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CML Publishes Start-up Curriculum for K-12 Media Literacy

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25 Lesson Plans Help Students Explore Five Key Questions of Media Literacy

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LOS ANGELES, CA, September 30, 2005 – "Where do I start?" is a cry often heard from teachers who would like to introduce media literacy in their classrooms, kindergarten to high school, but lack the tools to do so.

Now, a pioneering leader in media literacy has published a ground-breaking solution that provides an entry point for students of all ages to learn and master the basic principles of the field.

Five Key Questions That Can Change the World, developed by the Los Angeles-based Center for Media Literacy (CML), is an innovative collection of 25 cornerstone classroom activities and lesson plans. Five activities are provided for each of the Five Key Questions of media literacy that are the foundation of CML's educational framework, the CML MediaLit Kit ™.

"Children growing up in today's 21st century media culture need to know more than how to simply analyze an ad," said CML's founder, Elizabeth Thoman, who edited the guide. "They need to internalize a fundamental critical and creative thinking process that will help them make decisions about their use of media throughout their lives."

The lessons are available on the CML website: www.medialit.net . "We're thrilled to be offering this valuable tool kit to teachers as a free download," added Thoman.

Unlike other media literacy classroom resources, which typically are organized by genre (news, advertising, etc.) or topic (violence, gender, etc.), the inquiry-based lessons connect the Five Key Questions to any and all media content. Each question flows from a corresponding Core Concept and provides an entrée into exploring the multiple facets of any media message. The Five Key Questions are:

• Who created this message?
• What creative techniques are used to attract my attention?
• How might different people understand this message differently from me?
• What lifestyles, values and points of view are represented in, or omitted from, this message?
• Why is this message being sent?

Applied across the curriculum, from language arts to social studies, from science to art, "the Five Key Questions allow teachers to introduce core skills of critical thinking, analysis and evaluation along with the creative communication skills so necessary in a global media culture," explained Tessa Jolls , president of CML. Jolls' " Words of Wisdom" for classroom implementation are featured in the resource as guidelines to newcomers in the field of media literacy.

" ‘ Five Key Questions That Can Change the World' gives educators all the tools they need to teach media literacy, and are engaging for students of any age," said CML's Jeff Share, who designed and wrote the classroom activities. The 25 lessons cover a variety of content topics and explore a mix of media formats, from newspapers and magazines to television, movies, the Internet, radio, and even maps and money.

"It is our dream that by the time they graduate from high school, all students will be able to apply the Five Key Questions , almost without thinking," noted Jolls. "Practicing and mastering the Five Key Questions leads to an adult understanding of how media are created, what their purposes are, and how to accept or reject their messages."

Five Key Questions That Can Change the World complements two other CML publications, Literacy for the 21 st Century: An Orientation Guide to Media Literacy and Media Literacy Works!: A Case Study in Elementary Media Literacy and the Arts. Together, they form a trilogy that covers theory, practice and implementation – all the necessary ingredients for introducing media literacy into preK-12 classrooms.

Based on the work of media literacy scholars and teachers over 20 years, the trilogy of publications constitutes the CML MediaLit Kit™ and is also available at www.medialit.net.

The Center for Media Literacy (CML) is a nonprofit educational organization that provides leadership, public education, professional development and educational resources nationally. Dedicated to the development and dissemination of a consistent and credible media literacy educational framework, CML works to help citizens, especially the young, gain the critical thinking and media production skills needed to live fully in the 21st century media culture. The ultimate goal is to make wise choices possible.

Incorporated in 1989, CML is an independent, nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

 

Five Key Questions Form Foundation for Media Inquiry

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Keywords and Guiding Questions help build habits of critical thinking

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by Center for Media Literacy

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In the MediaLit Kit ™, the Center for Media Literacy identifies Five Key Questions as the core of our inquiry-based media literacy pedagogy. Where do they come from? Like so many good ideas that evolve slowly over time, they are simply an innovative recasting of the Five Core Concepts which the early media literacy field adapted, in turn, from traditional categories of rhetorical and literary analysis.

The following chart illustrates the relationship between the concepts and the questions and identifies keywords that crystallize the analytical topic of each pair. Click on each concept or question to access a short essay about each one.

 
Keyword
Five Core Concepts
Five Key Questions
#1
 Authorship All media messages are "constructed." Who created this message?
#2
 Format Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules. What creative techniques are used to attract my attention?
#3
 Audience Different people experience the same media message differently. How might different people understand this message differently from me?
#4
 Content Media have embedded values and points of view. What lifestyles, values and points of view are represented in; or omitted from, this message?
#5
 Purpose Most media are organized to gain profit and/or power. Why is this message being sent?

Concepts or Questions?
In our work with teachers over the years, we have learned that concepts are difficult to teach but questions are powerful!

So in the classroom, the goal is not to teach the core concepts per se, especially for younger students, but, rather, to help students build the habit of routinely subjecting media messages to a comprehensive battery of questions appropriate to their age and ability. In the MediaLit Kit™ , you'll find recommended "guiding questions" or questions that lead to other questions that, ultimately, lead to "aha" -- the moment of insight and understanding.

Together the Five Core Concepts and Five Key Questions serve as the "Big Ideas" or the "enduring understanding" that students will need in order to navigate their way through life as citizens in a 21st century media culture. Together, they are a unique contribution to 21st century education.

"It is the learning, practicing and mastering of the Five Key Questions -- over time -- that leads to a deep understanding of how media are created and what their purposes are along with an informed ability to accept or reject both explicit and implicit messages."

Tessa Jolls, CML President

Over the years, media literacy practitioners around the world have adapted and applied this analytical construct to today's mediated ‘texts' -- from television and movies to billboards, magazines, even bumper stickers and T-shirts! We acknowledge the many thinkers and teachers in the media literacy field, especially our Australian and Canadian colleagues, whose decades of experience and thoughtful reflection have laid a firm foundation on which to build a practical pedagogy for learning and teaching in a 21st century media culture: the CML MediaLit Kit™.

 

Words of Wisdom: Teaching CML's Five Key Questions

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Tessa Jolls shares words of wisdom at a teacher in-service day.
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By Tessa Jolls

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The following reflections come from over two decades of CML's work and experience in the field of media literacy education. We share them both as an inspiration and a challenge as you explore yourself and then introduce your students to the Five Key Questions That Can Change the World!

  • To teach, one must first understand. Teachers interested in media literacy need to explore and internalize for themselves the Five Core Concepts of media literacy. This foundation, in turn, provides the ability to convey and illuminate the Five Key Questions for students. Applying the Five Key Questions then gives students the tools with which to negotiate meaning for themselves.

  • Developing a common vocabulary around media literacy within classes, and within overall teaching and learning communities, is essential. Once there is a common understanding of the Five Core Concepts and Five Key Questions, progress in applying media literacy is rapid.

  • Media literacy is a skill and teaching it is different than teaching factual knowledge. Media literacy provides a process for learning - the process of inquiry - which can be applied to any content or subject area. The Five Key Questions are a starting point but it takes repeated practice of applying the questions to different media and in a variety of activities to really master the process. It's like learning to tie your shoes or ride a bike - you usually don't "get it" the first time. Becoming media literate takes practice, practice, practice!

  • When you hear the classic definition: "media literacy involves learning to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in a variety of forms," it seems overwhelming. Where do you start? But if the focus of media literacy instruction becomes introducing and reinforcing the use of the Five Key Questions, teachers have an immediate entry point. Plus it's a handy way to make connections to the curricula you are already working with in other subject areas.

  • The Five Key Questions are the focal point of learning the media literacy process for students. Why? Because learning to apply Five Key Questions is doable and engaging. Students like to 'pull back the covers' and see what's behind media messages -- and they enjoy expressing their own point of view.

  • After a while, familiarity with the Five Key Questions becomes like shorthand. Students point out, 'That's #1!,' or 'That's # 4!' It's fun for them to quickly discern how messages are created, the impact they have and how they are received, and to share their insights with others.

  • Some teachers immediately make the connections between media literacy and other subject areas. Others need more time to work with the Core Concepts and Key Questions. Generally, it takes about a year for teachers to feel confident about teaching media literacy - and by then, their teaching is transformed forever.

  • Citizens of all ages would benefit from knowing the Five Core Concepts and Five Key Questions of Media Literacy. They are a fundamental skillset for participants in a democratic society.

-- from Five Key Questions That Can Change the World,
Part II of the CML MediaLit Kit developed and published
by the Center for Media Literacy / www.medialit.net

 

How to Conduct a 'Close Analysis' of a Media 'Text'

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A basic media literacy exercise.

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By Elizabeth Thoman

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While getting "caught up" in a storytelling experience has been the essence of entertainment since our ancestors told tales around the fire, the relentless pace of entertainment media today requires that at least once in awhile, we should stop and look, really look, at how a media message is put together and the many interpretations that can derive from it. The method for this is called "close analysis." To learn to conduct this basic media literacy exercise, try it first yourself; then introduce it to a group or class using tips at the end of this article.

Any media message can be used for a close analysis but commercials are often good choices because they are short and tightly packed with powerful words and images, music and sounds. Find a commercial to analyze by recording, not the programs but just the commercials, during an hour or two of TV watching. Play the tape and look for a commercial that seems to have a lot of layers-- interesting visuals and sound track, memorable words or taglines, multiple messages that call out for exploration. Replay your selection several times as you go through the following steps:

1. Visuals.

After the first viewing, write down everything you can remember about the visuals-- lighting, camera angles, how the pictures are edited together. Describe any people-- what do they look like? what are they doing? wearing? What scenes or images do you remember clearly? Focus only on what is actually on the screen, not your interpretation of what you saw on the screen. (See the following sample exercise, What Do You Notice? ) If necessary, play it again but with the sound off. Keep adding to your list of visuals.

2. Sounds.

Replay again with the picture off. Listen to the sound track. Write down all the words that are spoken. Who says them? What kind of music is used? Does it change in the course of the commercial? How? Are there other sounds? What is their purpose? Who is being spoken to-- directly or indirectly? (That is, who is the audience addressed by the commercial?)

3. Apply Key Questions.

With the third viewing, begin to apply the Five Key Questions and the Guiding Questions that lead to them. Identify the author(s) and how the specific "construction" techniques you identified in steps 1 and 2 influence what the commercial is "saying"-- values expressed and unexpressed; lifestyles endorsed or rejected; points of view proposed or assumed. Explore what's left out of the message and how different people might react differently to it. What is the message "selling"? Is it the same as the product being advertised? Continue to show the text over and over; it's like peeling back the layers of an onion.

4. Review Your Insights.

Summarize how the text is constructed and how various elements of the construction trigger our own unique response-- which may be very different than how others interpret the text. Try this exercise with other kinds of messages-- a story from a newscast, a key scene from a movie, a print advertisement, a website. Are different questions important for different kinds of messages?

Doing a close analysis with a class or group can be exhilirating, with insights coming fast and furiously. After the first showing, start the group exercise with the simple question: " What did you notice?" Different people will remember different things so accept all answers and keep asking, " What else did you notice ?"

If the group is having a hard time, show the clip again and invite them to look for something that stands out for them. Continue the brainstorming until you have at least 15 or 20 answers to the question: " What did you notice ?" Challenge any attempt to assign interpretation too early. Keep the group focused on identifying only what was actually on screen or heard on the soundtrack. The key to success with this exercise is for the teacher/leader to keep asking questions . Refrain from contributing too many answers yourself.

While no one has the time to subject every media message to this kind of analysis, it takes only two or three experiences with close analysis to give us the insight to "see" through other media messages as we encounter them. It's like having a new set of glasses that brings the whole media world into focus.

 

What Did You Notice?
A sample inquiry into visual language .

Media Text: A :60 commercial showing an attractive middle-aged woman driving on a dark, lonely road when her car breaks down. She tries in vain to restart the car. . .a truck passes going the other way but does not stop. (Turns out to be a commercial for a cell phone.)

Teacher/Leader: What did you notice about this text? First, what did you actually see on the screen?

Group Responses: driving on a lonely road. . . it's night / dark . . . woman alone . . . car breaks down . . . she's afraid. . .

T/L: Oh?, you saw fear?! How did you see fear? Fear is an abstract concept . . . what did you actually see (that led you to conclude : fear)?

(You might want to chart the following typical responses in two columns which can later clarify: denotation / connotation)

GR: Closeup of woman turning key in ignition with sound of car grinding but not starting. . . close-up of foot on gas pedal. . . close-up of engine light. . . close-up of her fingers drumming on the steering wheel. . . closeup of her looking out the window to see if anyone around. . . no . . . on the sound track, the music is in a minor key, kind of eerie.

T/L: Okay! After the establishing shot which put her on a dark country road, there were four quick cuts showing her trying to start the car. Put those together with the eerie music and we viewers jump to the conclusion that she's afraid-- or that she should be afraid. . .

Further exploration reveals that each shot of the commercial, plus the editing which goes faster and faster like a racing heartbeat, is carefully constructed to build the case that the woman is in danger and afraid. If we, as viewers, buy into it and begin to identify with a feeling of fear, we've been "hooked" by the commercial's premise, whether we ever buy a cell phone or not. This is the power of visual language and why we need to help our students learn to "read" it.

 

Questioning the Media

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By Elizabeth Thoman

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To be a functioning adult in a mediated society, one needs to be able to distinguish between different media forms and know how to ask basic questions about everything we watch, read or hear.

Although most adults learned through literature classes to distinguish a poem from an essay, it's amazing how many people do not understand the difference between a daily newspaper and a supermarket tabloid, what makes one website legitimate and another one a hoax, or how advertisers package products to entice us to buy.

Simple questions about the media can start even at the toddler stage, planting important seeds for cultivating a lifetime of interrogating the world around us. Parents, grandparents, even babysitters can make a game of "spot the commercial" to help children learn to distinguish between entertainment programs and the commercial messages that support them. Even children's picture books can help little ones grasp the storytelling power of images-- "And what do you think will happen next?"

As children grow and are able to distinguish the world of fantasy from the real world they live in, they can explore how media are put together by turning the sound off during a cartoon and noting the difference it makes, or even create their own superhero story using a home video camera and easy to use editing software on the family computer.

When students begin to use the internet to research school projects, they can compare different websites and contrast different versions of the same information in order to detect bias or political "spin."

Usually the questioning process is applied to a specific media "text"-- that is, an identifiable production or publication, or a part of one: an episode of Power Puff Girls, an ad for Pepsi, an issue of People magazine, a billboard for Budweiser beer, photos and articles about a bank robbery on the front page of a newspaper, the SuperBowl telecast, a hot new videogame.

Sometimes a media "text" can involve multiple formats. A new animated Disney film, for example, involves not only a blockbuster movie released in thousands of theatres but also a whole campaign of advertising and merchandising-- character dolls and toys, clothes, lunchboxes, etc.-- as well as a website, storybooks, games and perhaps eventually, a ride at one of the Disney theme parks.

Uncovering the many levels of meaning in a media message and the multiple answers to even basic questions is what makes media education so engaging for kids and so enlightening for adults.

Essential Questions for Teachers
--with thanks to Faith Rogow, PhD

1.Am I trying to tell the students what the message is? Or am I giving students the skills to determine what they think the message(s) might be?

2.Have I let students know that I am open to accepting their interpretation, as long as it is well substantiated, or have I conveyed the message that my interpretation is the only correct view?

3.At the end of the lesson, are students likely to be more analytical? Or more cynical?

-- from Literacy for the 21st Century: An Overview and Orientation Guide to Media Literacy

 

Where Media Literacy Fits in the World of Education

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CML Proposes a model for integrating media literacy across the curriculum.

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How timely that the Partnership for 21st Century Skills is publishing its framework and requesting a response! We applaud your effort and hope that it will help spawn the intense national conversation and research necessary to deliver effective education for our citizens. We at the Center for Media Literacy (CML) stand ready to do our part.

A Simple and Intuitive Model: Formally Teaching Process Skills as well as Content Skills

To be embraced successfully, an education framework must be as simple and intuitive as possible, to keep the confidence of citizens and to be executed effectively. It must also reflect the values of society and real-world needs and applications so that students are engaged, prepared and productive. This requires alternative models, research on outcomes and consensus.

Traditionally, schools have emphasized transmitting the content knowledge of teachers, while teaching information processing skills and project management skills was incidental and not well defined. With content being so readily available today, process skills are ever more important, and need to be formally taught. Thus, teachers are now being encouraged to change from being the "sage on the stage" to "the guide on the side" for students, so that students learn how to learn and what to learn.

CML has developed a model framework for education to illustrate where "media literacy" fits into the education equation. CML's overall education model divides the skills that students need by high school graduation into the following two "duos" that work hand-in-hand - in each case, pairing something concrete with abstract process skills:

Center for Media Literacy Education Model for the 21st Century
©2003, Center for Media Literacy, www.medialit.net
Concrete Material Abstract Process Skills
I. Content

Any Subject:
Math, Language Arts, Business, Social Studies, Health, Computer Science, Civics, Arts, Physical Ed., Science, Cultural Studies, Ethics, Psychology

Multi-Media:
Textbooks, Internet, billboards, TV, radio, ads, photos, newspapers, etc.

Process: Media Literacy

How to: Access, Analyze, Evaluate, Create media messages in a variety of forms.
Deconstruct - Construct

The Heart of Media Literacy is the Process of Inquiry

A Framework for a Media Literacy process is contained in CML's MediaLit Kit™
Individual Work/Mastery: How to Learn
II. Project Deliverables

Process: Project Management

Define, Design, Structure, Organize, Communicate
Access and Allocate, Evaluate
Individual & Team Work/Mastery: How to Work and Produce

Each "duo" described involves concrete tangibles coupled with intangible process skills...

    • Content is coupled with the Media Literacy process (based on the twin pillars of analysis and self-expression)
    • Projects are coupled with the Project Management process (based on the twin pillars of organization and team communication).

The first duo emphasizes how to learn: individual thought and how to express thoughts to others; the second duo emphasizes how to work and produce individually and collectively.

Although this model is by no means traditional, it is clean and efficient, and reflects the kinds of processes found in business and other organizations. A good example of establishing roles, with limits and boundaries between tangibles and intangibles, is the delineation between line and staff positions in companies, in which the "line" is responsible for tangible outcomes and the "staff" is responsible for guidance and processes. This approach has served companies and organizations such as the military successfully for centuries; the field of education could benefit from such clarity. Technology advancements such as the internet have now freed educators from having to emphasize content at the expense of process. It is time to provide students with both content and process skills as part of their formal education. This emphasis on process skills is what differentiates education appropriate for the 21st century.

Detailed Description of Model

I. Content—Process: Individual Work/Mastery

    1. Content Knowledge/Expertise. To the degree expected and hopefully exceeded, students need to demonstrate mastery of traditional "subject" areas - math, language arts, science, social studies, health, art - deemed appropriate in school settings. However, content knowledge may be obtained anywhere, from multi-media sources - not just school settings. And though some content needs to be internalized, much content merely needs to be accessible for reference or further study. The internet serves as a repository for unimaginable amounts of content that does not need to be memorized.

    2. Process Skills. Information processing skills work with any and all content or subject areas (math, language arts, social studies, science, health, arts, etc.), and revolve around the twin pillars of deconstruction (critical thinking) and construction (media production), using technology skills. CML defines these process skills as Media Literacy - the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media messages in a variety of forms (visual, aural, literal, etc.)

    CML has further broken down these skills in a framework we recently packaged as the CML MediaLit Kit™, which is attached and is featured on our website, www.medialit.net These process skills must be learned and practiced and refined over time - they are the essence of lifelong learning skills.

    Although we have been testing this media literacy framework in school settings, we have not had the resources to do formal research. With the help of a federal grant issued by the U.S. Dept. of Education and the National Endowment for the Arts, we have one project that we are implementing in which we are gathering data for research and analysis, Project SmartArt. We also have a state grant, issued through the County of Orange Health Care Agency, in which we are also gathering data on a more limited basis. Given our experience, we are encouraged that we are on the right track.

But content and information processing skills are not enough. Students must be able to perform tasks effectively and be able to produce high quality products or deliverables. This leads to another needed duo:

II. Project—Process: Individual & Team Work/Mastery

    3. Project design and implementation. A project is a deliverable, a tangible. How is a project conceived? How is it defined? What are desired outcomes? What are desired quality standards? Students need to learn to construct and structure projects, defining deliverables and outcomes wanted and needed.

    4. Project Management Skills. Project management skills encompass those processes necessary to successfully implement a project: interpersonal skills, communications skills, organizational skills, study skills, budgeting, time management, delegation, etc.

    Project design and implementation, along with the process skills of Project Management, utilize all of the content/process knowledge outlined above - but require practical implementation and application of the content/process knowledge gained.

Summary — Overall Model

This education model provides clearer delineation between tangibles and intangibles, between product and process. It establishes limits and boundaries between content and process, project deliverables and process, individual action and team action. This framework truly allows for lifelong learning - and lifelong practice, because applying a process takes practice over time, with a variety of projects and team members. It is a never-ending quest for knowledge and skills, based on a process of inquiry, and is open-ended. It serves the goal of having freedom of expression in a free and democratic society, and transcends national boundaries to explore and work in a global media-driven culture. It is a framework that allows for an infinite variety of outcomes on a continuum of possible action, individually and collectively -- from no decision or action taken to the ultimate sacrifice of life.

Designing a framework for education requires an extraordinary degree of synthesis. And of course, research is necessary to verify the effectiveness of the framework design. Like with various investment philosophies and methodologies, success in education can be obtained in many ways. We expect that one size will not fit all - and that is fine.

CML's Framework for Media Literacy

As shown in the model provided earlier in this paper, Media Literacy has a special role to play: providing a process that can be taught and practiced, a process that can be applied to all content and subject areas. We are attaching what we consider a skeletal framework for media literacy. Our experience has shown that the attached Five Key Questions (based on the Five Core Concepts) are the focal point for what we wish that all students would learn to apply to all content areas by high school graduation. A deep understanding of these questions gives citizens the ability to think critically and decide for themselves. Learning to explore these questions requires practice and is a life-long process.

The Framework attached gives:

    • An expression of the twin pillars of media literacy: Free Your Mind, Express Your View (Other words for this are "Deconstruct" and "Construct" or "Critical Thinking" and "Media Production")
    • A Definition of Media Literacy
    • Skill Components (Access, Analyze, Evaluate, Create)
    • Core Concepts
    • Key Questions (these work hand-in-hand with the Core Concepts)
    • The Empowerment Spiral (these are steps associated in deciding to take action)

(See attached Law Review article for more explanation.)

**********************

The following sections refer to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills Online Form:

    • Standards: Standards used - there are state standards associated with media literacy

       

    • Levels of Proficiency: There is no research available to associate the Media Literacy framework with levels of proficiency, or appropriateness of teaching various concepts for different age groups. This work needs to be done; some work was started in Canada and is available for reference.

       

    • Assessment Measures/Performance Measures: Through our federal grant for Project SmartArt, we are gathering data for analysis. This research will not be available until the end of 2003 at the earliest. However, there is need for much more research that is more closely correlated with the work at hand.

      This definition of media literacy (above) applies to all, for all grade levels, for all types of educators.

Best Practice

    • Leo Politi Elementary School, Project SmartArt, lead education agency: Los Angeles Unified School District; Center for Media Literacy (Tessa Jolls, project manager); Music Center of Los Angeles County and AnimAction, Inc., project partners
    • Arcadia Unified School District, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, Mary Ann Sund
    • State of Texas, implementation of additional language arts strands (viewing and representing)
    • State of Maryland/Discovery Channel. Assignment Media Literacy, by Renee Hobbs
    • Project Looksharp, Ithaca College, headed by Cyndy Scheibe
    • PBS Ready to Learn, Outreach Program, headed by Charlotte Brantley
    • Cable in the Classroom, headed by Peggy O'Brien
    • Blowing Smoke, an Arizona State project, headed by Lynda Bergsma
    • College-Level Courses: David Considine, Appalacian State University; Rhonda Hammer, UCLA, University of Dayton, Babson College, Ithaca College

Conclusion

We hope this material is helpful. We look forward to learning of progress on your project and to becoming acquainted. If there are ways to further collaborate, we welcome such opportunities.

 
Footnotes: 

Note: In sharing this framework, CML retains ownership and copyright on all materials provided.

Attachments: 5 copies of CML Home Web Page, Law Review Article, CML Corporate Information

Author Bio: 

Tessa Jolls is President and CEO of the Center for Media Literacy, a position she has held since 1999. She is a graduate of the University of Illinois and has consulted and published in the organization development/change management field for major corporations.

How to Use Technology To Make You More Aware And Alive

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MediaValues

This article originally appeared in Issue# 23
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The following is excerpted from the text of Dr. Byrne's remarks when he accepted the 1983 Media&Values Communicator Award

"I currently see the world divided into two camps, and they're not equal in size. There are people in the world who think that something is going on and people who don't.

The people who think something is going on call it the Communication Revolution or the Information Age or the Post-Industrial Society. They believe that computers are real and that they work, and that we ought to be using them to make life valuable.

The others don't believe any of that works, and that we shouldn't be doing it.

I'm quite amazed at who is in each camp. Many of the leaders in information technology are in the camp that believes nothing is going on. When you talk to them about the impact on human jives, on organizational change and on who works for whom and how, and how we can be empowered and how life can be more worthwhile and more interesting and more exciting, they say, "What are you talking about? You must be talking religion or something, but that's not what we do.'

I am way over in the camp called 'Something's Going On.' I usually demonstrate that with technology, but I don't think technology is what's going on..

"If you had a computer, you'd be just exactly what you are now and more so. So, if you're disorganized, wait until you get a computer! You will be disorganized at flank speed!

Some people say, 'Richard, how can you teach people to use computers and hold your head up? Because we're all going to sit home alone, and we'll be pasty white and we'll never talk to anyone.'

I say, 'Hey, maybe you. but not me. I am with more people now than I've ever been in my whole life, and largely it's because use computers.'

"Choose something you're wonderful at, whatever it is, and figure out how a computer can help you do it better."

If you're disorganized and you get a computer, you will become more disorganized. If you are organized, you will become more organized.

So my first tip is, before you use a computer, choose something you're wonderful at! Whatever you're wonderful at, get that in mind and figure out how a computer can help you do it. Do that one thing and nothing else for six months. Then if you decide to work on things you're terrible at, I give you my permission…"

"The technology is not the revolution. The revolution is in human awareness and aliveness. It is just made clearer by technology.

Most of you do not know how to use a computer. And most of you are willing to acknowledge that you do not know how to use a computer. But suppose you run a 50-million dollar corporation and people come to you and say, 'Well, is it going to work or not?' Can you say, 'I don't know?'

Do you see that 'I don't know' is an impossible response for most people in positions of power? They come from a position of 'surely I know something,' so whenever they are asked something, they start telling you what the answer is.. but the true answer is 'I don't know.'

True learning only occurs from a position called 'I Don't Know.'

"The astonishing thing is that many of the leaders in information technology are in the camp that believes nothing is going on."

There's a story of a person who comes from the United States to visit a Zen master and says, 'Teach me some Zen.' So the master takes tea and pours it in a cup until it overflows all over their robes, and out on the tatami mats, and into the streets until they are both sitting in this puddle of tea. And the Zen master says, 'This is how you have come to me, as a cup which is full. Nothing can be added to a cup which is full.'

So the reason I use computers is not because I think computers matter. Computers are the shill that I use to get people in the tent. Once they get inside the tent, then I get them to acknowledge that they're ignorant, and then they just laugh and relax and sit back.

And when they sit back and relax and acknowledge they don't know, then they can just soak it up like a sponge. They can learn.

I think the revolution is in the fact that we're in a position of not knowing. We cannot possibly know how this is going to turn out. That's why I'm so excited about it..

"This is the computer that I carry with me every day. It's actually a terminal. It's a 14-ounce terminal that is shorter than my hand. It has a keyboard, it plugs into a telephone. Every time I get off of a plane, I go to a pay phone, plug it in, and dial a local number in any city in the country, and it goes to a satellite dish and then to McLean, Virginia, where it turns on my computer account at The Source. And I read my mail.

My agent abstracts my correspondence, and she says, 'Do you want to do this?' And I answer, 'Y, N, Y, Y, N, N, Y, N, Y.' — Some of you say, 'There — see? Anti-human.' No. That's so I can get it done fast, so I can then flirt with her on the computer!

You see, I want the high touch, but after the high tech. We do business first, instantly, so we don't spend time anymore saying 'I'll have to think about that.' I now know that the only difference between a slow decision and a fast decision is the amount of time I take.

Am I empowered by being able to go to a phone out here in the lobby and call the satellite and answer all of my mail 24 hours a day from anywhere? You bet I am.

Do any of you play 'telephone tag?' Suppose any three of us wanted to try to exchange a piece of information. I call you, then I call Adele. And when I get the answer from Adele. I call you back and then call Adele back to tell her what you said. That could take a week.

Now with my little computer here, I just send messages through e-mail. You read it and put the answer in my 'mailbox.' Adele reads it and puts her answer there too. In two minutes I can read them both and get the same answer to each of you almost instantly.

Now, does that empower anybody? Only if you want to get work done.'

"These are transforming technologies. But the technology is not the transformation. It's our relationship with one another that's undergoing transformation. And I do believe it's a transformation; I don't think it's just a change.

There is a difference, because there are two basic kinds of change: one is structural, one is cyclical. Cyclical changes come, and they go, and they come again. But structural changes, once they're made, you never go back.

Once cars started, buggy whips were gone. I believe that technology today is creating structural changes in society. Particularly the microcomputer. It is an entry portal into a whole new way of living and working and yes, being human.

It used to be that the technologies were discrete. Remember when phones were phones and TVs were TV's? And now you know, don't you, that you can make phone calls on TV sets? You can push a button and the kids can sit around the TV and talk to Grandma through the TV set.

"The technology is not the revolution. There is a revolution in human awareness and aliveness."

And they want you to think of your television set as a window to the world. It's not a TV, but an access port. It will link together newspapers, mainframe computers, microcomputers, fiber optic systems, telephones, television, satellites, and it will deliver news and information to your home. I have it right now in my apartment.

Right now, before I give a speech I check the UPI Newswire to see if there's anything breaking that I could use in my speech.

Now, what is it worth to have instantaneous reference and clerical support from your bedroom put into a speech ten minutes before you go do it? Well, my Source bill is about $30 a month. That's what it costs. What is it worth? About 200 times that.'

"I think we are going through what I call the void. We're in this curious age of the parenthesis. It's not just users versus non-users. There are also many users who look at microcomputers and say, 'it's just a number-cruncher.' Many of the people inside the system are outside the revolution.

I believe the void, the not knowing, is the most powerful stimulus for creative problem solving that exists. The not knowing is what it's about.

"You've got to be ignorant of a matter in order to learn it."

Any of you ever read about David Voltz? He broke the world indoor pole vault record just before Billy Olsen did. One of David's goals is to overcome the power of gravity. He believes that we are frightened about going up because we're frightened about coming down. And one of the big barriers about jumping 20 feet is that after you do it, you have to fall 20 feet. So he is stepping off greater and greater heights. He practices falling so he can jump higher.

When he broke the record last October, he knocked the standard off the top of the bars. But he wasn't worried about falling, because he's already got falling handled.

So he reached behind him, caught the bar, lifted it back up on the standards, steadied it: let go of it, and fell into the pit. The judges took two hours to figure out what happened.

One group said, 'Well, he knocked the bar off.' The other group said, 'Well, that's true, but he put it back.' And they looked through the rules, and it doesn't say anything about putting it back.

"Technology is not the transformation. It's our relationship with one another that's undergoing transformation."

In other words, if you're going through the void, if we're getting the magazine out, if we're trying to learn a computer, if we're doing whatever we're doing, and it doesn't work, the payoff is in what we do in the void. It's what you do right there — when you're in extremis — that's the payoff. It demonstrates more about who you are as a human being than whether you clear the bar or not.

So I acknowledge and I salute the void we're passing through. I have no idea how this is going to turn out, my hands are scared and wet and clammy all the time, and I love it, because I'm very alive right now.

But as we go through this void, there are a lot of problems coming up. Good news and bad news everywhere you look.

When you get a computer you start speeding up, and when you speed up you need more responsibility — brighter headlights. If you're driving 20 miles an hour you can use a flashlight. If you're going 100 miles an hour, you need to start checking.

So, as we speed up, we need to look at the negative impact of all of this. What about the information gap? What about all the people who live within a mile of us who don't have a computer or any way of getting one because there are hungry mouths to feed? Do you think we can just blissfully wire up all the churches? Hold teleconferences about the poor?

"It's what you do in the void...when you're in extremes that's the payoff. I think what you do in the void demonstrates mnore about who you are a human being than whether you clear the bar."

People need to be thinking about justice, hope and concern — in technology and all the media. The Center's doing that. Media&Values does that. I think we should figure out what we can do to assist them in doing what they're doing, so that it's not assisting them, but we are doing it."

"I always end with action tips. Here are seven of them:

  1. I think you ought to be conscious. I think you ought to be conscious as much as you can. Look around. Notice what is going on. Be conscious.
  2. I think you ought to be ignorant… about everything you are ignorant about. You ought to be willing to acknowledge that you're ignorant, and that you don't know.
  3. I think you ought to build a network — you, all of you ought to build a network. Not just around what the Center is doing, although they're doing great things, but we all ought to know who we can reach and what we can offer to each other.
  4. Teach somebody something every day. You'll find out that you will learn a lot.
  5. You ought to share the best of who you are all the time. I see many people who say, 'Well, this is not the best place in the world to share the best of who I am. I'll save my best until I'm with people as good as I am.' Well, you're going to have to wait awhile.
  6. Come from aliveness. Put out aliveness, even if you've got a problem.. .if you're uncertain, if you don't know how it's going to turn out, if you don't know whether it's going to work. I found out that being alive is a lot better than the alternatives.
  7. And my last tip would be: after you've applied all of those and while you apply them, support Media&Values magazine. God bless you all and be well."
 
Author Bio: 

Richard Byrne, mentor and friend to everyone at Media&Values, was on the founding faculty of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. He died of cancer in 1989. It was in Dr. Byrne's seminar on Communication and Social Values, that the idea for Media&Values was birthed in 1977.

Video Basics and Production Projects for the Classroom
Sub Head: 

A veteran filmmaker shares some secrets to success.

Body: 

Film has proven its power to engage us for over 100 years; radio for over 70 years, television for 50, and computer media, the new kid on the block, is proliferating faster than its predecessors. Students watch it all. Integrating media production in your curriculum can help you find new access to students and help them find new access to the material. Media production engages and excites; it leads to unexpected discoveries, increased self-awareness and esteem, sharpened critical thinking, analytical skills, group work skills, and ability to communicate ideas. Media production demands writing and rewriting, research, group effort, and clarity of thought. Media production offers a means for students to talk to whomever they think is an important audience. It does all this because students want to say things that have meaning to them - authentic production comes from authentic learning.

Here are is an abbreviated list of activities for your classroom . Whatever you do not know about the equipment can probably be figured out by your students. Experiment and invent new activities. Exchange ideas with other interested teachers and students. But first, there are two commandments to engrave in your mind:

First Commandment for Using Any Gear
Be gentle with the equipment. Do not force anything together or apart. They are just tools, but rather pricey tools.
Second Commandment
If you don't know, ask someone. Life offers special bonus points for asking questions and not pretending knowledge.

Learning the Basics

Media are built things. Understanding that media pieces are constructions enables students to understand what a particular piece is trying to say, who the audience is, and why the piece has been made the way it is. Understanding that movies and television are built, one step at a time, enables students to imagine their own pieces.

Shots and Scenes. The simplest element in video and film is the shot, an image resulting from a single continuous running of a camera. Turn it on, turn it off; you have a shot. Though a scene can be done in one shot, usually shots are juxtaposed (edited) to make a scene.

Define a "shot." Watch any film or tape with your class and ask them to identify where the shots begin and end - the edit points. Ask them to raise hands and call out "edit" every time they see an edit point.

What's In, What's Out? If a scene is made of a series of shots, what happened before the start of the shot? Imagine what happened in the world of the story (which may be explained by the scene) and what happened where the filming was done in order to make the shot-i.e., the actors, the camera crew etc. In the case of news or documentary footage - what was going on before the camera started rolling? What was going on after it stopped?

What's In, What's Out of the Frame? Television and movies, says the old cliché, provide a window on the world. As with any window, there is a wider world beyond the edges of the frame. Use toilet paper tubes or frames made of construction paper for viewfinders. Students should look around them and choose an image through their frames. Ask them to draw a simple stick figure picture of what they have chosen. What was their image about? What story can you tell with it? What is most important in their frame? Where is that important thing in the frame? What other things are in the frame? What do those other things tell about the main subject of the frame.? Everything in a frame becomes related by being in that frame.

But what is outside of the frame? Is there a bigger or different story going on outside the frame? Look at a tape or television show and ask the same things. Why are the things in the frame chosen to be there? What message do they connote?

Storyboards. Movie makers draw simple schematics of frames (as the students did above) but use them to plan how they want to tell a story. This is called a storyboard. The frames in a storyboard show relative positions of significant objects or actors and the camera's position - close-ups, wide shots, high angle, low angle, and point-of-view" shots. How does changing these things change the message of the frame? You can find examples of storyboards on the Internet. Use keyword "storyboard" with your search engine.

Comic Books as Storyboards. Comic book frames share many elements with movies and storyboards; point-of-view, camera angle, relative proximity to the subject, proximity of the elements in the frame, etc. Find a comic book with a whole scene, or whole story, told on two to three pages. "White-out" all dialog and text and copy these pages for each student or group of students. Cut the frames of the story apart and give a complete set to each group. Their assignment is to order the frames to tell a story, writing their own dialog. They can leave out frames and they can copy frames, but they cannot draw new ones.

Beginning Video Exercises

These first exercises are designed to familiarize students with the gear, to stimulate creative thinking and group cooperation. All the editing on these first two assignments happens in the camera-shots are taped in the order in which they will finally be shown.

Video Alphabet: Students work in groups of two to four. Illustrate the alphabet with individual shots or whole scenes. Be literal, be poetical, or be metaphorical. "A-Apple," or "A-Awkward Moment." This can become a game-the production crew sprinkles clues for the letters in their shot and the other groups compete to identify the correct letter.

Video Metaphor: Provide an enigmatic or provocative phrase that student production groups must translate into video. You can make up something for the occasion, use a line of poetry, a crossword puzzle clue, a phrase from a song, or a phrase from the daily paper.

Treasure Hunt: Bring back a visual jewel from the everyday world. Picking a particular point of view, moment in time, and unusual proximity can allow us to see something extraordinary in something ordinary. Students have one hour (or overnight if more convenient) to bring back an image they have discovered.

Advanced Video Projects

Have students provide a project proposal before doing any of these assignments. The proposal should include who is doing the work, what the jobs will be, a one to two page description of what the program will actually be, who the audience will be, and why this project should be done. You may also ask them to write guidelines by which their project can be evaluated. You can tell them that these guidelines will be the actual rubric by which their grade is determined.

A New Ending: Students, in groups, write a new ending or a scene to follow the last scene of a story, novel or event. Act it out until they feel they have it right. One student can record the acted out version as a script. Storyboard the script. Shoot the script.

Portrait: A video portrait of a person the production group decides upon together. The subject can be a family member, a community member, a peer. Encourage students to show the subject's everyday activities as well as interviews. What other elements in that subject's life might tell us more about the person?

Adapt a Scene or Story: Similar to writing a new ending, Students do their version of a scene from an existing book, story or movie.

Alien at the Mall: Most of documentary filmmaking is based on watching what people do from a different perspective - finding the startling or revealing within the life around us. Ask students to spend half a day at a shopping center or other place where many people gather. Ask them to pretend they are from another planet and have no idea why people do what they do. Ask them to take notes, make observations about what people are doing and to write their notes up as a report. The report could become a narrated video documentary. It may be helpful to try this first in your classroom.

The above examples tend to focus on video. There are several very good and relatively inexpensive editing programs now available for computers. But there are many other ways to use and produce media as part of your teaching.

Non-Video Exercises

Audio Illustration: A group of students write a one-page story together. Have them go back through the story and mark all of the actions in the story. Let them choose a sound effect for each of theses actions. Record a reading of the story with the sound effects added, performed in the classroom or prepared outside of class. If you find a cooperative radio production studio you may also be able to get a field trip to the studio and have an engineer record the story with your students picking out sound effects from an effects library.

Family Photos: Ask students to use 3 to 5 family photos in sequence to tell a story. The subject of the story should relate to material you are now studying in class. For example, vacation pictures might tell a surreal story related to "Moby Dick."

How Would You Shoot This?: A version of the idea of translating a scene from literature into a tableau. Take a scene from literature you are currently studying. Assign a student to be the director and other students to play the story characters. How would the director block the scene? Where would the characters be, how would they be standing in relation to each other? Where would the camera be? Would the shot be close or wide? Why? Since framing connotes emotional content, why do they choose the shots they do?

 
Footnotes: 

Posted with permission from Media Matters, a newsletter of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Winter 1999 issue.

Author Bio: 

Andrew Garrison is an independent filmmaker who works in both fiction and non-fiction. He is a recipient of fellowhips from the J. Simon Guggenheim Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Film Institute and the Rockefeller Foundation. His work has premiered at Sundance and at the New York Film Festival and has been selected for festivals worldwide. He teaches production at the University of Texas at Austin and is a longtime advocate of youth media production and media literacy. His students' community-based documentaries can be viewed at http://www.EastAustinStories.org. Information about his current project is available at http://www.itvs.org.

Canada Offers Ten Classroom Approaches to Media Literacy

Article Images: 

Citation: 

Reprinted with permission of the Association for Media Literacy / Canada.
Body: 

The following article is from the introduction to the Media Literacy Resource Guide published by the Ontario Ministry of Education in 1989 to guide the implementation of media literacy in language arts in Ontario high schools. The guide was written by members of the Association for Media Literacy / Canada.

Introduction

The teacher's attitude to the mass media and to students as avid media consumers is crucial to the success of any media literacy program. Most students bring to the classroom an enormous amount of information about and experience with the media -- in many cases, far more than do their teachers. While it is important for teachers to start where their students are, it is also necessary for them to lead their students to where they are not.

This guide stresses teaching inductively and beginning whenever possible with students' direct experiences with the media. The basic method of media studies is that of a "spiral curriculum", a concept developed by educator Jerome Bruner. The fundamental principle of this method is that the key concepts of any discipline can be taught in some form to students at any level. Thus, concepts initially introduced in simple form at the elementary level are, in successive years, explored, developed, and extended in increasingly sophisticated ways as the student matures and develops.

To take a relatively simple example, elementary school pupils might begin to explore the concept of the commercial implications of media by talking about television programs they watch and, with the guidance of the teacher, distinguishing between program material and commercials, identifying the different purposes of each. At a later stage they could look at a variety of commercials aimed at children, discussing their reactions to them and perhaps beginning to evaluate their effectiveness. They could also talk about what they would put in commercials for children if they were making them. Older children could begin to analyze the techniques and appeals of commercials, planning and storyboarding some of their own. They could also explore the relationship between commercials and programming, perhaps examining the link between children's cartoon characters and sales of related products such as dolls or clothing. As they progress through the educational system, they may move on, for example, to more detailed examinations of commercials; studies of the effects of economic considerations on programming, content, and techniques; or research into issues such as the effects of ownership and control media.

Because students are immersed in media, the role of the teacher must be that of a facilitator and a co-learner. The teacher must help students to negotiate meaning, engage in inquiry and research, identify patterns, and create their own media productions.

Stress the Positive

It is important to stress the positive features of the mass media rather than to dwell at length on the negative. It is also essential that students be encouraged to explore the values and the tastes that are relevant to their own immediate cultural context. This fundamental premise of values education implies that the teacher should not be imposing a set of elitist values on the class. (For example, the teacher should avoid holding up "Masterpiece Theater" and PBS as caviar and everything else as junk food for the masses.)

It may be difficult to find socially redeeming values in many of the programs that have high audience ratings or in rock videos, but it is these very examples that our students are eager to discuss. Using media literacy in critical discussion, the teacher can empower students to discover meaning on their own, thus giving them critical autonomy.

Because of the immense diversity in the media and the sheer quantity of information, teachers may feel overwhelmed. This resource guide offers a whole range of coping strategies. First, many avenues for media literacy are already available. For example, most subject disciplines offer approaches to the topic, and many of the activities suggested in this document are ideally suited to the development of speaking, listening, and writing skills. Second, this guide encourages a plurality of approaches, including the application of interdisciplinary perspectives and critical- and creative- thinking strategies.

By necessity, media teachers will be eclectic. As well, the constantly changing content of the media and of popular culture, along with their many new and evolving forms and technologies, will necessitate the concept of "a movable text" that is made up by the teacher, the class, or both together. Such a text will encompass current newspaper and magazine clippings, new video, audiotapes, record albums, and resource people from the community. In such an enterprise, it should be evident that media study is ideally suited to the collaborative strength that is gained from team teaching.

To avoid duplicating activities and audio-visual materials each year, teachers, department heads, and principals will have to plan a coherent and, in many cases, a sequential media-studies program. This may prompt the formation of board media-literacy committees, which can organize workshops for teachers and design media curricula especially suited to local needs.

Teachers not familiar with essential equipment such as slide projectors and the video-cassette recorder will need to develop the competency required to make media literacy worthwhile for their students. For example, effective use of the freeze frame or the scanning mechanism on a VCR can enhance the use of video considerably.

Throughout the guide there are many opportunities for practical media production, an important dimension that complements the application of the key concepts and decoding exercises. Practical activities should never become an end in themselves; otherwise, the critical inquiry that is central to media study may be ignored.

SPECIFIC APPROACHES

  1. The Inquiry Model
    The inquiry model is a structured framework that will help students recognize basic issues and provide strategies for developing subject content. This model helps to stimulate open questioning and encourages students to be intellectually curious about the world; it also demands that they have the proper tools for meaningful research and discussion. Since many of the topics that interest students (e.g., censorship, bias in news coverage, popular culture trends) need to be focused as soon as possible, this methodology is ideally suited to media study.

    The inquiry model is especially suited to the introduction of media-literacy activities in the classroom. For example, one can easily apply the model to a provocative short film, a television documentary, or an excerpt from a feature-film video that reveals a powerful moral dilemma. Through an intense shared experience that raises a whole range of issues, students are enabled to see the value of a structured framework for facilitating focused research and critical thinking.

    The inquiry model might be used, for example, to explore the following question: "Why do Canadians seem to prefer American media?" The following alternative solutions might be investigated:

    • Media content, from films to television, is predominantly American in origin.
    • American programs are generally cheaper to buy; have better production values, which reflect lavish budgets; and have a faster pace than do most Canadian programs.
    • Quality Canadian programs may reflect our identity, but most Canadians' indifference about or insecurity in this area compels them to avoid endeavours that hold up the mirror to our society.
    • Intense competition in the United States ensures that only the most salable commercial products are seen.

    Students might then explore the alternatives by collecting data in the following ways:

    • Statistics are available in resources on the Canadian film industry, such as Cinema Canada [Editor's note: is no longer in publication] and from the reports of various commissions on broadcasting and the film industry.
    • Students could check with Canadian television networks on the comparative costs of buying an American show – especially those in reruns – and of producing a Canadian series. Students could watch some typical Canadian shows and compare them with the American product in order to notice differences in themes, characterization, and pace.
    • Students could check the ratings of one of the better Canadian television series and the box-office take for some of our critically acclaimed films. In addition, by formulating a questionnaire and having a cross section of people answer it, students could determine whether the results confirm or deny the notion that Canadians are indifferent to or insecure about seeing their identity portrayed.
    • Students could write or talk to Canadian media professionals regarding the allegations about the benefits of competition in the United States.
  2. Critical-thinking strategies
    The critical-thinking movement in the 1980s has helped to provide some important strategies for teachers of media literacy. According to Robert Ennis, critical thinking refers to a body of intellectual skills and abilities that enable one to decide rationally what to believe or do. It also includes a set of values: the pursuit of truth, fairness or open-mindedness, empathy, autonomy, and self-criticism. A "strong sense" critical thinker is one who strives to live in accordance with the values of critical thinking and who is able to think dialogically. A typical mass-media issue involves a blending of intellectual, affective, and moral responses. Many issues carried in the media demand that we move back and forth between opposing points of view. It is here that good dialogical thinking can help us out. Dialogical thinking involves a dialogue or extended exchange between points of view or frames of reference. The following checklist of typical critical- thinking skills is reproduced from Robert Ennis, "A Concept of Critical Thinking," Harvard Educational Review, Winter 1962: 38.

    Critical-Thinking Checklist:

    • distinguishing between verifiable facts and value claims
    • determining the reliability of a claim or source
    • determining the accuracy of a statement distinguishing between warranted and unwarranted claims
    • detecting bias identifying stated and unstated assumptions
    • recognizing logical inconsistencies
    • determining the strength of an argument

    Teachers interested in more information on these approaches should consult current books and articles on critical thinking in educational journals such as Educational Leadership and Phi Delta Kappan.

  3. Values education
    The mass media are an ideal resource for the discussion of moral dilemmas, the development of moral reasoning, and the use of techniques such as values clarification. Dialogical reasoning, which has been described as an important part of critical thinking, can play a significant role in discussions of topics such as the pros and cons of the mass media, government control of media, censorship, advertising, and the moral values identified in popular television and films. Consult the bibliography in the ministry's resource guide Personal and Societal Values (Toronto: Ministry of Education, Ontario, 1983) for further information on values education.
  4. Media from the perspective of subject disciplines
    In relation to media-literacy analysis in a subject context, it is important to stress that teachers will need to move beyond conceiving of media simply as audio-visual aids. Ideas that teachers can use to incorporate media literacy into their classes include:
    • English – Film-literature comparisons, script writing and multimedia thematic units (ie. exploring how themes such as the nature of courage, the hero and comedy are expressed in various mediums).
    • Social Sciences
      • History – Presentation of historical figures, historical bias and point-of-view, the marketing of politicians, and propoganda.
      • Geography – Comparisons of the images of cities in films and TV to the socio-economic realities of those cities; deconstruction of travel films; bias in films made by governments or corporations; depiction of countries as portrayed by governments vs. "structured absences," images that are not included in the official portrayal.
    • Family Studies – The representation of the family in advertising and film; sexuality and sexual stereotyping in the media; and the culture of violence.
    • Science and Technology– In addition to their treatment in science fiction, there are numerous references to science and technology in newspapers, films, magazines, and novels. Television, in both news and entertainment programs, constantly packages scientific issues and information. Some of this material can be integrated into the science curriculum by pointing out connections between the scientific issues raised by the media and the scientific principles underlying them. Students can also explore the strengths and limitations of the presentation of science topics in the media.
    • Visual Arts – The possibilities for media literacy in the visual arts are enormous. Many of the decisions made in the media are based on aesthetic considerations. The role of art in a mass-media-dominated society is of major concern for aspiring artists. Art teachers need to assess more than just the principles of pleasing form when looking at media; they need to consider all of the aspects that have been outlined in the section on key concepts in Visual Arts, Intermediate and Senior Divisions, Curriculum Guideline (Toronto: Ministry of Education, Ontario, 1986).
    • Music – Students are immersed in rock music and rock videos. While some music teachers use rock as a resource, many consider it inappropriate for their music courses. However, there are many valuable connections that can be made through the comparison of traditional and popular music. The popular-music enables music teachers to help their students investigate the aesthetics, the value messages, and the commercial implications of this pervasive form.
    • Physical and Health Education – Representation of gender, sexuality, violence, and televised sports in the media are all avenues that can be explored in the classroom.
    • Mathematics – Teachers of mathmatics will find that a great deal of research in the mass media depends on statistics. Hence, the skills of compilation and graphing will be important. In the area of television, the methods of rating the most watched prime-time programs depend on the exact use of mathematical information.
    • Resource Centre Teachers – Today's resource centres contain not only books, but also a good cross-section of popular periodicals, phonograph records, slides, and audio – and videotapes. In the area of print, many periodicals, such as Time and Maclean's, require not only the traditional reading skills, but also media-literacy decoding skills as well. Resource centre teachers can play a valuable role by helping students and teachers to understand the strengths and limitations of each medium when they are selecting resource materials.
  5. Cross-media studies and interdisciplinary strategies
    The issues, trends, and special events of our time are simultaneously reflected in all or several of the mass media. Hence, whether the topic is the arms race, the promotion of a rock star, an advertising campaign, or sexuality and violence in the media, a cross-media analysis is required. The effective application of the key concepts of media depends on the integration of several media. A discussion of violence in the media, for example, might combine knowledge from history, literature, sociology, psychology, communications theory, and linguistics.
  6. Creative experiences
    As well as being able to "decode" the symbols that dominate their society, students should be able to "encode" them. Just as we must integrate writing with the development of reading skills, we should integrate formal media analysis with media production. Thus, creative or production activities should be an essential component of media studies in the classroom. These creative activities can range from something as short and simple as sequencing a series of photographs to a project as complex as the production of a rock video. Many students will grasp the analytic material only if they have undergone production experiences.
  7. Semiotics
    Semiotics is the science of signs and is concerned primarily with how meaning is generated in film, television, and other works of art. It is concerned with what signs are and the ways that information is encoded in them. Some of the decoding/deconstructing activities in this guide use strategies from semiotics. This approach, which has had considerable influence on European academics and media teachers, is now coming into its own in North America. While it may appear to be intellectually demanding and somewhat abstract, it can yield many rewards for the dedicated media teacher. The following books are useful references in this area: Roland Barthes, Mythologies (New York: Hill & Wang, 1972); James Monaco, How to Read a Film; Robert Scholes, Semiotics and Interpretation (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982).
  8. Reading the media environment
    Each medium of communication has its own biases and ideology. When we interact with a medium of communication, we are influenced as much by the form of the medium as by its message. To explore this notion further, we should ask the following question about each communication medium: What would life be like without this medium? Finding answers to the following questions might also help us to understand better the effects of our interactions with our media of communication:
    • How does it work (e.g., technically, physiologically)?
    • When/how was it discovered/invented?
    • How did its use develop (e.g., socially, economically, politically)?
    • Who are its outstanding users? What do they communicate? How?
    • What are the medium's present conventions? How did they develop?
    • What are its present limitations? How are they best exploited?
    • How does the medium affect its users and how do they affect it?
    • How have other media affected this one?
  9. Alternative points of view
    As a counter to the mass media, which are generally, conservative and constitute a major industry in which the profit motive is paramount, teachers, depending on the level of the class, can show films and videos that present an alternative vision or a different kind of perception and experience to that of the mainstream media. These should be a supplement to, and not take the place of, the study of popular models. Many excellent narrative and documentary films by the National Film Board of Canada and by many experimental filmmakers and video artists, for example, will challenge students' ways of seeing the world. Of course, good literature and art will do the same. Certainly contemporary culture can be illuminated from many sources: by a small-circulation magazine with a distinctively alternative point of view; by a provocative CBC radio documentary; by a record of a contemporary fusion jazz combo, a small independent rock band, or the work of a performance artist/musician such as Laurie Anderson.
  10. Full-credit courses in media literacy
    These courses, offered at the secondary school level, will probably be presented as one of the optional courses in English or the visual arts and will reflect a great diversity of approaches. The following are examples of areas covered by such courses:
    • Pop culture: An understanding of some of the following: popular culture and trends; the coverage of royalty; the appeal of the current rock megastars; pop culture's fascination with rituals; the nature and power of celebrities; fashion TV (television programs that are concerned with the world of fashion, showcasing the latest trends and profiling fashion designers); fast-food happiness (the extensive marketing of fast-food restaurants through advertising campaigns that convey the idea that such eateries bring happiness by solving all one's problems); fads – from pet rocks to Cabbage Patch dolls; the appeal of shopping malls; pop culture in a foreign country; the culture of toys; the appeal of cult film patterns in teen films; formulas in best sellers; the appeal of Harlequin romance novels; the pop culture of the fifties and sixties.
    • The world of images: Media images of men and women; analysing photographs; adolescent magazines; analysing advertisements – signs and codes; dividing the world.
    • The information society: Current theories and research on the impact of the electronic media; the theories of Marshall McLuhan regarding the global village, the nature of perception, and the use of our senses; the dynamics of third-wave technology (electronic technology and the use of computers); the computer revolution; the role of new and emergent technology.
    • The study of specific media or a genre within a medium: Course units are often devoted to in-depth study of a specific medium (e.g., film, television, the newspaper). The study of a medium can be subdivided further through the study of specific genres. A unit on a genre in films might explore the nature of horror films in radio, suspense drama; in television, the evolution of sitcoms.
    • Television production: The nature of the television medium; the dynamics of television production; script writing and storyboards; the use of the portable video camera; the creation of a mini-documentary and a commercial; the use of special effects; applications of the mobile studio."

 

A Scaffolding Approach to Media Education

Scaffolding, developing a unit of study through a set sequence of steps, is well suited to Media Education. Scaffolding involves:

  1. Providing students with an overall picture of what will be expected of them.
  2. Breaking up and sequencing the order in which various concepts, skills, and applications of skills will be taught and assessed.
  3. Checking for students' understanding of what is being taught and requiring students to complete parts of the project as we go along.
  4. And finally the product -- student demonstration of their understanding and teacher and/or peer evaluation of their understanding.

If, for example, students are going to do a presentation giving an analysis of the codes and conventions of sitcoms, ideally the scaffolding would proceed this way:

  1. Model what such a presentation would look like.
  2. Teach them the relevant codes and conventions.
  3. Practice identifying codes and conventions in various sitcoms. (Allow students repeated opportunities to apply what they are learning so they can integrate that knowledge into their presentations.)
  4. Require them to research and put together their presentation.
  5. Before students present their work, have them submit an outline, including notes or ideas for what they intend to use.
  6. Finally, present of students' understanding and evaluation of this understanding. (See Evaluating Media Products for evaluation ideas.)

 

 
Footnotes: 

"Specific Approaches to Media Literacy," Barry Duncan et al. Media Literacy Resource Guide, Ontario Ministry of Education. Toronto, ON., Canada, 1989. Pages 14-19.

Author Bio: 

Barry Duncan, founding president of the Association for Media Literacy in Canada, is one of the pioneers of the media literacy movement in Canada. He writes Barry's Bulletin three times during the year, a column for teachers on media literacy.