All of this makes it necessary to provide a strong justification or rationale for the inclusion of media study into the curriculum — be that English/language arts, social studies, second languages, science, math, art, music, or physical education. In formulating such a justification, you need to consider the particular curriculum goals operating in your school district, as well as the cultural context of the school and community.

In formulating a rationale for media, you need to recognize that media educators do not all agree on same goals and approaches. Media educators propose a range of different purposes and goals, differences that reflect differences in these theorists’ perceptions of media texts and their role in society (Anderson, 2002; Gitlin, 2001; Kellner, 2000). Throughout this course, you will encounter educators advocating for these different approaches. Siri Anderson (2002) describes three different groups of media education theorists:

Media control/intervention: These theorists argue that given the extensive amount of time devoted to media use detracting from reading or social life and given the portrayal of violence, sexuality, or anti-social behaviors, that there is a need for reducing time devoted to media use and greater scrutiny of media content (Postman, 1985; Walsh, 2002). They frequently cite statistics of excessive uses of the media, for example, the following data regarding uses of television:

In his book, Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam argues that excessive television viewing is related to a decline in civic participation — voting, attending public meetings, or serving in local organizations. Putnam and others argue for the need to reduce reliance on viewing through fostering more critical analysis, presumably leading to reduced time use of the media. Other media controllers/interventionalists promote filtering programs, parental monitoring of viewing, and rating video/computer games (Anderson, 2002).

The concerns expressed about the excessive, even additive uses of the media, are certainly important and deserve educators’ attention. One organization that promotes these concerns is the Minneapolis-based National Institute on Media and the Family.

They focus on research related to portrayal of violence in television and video games. One of their studies (2002) found high correlations between television viewing and playing of video games and attitudes toward/display of hostile behaviors (“What Goes In Must Come Out: Children’s Media Violence Consumption at Home and Agressive Behaviors at School”):

Findings revealed that children who watched more television and played video games more often were more likely to view violence and exhibit hostile attributional biases. Perhaps those spending more time engaged in these media forms have less parent supervision of their activities and viewing material, and the children are left to their own devices. Secondarily, perhaps these children are inadvertently exposed to television violence, due to the sheer number of hours they report spending with these media forms.

Hostile attributions were associated with multiple indices of exposure to violent media and teacher and peer ratings of violent behavior. It appears that those children who engage in violent media viewing and play tend to assume the worst in their interactions with others. While the direction of effect is not clear, this finding merits additional investigation.

Interventionists cite studies that demonstrate that media literacy activities can reduce potentially harmful effects of TV violence on young viewers. For example, in one study, as a result of a instruction in media literacy, 3rd and 4th graders watched less television and played fewer video games as well as reduced their use of verbal and physical aggression as judged by their peers (Robinson, 2001). Or, a program for juvenile offenders to help them think critically about the consequences of risky behaviors as portrayed in the media helped them adopt more responsible decision-making skills in their own lives.

One limitation of this perspective is that, in some versions, it adopts a behavioral perspective on audience uses of the media (see Module 4) that assumes a cause/effect relationship between viewing or media use and certain attitudes or behaviors — that, for example, viewing of violence will lead to violent behavior. It also assumes that it is possible to control adolescents’ media uses, when often attempts to increase control only serves to enhance the value of media as a means of challenging adult authority. In trying to “protect” adolescents from “harmful effects” of the media, educators may not be considering the adolescents’ extensive uses of the media to for pleasure and as a tool for defining their identities.

On the other hand, it is also important for educators to consider some of the adverse effects of excessive viewing or media use, particularly of violent content. In using various types of media texts, adolescents are making choices about these uses based on reasons why they chose one television show or DVD over another, choices based on peer recommendations, advertising, promotions, availability, reviews, etc. Making informed choices about media use, as opposed to simply watching “whatever’s on,” involves defining modes of engagement with and making judgments about the characteristics of a certain media text-the fact that a computer game is well designed or that a television show has quirky characters. Helping students recognize the ways in which they use the media (through completing media logs) and reasons for media choices helps to foster an awareness of their uses of media. The PBS site Growing with Media — designed primarily for parents, but useful for teachers — provides information on strategies for helping adolescents examine their own media uses.

Critical thinking. A second group of identified by Anderson are interested in fostering critical thinking skills, particularly in the English classroom, through critical analysis, interpretation, and production of media (Teasley & Wilder, 1997). These theorists argue that given adolescents’ high level of knowledge and interest in media and film, that media texts can serve as a platform for engaging them in critical analysis, particularly in ways that transfer to analysis of literary texts. These theorists are skeptical of attempts either by media controllers/interventionists to regulate media use.

They make the useful argument for the need to integrate media studies throughout the language arts or social studies curriculum around critical thinking skills and thematic issues of concern to adolescents. For example, in Teasley and Wilder (1997) describe various ways to integrate films into thematic units in the curriculum. They posit that the critical thinking skills involved in teaching analysis of literature also apply to analysis of media texts, suggesting the value of organizing the curriculum in terms of the critical thinking strategies involved in analysis of all texts, strategies such as inferring perspectives, interrogating biases/value assumptions, and examining author’s or producers’ agendas and motives. This also has more recently involved critical analysis of websites, which often contain misleading or misinformation reflecting certain biases or ideological perspectives.

Popular Culture: Resources for Critical Analysis

The New Mexico Media Literacy Project

Media Education Organization: European organization

Media Literacy Review, University of Oregon: lots of resources

The Media Literacy Clearinghouse (Frank Baker, webmaster): lots of resources

The National Telemedia Council: America’s oldest media literacy organization

Alliance for Media Literate America: active media education organization (also deals with critical pedagogy perspectives).

Columbia Journalism Review: critical analysis of journalism

Evaluating information from the World Wide Web:
Montgomery College Library
Cornell Library

For further reading on issues of the influence of the media on behavior, see the 2003 Yearbook from the International Clearinghouse on Children, Youth and Media, Promote or Protect? Perspectives on Media Literacy and Media Regulations, Edited by Cecilia von Feilitzen & Ulla Carlsson (Eds),

The National Institute on Media and the Family: advocates for more parental control of television viewing practices

CRETV: Center for Research on the Effects of TV
CRETV has two components: an archive of television content and a research lab conducting studies of the content of television and its effects on viewers.

MediaScope: advocates for constructive depictions of health and social issues in the media

Teen Health and the Media

TVTurnoff Network: advocates less TV viewing

Lots of links on the negative effects of television

Kill Your Television

Websmart Kids: focuses on children’s uses of the Internet

Critical pedagogy. A critical pedagogy approach goes beyond a critical thinking approach to address issues of social justice portrayed in media texts or through uses of media texts that lead to improvements in society.

Critical Pedagogy on the Web

Definitions of Critical Media Literacy

Critical Pedagogy: Who has power and why?

Douglas Kellner, Media Literacies and Critical Pedagogy in a Multicultural Society

Martin Ryder: critical theorists: lots of links

Cultural Studies database

Guerrilla Media: media projects based on social justice

Media Reform: critical analysis of issues of media ownership

Action Coalition for Media Education: lots of useful resources

The Center for Public Integrity: watchdog organization on the media

FAIR: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting

Freedom Forum: Focus on free speech/1st Amendment rights

The Independent Media Center

The Media Channel

k.i.s.s. of the panopticon (Keep it simple stupid): cultural studies/critical theory perspectives on the media

The Media Monopoly Index

Journal of Critical Pedagogy

Radical Teacher

Radical Pedagogy

Rethinking Schools

In this approach, the teacher’s role is to demonstrate ways to not only interrogate beliefs and ideologies associated with institutions portrayed in texts, but to also link that interrogation to addressing and acting on injustices inherent in these institutions. Students also need to understand how various economic, institutional, and political forces are defining the nature and variety of commercial media, particularly in terms of contemporary media conglomeration of fewer corporations owning more media outlets. Understanding the economics of ownership and control helps them consider the degree to which alternative political or ideological perspectives are being communicated through commercial media, for example the pro-Western values promoting by Disney films (Alvermann, Moon, & Hagood, 1999; Giroux, 1999; Hooks, 1996).

A critical pedagogy approach argues that simply analyzing media texts themselves fails to consider the institutional forces shaping the production and audience reaction to texts, particularly in terms of how commercial media institutions promote and shape audience reaction. For a discussion by Justin Lewis and Sut Jhally, “Text vs. Context in Media Literacy: A Continuing Debate” on how media educators should not separate out media texts from the political contexts shaping the production and reception of these texts:

One basic approach in critical pedagogy is to have students study how they are positioned by media texts to adopt certain stances. Elizabeth Ellsworth (1997) describes how texts employ “modes of address” to position readers or viewers to adopt certain desired responses consistent with certain stances For example, a text may position a viewer to adopt a sexist or racist stance which a reader or viewer may accept or reject. In this approach, you ask students, How are you being positioned to respond by the text or context? Do you accept or reject how you are being positioned to respond?

In addressing these questions, you are encouraging students to adopt an oppositional stance that resists a text’s implied positions. Stuart Hall (1993) describes three alternative positions readers or viewers may assume relative to the text:

Critical pedagogy approaches in media education are often based on studying issues or problems portrayed in media texts or operating in the media industry. For example, students may study the issue of media coverage of certain events, contrasting, for example, Fox News coverage of an event with that of PBS, National Public Radio, or the New York Times. Inquiry-based instruction revolves around helping students learn to pose tough questions based on their concerns, doubts, and interests; click here for information on inquiry-based instruction.

Critical analysis of the media also examines the ways in which media texts employs stereotypical representations of certain groups according to race, ethnicity, class, gender, size, and age, institutions (the family, school, religion, government, business, the law, etc.), roles (teachers, lawyers, law enforcement, fathers/mothers, etc.), regions (“the South,” “the West,” etc.), environments (“the city,” “suburbia,” “small towns,” etc.), and social practices (gambling, shopping, travel, dating, etc.) (see Module 5 on Media Representations). In critiquing these representations, students begin to recognize how these representations do more than simply mirror and shape reality-they serve to create social or cultural realities (Hall, 1997). Media representations of “femininity” as a gendered practice serve to construct cultural notions of what it means to be female in the culture. By understanding the constructed nature of reality, students are more likely to critique the oversimplifications and reductionism in these representations.

And, a critical pedagogy approach also involves critical analysis of institutions and political forces shaping the media. For example, students may examine the ideological perspectives reflected on talk-radio programs. An analysis by participants on the PBS News Hour program indicated that on the 45 top-rated talk radio stations, there are 310 hours of conservative talk versus 5 hours of talk from a “liberal” perspective. The program cites the example of Rush Limbaugh with an audience of 14 million on 600 stations as having a strong political influence. Some of this conservative bias reflect a change in by the Federal Communications Commission the 1987 when it repealed the so-called “fairness” doctrine that radio stations need to present differing views on controversial issues, no longer requiring them to provide “balance” with both conservative and liberal perspectives. A critical pedagogy approach notes the ways in which larger institutions, in this case, the FCC, is influenced by political organizations and lobby groups, to change their policies to fit the agendas of these organizations and groups, as opposed to the larger public good. It therefore perceived media as very much controlled by commercial and political interests.

Art/aesthetic approaches. A fourth approach involves the study of film, television, or media as art forms. Students also need to be able to recognize and appreciate the artistic and aesthetic aspects of film, television, or media. This involves knowing how to evaluate the quality of cinematography, directing, scriptwriting, acting, and casting based on certain criteria for assessing media texts. In making such judgments, students need to be able to cite reasons for their assessment based on knowledge of these criteria. For example, if they note that the director made effective use of close-up shots to display the characters’ faces in a horror film, a student needs to also be able to note that such display of faces contributed to understanding the characters’ conflicts and anguish. Knowing these criteria often involves knowing the norms operating in a particular genre or type of media; knowing the norms of an effective horror genre helps a student judge the uses of close-up shots in that genre.

Students need to acquire knowledge of these aspects of production through understanding their purpose — what they are being used to portray or communicate. Inferring the intended purpose can then be used to judge whether that intention has been fulfilled or not (although there is considerable debate as to whether imputed intention can be used as the primary basis for judging artistic quality.) This suggests that having students produce their own media texts helps them understand the relationship between purpose and text. In creating their own ads, students assess the degree to which their intended message has been conveyed in the ad, judgments based on their intentions.

Students are most likely to develop appreciation for certain media/film types or genres through extensive exposure to examples of that type or genre so that they can experience the range of difference in quality. They also need to acquire a critical vocabulary for analyzing media texts in order to make judgments about those texts. Such vocabulary can be taught through your modeling your application of the vocabulary to media texts and then letting students engage in their own application.

Understanding the artistic quality of media texts also involves studying the historical development of different media forms and genres. Understanding how these forms and genres were transformed through the development of new techniques and tools helps students appreciate the quality of new, transforming uses of techniques and tools. It is also important to understand how changes in media reflect different cultural and historical values-how, for example, television in the 1950s served as a primary force in creating new consumer markets.

Activity: These four perspectives differ considerably in their beliefs about and focus on certain aspects of media education. What are your own beliefs about the overall purpose or value of media education? To help clarify your own beliefs, read Renee Hobbs’s discussion of “The Seven Great Debates in the Media Literacy Movement”

Then, formulate your own beliefs as to what you believe to be the most import goals of media education.

Module 1: Word document

What Does it Mean to Teach Media Literacy?

Justifying Media/Film Study in the Curriculum

Defining the Importance of Media Literacy

What is Literacy? The Need for a New, Broader Definition of Literacy and Texts

Media Education: Different Goals and Approaches

What Students Report About What They Learn from Media Education

Final Task

References