In researching the topic of Media Literacy I came across a few articles that I thought pertained to the topics discussion. The articles that I found are: Media Literacy: Awareness and Analysis by Camille Vigil; Media Literacy By W. James Potter and Teaching Media Literacy in an Age of Edutainment by Jamie McKenzie. Each article shares an abundance of what Media Literacy is and where we are heading. Finding a common link between each article was easy it was the students’ use and understanding that caught my eye, which I thought would fit right in with the discussion. Something to always consider is this statement by Potter, “Remember that media literacy is a continuum. People are position along that continuum based on skills and knowledge they bring to bear (cognitively, emotionally, aesthetically and morally) for the purpose of gaining control over the meaning process.” We always do need to consider the different levels in which students are at in media literacy. I still have students that have no computer at home and the only time they get to use one is at school, with limited access.
When I see myself creating a lesson or school, based around Media Literacy, The key concepts would be that of Access, Analyze, Evaluate and Communicate. Each one of these seems to be one of the main goals found in each of the lessons that I have encountered here at Full Sail. Access is now one of the biggest movements in our history, because of the Internet. Before the Internet came along we were getting are information from television, movies, and the written word. In my own experiences, analyzing this new form of Media Literacy has been a struggle for some, because we can never truly know if the information is 100% factual or partial fictional. Vigil states that,” Today’s youth see 350,000 advertisements by the time they reach age 18 and watch about 28 hours of television per week. I believe Gerbner’s cultivation analysis could be applied to this type of heavy viewing as well. Young people begin to expect real life to mirror what they see in movies, television and magazines. Girls, and boys, begin to have unrealistic views of beauty and relationships.” All we can do is have faith that the information being published is true in nature and not just some fictional story made up. When evaluating and teaching my students to evaluate what they are reading or view, I teach them to research back stories or links that might help to validate their information. Go beyond the face value of the information and always back up you original research to prove its worth. Then we come to communicate, which is the largest change of time. Communicating now has become so much easier and direct, if you know how to use the technology. From my own experiences computers, digital sharing, streaming, distance learning, and many more new Media Literacy tools have paved the way for an increase in non-traditional classrooms to virtual classrooms. Each of these concepts, have been lost in our society today. It’s the same concepts that were taught years ago, but have not continued into this new digital age, as much as they should.
I asked one of my students they other day if they could tell me what they thought Media Literacy was, and they could not even understand the word “Media,” “What’s that?” they said. McKenzie states, “How do our students learn to make sense of their worlds when so much of their information arrives distorted through the "looking glass" of mass media?” To me this is a sign of the times changing but, the relevance of teaching literacy on the Digital level is way behind where it should be.
References:
McKenzie, Jamie. (1999). Teaching media literacy in an age of edutainment. From Now
On: The Educational Journal. Vol 8. No 9. June. Retrieved on October 12, 2009. From http://fromnowon.org/jun99/media.html
Potter, W. James. (2008). Media Literacy. P.21. Sage Publications. Retrieved on October
12, 2009. From http://books.google.com/books?id=1T8LX1lG-t0C&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=Media+Literacy&source=bll&ots=eR0Ksc30XA&sig=T2q0dgyXLfnobmS5HQUR9T1S-KE&hl=en&ei=ICHVSt26GsjUlAeL3Z2dCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=19&ved=0CEwQ6AEwEg#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Vigil, Camille. (2009). Media literacy: awareness and analysis. Retrieved on October 12,
2009. From http://www.unm.edu/~abqteach/media_cus/01-04-10.htm
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