By Rick Shepherd
Before we start, let's be clear about what we mean by media literacy. Media literacy is an informed, critical understanding of the mass media. It involves an examination of the techniques, technologies and institutions that are involved in media production, the ability to critically analyze media messages, and a recognition of the roles that audiences play in making meaning from those messages.
Media literacy is taught through linked analytic and production activities. As with traditional literacies, "reading" and "writing" are learned together. Although many of us think about television when we consider the media, media literacy takes as its field all media - TV, radio, film, print, rock music, the Internet and even less obvious forms like fashion, children's toys and dolls, or T-shirts.
We study the media because it is through the media that our culture expresses itself and communicates with itself. Certainly one could argue that much that we see or hear or read in the media is trivial, but I cannot bring myself to believe that human beings themselves or their interests are trivial. Take, for example, a baseball game on television. A baseball game may or may not be trivial in itself, but more than 40,000 people watched the game in person and several million more saw it on television or listened to it on the radio. That's not trivial. What does the popularity of this game mean? What messages does the audience take from it? What values are built into it?
These are the kinds of questions media literacy teachers bring to bear on the media. A similar set of questions could be generated for Barbie dolls or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or this particular magazine.
The notion that popular culture is a debased version of high culture has its roots in a class-based society that elevated a particular canon of literature or art to a privileged position. However, instead of concerning ourselves with abstract considerations of aesthetics, we should examine issues of ownership, control, representation and ideology. It should be sufficient to point out that the traditional canon is currently under attack in many quarters as the creation of a white, male, Eurocentric culture. Surely it's time we learned to develop our own standards, make our own choices, and try to understand ourselves and our culture through those choices. For better or worse, media culture is our culture and we cannot hope to own it without understanding it.
Apart from philosophic arguments, there are some excellent practical reasons for teaching media literacy in the classroom. First, it is highly motivating. It starts from interests and knowledge that students already have. Teachers I have worked with report that students are invariably enthusiastic about media units, and both the quantity and quality of student writing goes up when they write about the media.
Because students often have more knowledge about the media being studied than their teachers do, media study tends to democratize the classroom and turn lessons into exploration. Our classrooms must shift from a focus on content transmission to information management and evaluation. The critical thinking that lies at the heart of media literacy is the real lesson of the media literacy class.
Finally, media literacy is a natural integrator, involving virtually all areas of the curriculum. Whether they are involved in production or analysis, students make extensive use of language arts skills. Comparing media constructions to reality is central to social and environmental studies, particularly given the extensive use of visual material in such programs. Values and attitudes are always embedded in media texts, which also model behaviours and social structures for children. All need to be dealt with critically. Even mathematics is a natural presence in the media literacy classroom, whether through surveys and demographic studies or through the timing of production work. Students also learn about technology - both its use, and its role in our society.
The media occupy a central role in this society. Media study fulfills most of the objectives of an integrated curriculum. The question is really not whether we should study the media, but why it is taking us so long to get down to it.
Source: Reprinted with permission from
TEACH Magazine. Quadrant Educational Media Services, Toronto, Ontario. Oct/Nov '93.
