Topic/Subject area: What is reading?
Author: Jennifer L. Wilson, University of South Carolina
Media Literacy
As media becomes increasingly influential in adolescent lives, it becomes beneficial to offer students literacy skills and strategies to be critical consumers and producers of media.
Media Literacy "provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms - from print to video to the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy". Media literacy is more than watching movies in the classroom or exploring propaganda in television and print commercials. It is a thoughtful and intentional way of deconstructing and constructing images and ideologies expressed in the media.
The Center for Media Literacy offers a list that highlights what Media Literacy is NOT:
- Media 'bashing' is NOT media literacy; however media literacy sometimes involves criticizing the media.
- Merely producing media is NOT media literacy; although media literacy should include media production.
- Just teaching with videos or CDRoms or other mediated content is NOT media literacy; one must also teach about media.
- Simply looking for political agendas, stereotypes or misrepresentations is NOT media literacy; there should also be an exploration of the systems making those representations appear "normal."
- Looking at a media message or a mediated experience from just one perspective is NOT media literacy because media should be examined from multiple positions.
- Media Literacy does NOT mean "don't watch;" it means "watch carefully, think critically."
By recognizing what it is not, we can begin to see what media literacy is. It is a way for teachers to access and appropriate medias that students work in regularly like blogs, podcasts, videos, wikis, etc. and help students learn not only how to produce these items, but also how to analyze them (Frey & Fisher, 2004; Evans, 2004; Gainer, 2007; Mannes, 2004; Skinner 2007; Wallowitz, 2004). This "reading like a writer and writing like a reader" philosophy can be applied to the process of helping students become more media literate. The Alliance for Media Literacy in America stated:
Media literacy empowers people to be both critical thinkers and creative producers of an increasingly wide range of messages using image, language, and sound. It is the skillful application of literacy skills to media and technology messages. As communication technologies transform society, they impact our understanding of ourselves, our communities, and our diverse cultures, making media literacy an essential life skill for the 21st century.
Multimodal Literacy
One of these new understandings in teaching and education is multimodal literacy. Multimodalities, or multiple ways of knowing, equalizes reading and writing, or what has traditionally been considered the primary forms of communication, with other modes such as music, images, and movement (Short & Harste, 1996; Jewitt & Kress, 2003).This ties closely to differing learning styles and multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1993). Understanding that effective communication includes more than the traditional reading, writing, talking, and listening underlies media literacy.
Within media literacy teachers help students learn how to critical "read" multimodal texts such as Facebook/MySpace, documentaries, bumper stickers, etc. But it also means that students need to be proficient in communicating in these modoalities as well. Having students participate in digital storytelling, Web design, and public service announcements ensures that students can effectively communicate in multiple modes, including traditional as well as more contemporary "texts."
The following lesson plan explores one aspect of media literacy, public service announcements. Within this lesson, students move from print to video media through script writing, storyboarding, and cinematography to communicate knowledge gained from informational texts.
Go to lesson plan: Exploring Issues that Matter
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References
Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. New York: Basic Books.
Short, K.G., Harste, J.C. (1996). Creating classrooms for authors and inquirers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Jewitt, C. & Kress, G. (2006). Multimodal literacy: New literacies and digital epistemologies, V. 4. New York: Peter Lang.