can converse and respectfully give divergent opinions. Analyzing media messages gives us those teachable moments that illustrate some of the more crucial values we want students to learn, such as character, integrity, honesty, and mental independence. Each day we are presented with topics such as mass shootings and gun violence, health care, immigration, political polarization in our society, and controversies related to the media themselves and their ability or inability to report the news. The latter topic has provided many lessons in my classroom on censorship, the trustworthiness of the news industry, and the need for discernment when looking at our political system. Ultimately, the classroom becomes a place where students can find their voice in the conversations that are taking place nationally. These examples of teachable moments, and many more like them, are afforded to us regularly by the media. Moreover, many of these media moments tie in nicely with the science, math, language arts, or social studies curriculums.

Whether you are a classroom teacher, a library media specialist, or another type of educator, media literacy is an important way that we can contribute to the classroom. Our media centers have become hubs of information. We provide both print and nonprint resources to classrooms and to our students. As teachers, we can additionally enhance the activities of a classroom by incorporating media literacy as a component of the regular classroom lessons or as a part of the curriculums we provide.

Media literacy lessons are central to the growth and development of this generation and future generations of students. Without teaching these vital lessons, we will have future citizens who are not media-savvy and who are unwilling to question the thinking behind media messages.

Media literacy requires that we look beyond school textbooks, and critically examine the ways in which the media play a huge role in our students’ lives. One of the greatest benefits of teaching media literacy is giving a voice to the students. Students can provide a more personal perspective on how the media have become a part of their consciousness. A discourse on media can potentially serve to be a transformative component in the traditional literacies taught in the classroom, where a significant connection can be made from literature to film to television, and then to the Internet. This connection, above all, demonstrates a change in the current educational paradigm.

THE FIVE CORE CONCEPTS

1. 1. All media messages are “constructed.”
2. 2. Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules.
3. 3. Different people experience the same media message differently.
4. 4. The media have embedded values and points of view.
5. 5. Media messages are constructed to gain profit and/or power.

THE FIVE KEY QUESTIONS

1. 1. Who created the message?
2. 2. What techniques are used to attract my attention?
3. 3. How might different people understand this message differently from me?
4. 4. What lifestyles, values, and points of view are represented in or omitted from this message?
5. 5. Why was this message sent?

In media literacy circles across the country, the standards by which media literacy skills are taught are based on the Five Core Concepts and Five Key Questions that have been developed by educators at the Center for Media Literacy in Los Angeles.

CONCEPT ONE: All Media Messages Are “Constructed”

Who Created the Message?

Knowing that the media contain messages is one part of learning that is required for students, but understanding who is putting the message forth is even more important. Media messages are usually placed in the public sphere with an idea or purpose in mind. Marketers spend time collecting detailed data on personal characteristics and consumer preferences so that they can know how to construct a message to appeal to a particular audience. It is not just happenstance that certain colors for certain cultural communities are used, or that certain words are selected with a specific idea or purpose in mind. Advertisements are placed in certain magazines on the basis of very well-formed ideas about who the audience is and how the readers will perceive those ads. For example, ads for glamorous hotels will not be designed in bright orange, greens, or reds; instead, muted colors of beige, black, and white are used. Usually, these ads will also show the types of people who would fit the image or the concept of the message, much like stereotyping.

CONCEPT TWO: MEdia Messages Are Constructed Using a Creative Language with Its own Rules

What Techniques Are Used to Attract My Attention?

This creative language is not so much “creative” as it is targeted to a specific audience or demographic. In order to understand the message, students should be asked to analyze and deconstruct the message from start to finish. For example, brightly colored letters are usually designed to appeal to children. Words that are popping out of an advertisement are trying to reach a selected audience. The fonts used for medication ads are more severe, almost to emphasize the seriousness of the issue.

Television shows are developed with a certain constructed language as well. Programs that have a comedic intent tend to begin with fonts and words that roll or move quickly, and that seem to be almost laughing. Horror movies have music that suggests to us that a dramatic or frightening event is about to occur. Television dramas are written in ways that make the plots intricate, with three or four stories going on simultaneously within one drama. The script is fast-paced and the actors are directed to speak in that way, with quirky and complex language which makes viewers presume that the television show is both realistic and intelligent. Although the list goes on, these devices are not readily taught in schools. The language of media is just as important as the language of literature, because the meanings derived are what make the text engrossing and effective.

CONCEPT THREE: Different People Experience the Same Media Message Differently

How Might Different People Understand This Message Differently from Me?

While this may seem like an obvious statement, most children or young teens are not always aware that another perspective exists. Most of their thinking has been molded by their family backgrounds, racial backgrounds, communities, peer groups, and other influences, which limit their ideas of other people’s perspectives. Because of this, it is easy to see how children will believe what they see on television as truth and believe it without question. Asking students to consider what someone in a poor neighborhood or an affluent neighborhood would think about an advertisement or a television program, or asking if what they are seeing is “real” can foster a thought-provoking conversation. We can broaden the discussion to racial and ethnic stereotypes within the context of movies, music videos, and television programs, and ex...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword to This Edition, by Michelle Ciulla Lipkin
• Foreword to the First Edition, by Barry Duncan
• Preface, by Denise E. Agosto
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I. Exploring Media Literacy
• Part II. The Major Formats of Media Ready-to-Teach Lessons
• Part III. Resources for Teaching Media Literacy
• About the Author and Contributors
• Index