Question 1: Should media education have an explicit political and ideological agenda?
I don’t think that media education should have political or ideological agendas. I think that media literacy is essential to students learning to think for themselves, to reflect and disseminate the media that they are subjected to. I don’t think we have to “dirty up” everything we do with an agenda. I understand that it can be a good way to get students to think about things in a different way and that it might be a good way to promote social change but I don’t think it has to have an explicit political or ideological agenda. Once an agenda is set, we may lose the very things that are good about media literacy.
Question 2: Based on your reading to date in this course, would you teach critical media literacy in the classroom? Why or why not? You must reference three prior course readings to justify your answer to this questions.
I would teach critical media literacy in the classroom. It is important to me that students be able to decipher what they see and hear and be able to judge whether it’s good or bad, right or wrong, necessary or not. Our students need to have the ability to analyze and evaluate. They need to be able to “ask important questions”. (Abilock 2002) According to Kellner and Share K-12, students of the United States are not as advanced as other countries in media literacy education. (Kellner and Share 2005) In some of the European countries, media literacy is required in grades 7 through 12. (Hobbs 1996) I think that would be a good requirement for our students.
Abilock, D. (2002, April 21). Visual literacy: News Media, Reading Meadia Photographs, http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/newsmedia/polphoto.pdf
Kellner, D., Share, J. (September 2005), Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education
Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 369_/386
Hobbs, R. (1996). Teaching media literacy. In E. Dennis and E. Pease (Eds.), Children and the media. New Brunswick: Transaction Press (pp. 103-111).
I agree that an explicit political agenda does not have to be used to teach critical media literacy, but is a good tool. Hopefully the U.S. will eventually catch up with other countries by incorporating critical media literacy.
ReplyDeleteI agree that students need to be able evaluate media whether it's good or bad, right or wrong, to be informed decision makers, based on what they have decided. Teaching students to think for themselves, without being complacent and adopting someone else's viewpoint would be remarkable! Good job!
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is important to teach critical media literacy in the classroom in order for students to be able to recognize, interpret and analyze media messages. Would you suggest incorporating media literacy into one specific subject, or across all curricula?
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