Media Literacy Most Scholars Believe

¶ … Media Literacy

Most scholars believe that while the modern era has brought with it unprecedented growth and development in the technology sector; it has also dramatically shifted the power center from the governments to the multinationals. These corporations are increasing their control over the world resources and concurrently strengthening their grip over the system. At the same time, manufacturing and production in the developing countries is shifting away from high-volume to high-quality outputs. The labors in turn are being asked to be multi-skilled and highly productive. Such demands have forced the status quo to review current status of the education system and modify it to the needs of modern times. Knobel (2001) writes,

Schools have a significant role to play in embracing and critiquing New Times, rather than trying to domesticate them or keep them at bay. By coming to understand New Times, students will be better prepared to combat or resist alienation, cultural loss, identity dispersion, family fragmentation, and dependence on nonlocal corporations for livelihood rather than self-sufficiency, some of the social costs of New Times."

The fundamental dynamics of the power structure have changed so rapidly that what was significant-in the not so distant past- is irrelevant today. Therefore, a massive shift in learning and education is required: one that helps the students understand today's power hierarchy and one that helps them find their way amidst all this chaos. Knobel (2001) writes,

In terms of addressing these social costs and in developing tactics for negotiating New Times, what students now need to learn is -- and should be -- vastly different to what was required in the not-so-distant past to maximize people's quality of life chances."

Critical Media Literacy

Scholars agree that one needs to accept the fact that times are changing dramatically and we need to arm learners with skills that help them develop and progress both individually and collectively. Students have got to be trained and equipped with the ability to read and write critically and across multiple symbol systems. They have got to understand the underlying purpose of the text; ask probing questions; examine the source/sources of information; review the inferences being made; assess the assumptions, conclusions, implications and different points-of-view of whatever piece of information comes their way. As Pailliotet (2000) writes,

By reading, we don't just mean passive reception of print but active, critical construction of meaning, whether the text happens to be a book, film, television program, TV commercial, Web site or music video. By writing, we mean generating varied texts -- including life actions -- through multiple media forms."

Students should experience learning that stretches across multiple and varied literacies so that they can connect the dots and fill the gaps that currently exist and produce results that help them and others understand the world and make it a better place. Pailliotet (2000) writes,

The learning experiences we provide show how intermedial teaching involves multiple literacies, and thus may serve as a bridge among ideas, disciplines, people, texts, processes... contexts, educational purposes and outcomes, theory and praxis."

Semali and Watts (1999), call for a sustained interdisciplinary focus that employs "deep viewing" where the teacher encourages the students to inquire and reflect. They also view the classroom as a place where multiple texts should be used to build on student inter-action with texts and personal experiences. The word they coined for this is intermediality; "the ability to work with diverse symbols in an active way where meanings are both received and produced" (p.V11). As they put it:

Intermediality requires new forms of interaction between student and teacher. Students can be teachers and teachers learners; and that this sphere of "inter" is crucial to emancipatory and democratic pedagogy (p.225).

Luke (1999) in his study identifies and defines "Intermediality" as Critical Media Literacy (CML), the "teaching of analytical skills (Luke, 1999, p. 623)." He founded his opinion on the fact that students on an average spend around five to six hours, every day, being engaged with some form of media, either print or electronic. Media, therefore, can be used as a training tool to educate and equip students with multiple skills. Over the years, a number of other well-known educational scholars have also asserted similar opinions (Alvermann, Moon, and Hagood, 1999; Hobbs, 1997; and Thoman, 1999). Pailliotet (2000) writes,

At the dawn of the new millennium, intermedial teaching emerges as a response to critical media literacy, serving as a bridge between existing and future literacy practices."

Critical Media Literacy (CML)

McLuhan (1964) classified the different categories of media based on the level of participation of the consumer. For instance, movies consume only one sense, vision, and require very little mind work from the consumer. He can easily figure out the meaning of the images before him with very little analyzing on his part. Therefore, he defines this form of media as "hot" and "high definition." In contrast, he argues that books, television, or comics force the consumer to fill in the gaps, assess, evaluate and come to conclusions. This form of media, therefore, is considered as "cool" and low definition. He writes,

Any hot medium allows of less participation than a cool one, as a lecture makes for less participation than a seminar, and a book for less than a dialogue (p 25)."

McLuhan concept of "hot" and "cool" media is still used today to classify multimedia technologies. Scholars agree that "hot" multimedia tools have got to be utilized so as to prepare students for future challenges. Hobbs (2004) in his recent study reviewed the scholarly work carried out on CML and identified five merging principles regardless of the methodology and approach that was used by most CML scholars. He listed them as follows:

All messages are constructions;

Messages are representations of the world;

Messages have economic and political purposes and contexts;

Messages use languages and conventions;

People interpret messages differently (Hobbs, 2004)."

Awareness of the first principle helps the consumer understand the choices that are involved selecting one message and ignoring another. The consumer is able to better understand the forces that are subtle forces that are constantly at work behind the media. Awareness of the second principle helps the consumer differentiate the real world from the media-world. He understands the facts that while media represents reality to him, this reality is only part of the larger picture and its does not accurately depict the situation and present all the facts that are available on the ground. Awareness of the third principle helps the consumer acknowledge the fact that the political and economic forces are trying to sell their agenda to gain leverage and fulfill their aims. The author acknowledges that this is a new concept and many Americans are "barely aware of how a newspaper can be delivered to the doorstep for 35 cents a day or how television can enter the home at no cost."

Awareness of the forth principle helps the consumer understand the power of colors in graphics, pitch and tone of voice in speech, and use of words in written and oral text. He is also in a better position to figure out the underlying meaning of the message; who is the audience, what is the purpose and format of the message. Awareness of the fifth and last principle helps the consumer understand the media, even powerful, does not own the meaning assigned to the message. Ultimately it is the viewer who gives it meaning by reading or viewing the text or image in a certain context within a viewpoint. Hobbs (2004) concludes that these five unifying principles can be applied to almost any form of media, be it the old fashioned print media or the latest multimedia technologies. He argues that awareness of these five principles should be central to any media literacy program. Students and adults alike should be able to apply these principles to any form and shape of multimedia technology (Hobbs, 2004).

Using multimedia technology in CML programs number of scholars have expressed keen interest in the use of multimedia technology to educate and equip learners with CML. For instance, Kellner (2008) in his study writes that while a number of studies have been carried out on critical media literacy, most of these studies lack the forte. They fail to reveal the methodology with which students can be equipped with multiple skills. He proposes a comprehensive definition of critical media literacy and also suggests a number of ways and special multimedia tools that can be used to educate students. He writes,

Media literacy involves knowledge of how media work, how they construct meanings, how they serve as a form of cultural pedagogy, and how they function in everyday life. A media literate person is skillful in analyzing media codes and conventions, able to criticize media stereotypes, values, and ideologies, and thus literate in reading media critically. Media literacy thus empowers people to use media intelligently, to discriminate and evaluate media content, to critically dissect media forms, and to investigate media effects and uses."

With regards to student multiple-skill development, Kellner proposes that computers should be at the center stage of learning. Students should be able to not only operate the computer but also use it to gather data from the Internet, communicate across classrooms and cultural boundaries. He argues that computers should be used dramatically to transform the circulation of knowledge, images, and other modalities of different cultures. Not only presence but also use of computers should be made mandatory in all secondary schools so that students can learn to think critically early on during their student life. He writes,

Students should learn new forms of computer literacy that involve both how to use computer culture to do research and gather information, as well as to perceive it as a cultural terrain which contains texts, spectacles, games, and interactive media. Moreover, computer culture is a discursive and political location in which they can intervene, engaging in discussion groups, creating their web sites, and producing new multimedia for cultural dissemination."

Other scholars argue that computers should only be part of the CML program. For instance, Chomsky (1997) writes that students are engaged with varied forms of media and each form has its own strengths and limitations. Understanding these limitations is critical in understanding the message being sold in that media. For case in point, television's primary purpose is providing entertainment and is therefore quite different from a non-fiction book. How television is shaping our lives and the meaning we assign to the events unfolding before us can only be understood by understanding how the message is sold through television. For instance, Goldstein while reviewing Postman book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death," writes,

Television, for Postman is inextricably linked with entertainment and is dangerous when it attempts to be serious. He argues that television has such resonance that our ability to take the world seriously has diminished. Postman believes a new 'worldview'; a new ethos or approach to life has been brought about by the assimilation of television into the culture of the masses."

CML can safeguard the youth against negative media bias

Similarly, scholars who have an interest in equipping the masses with CML, question whether CML should aspire to safeguard the adolescents and youth from the impact of negative media. For instance, Giroux (2005) believes that the current political climate is so persuasive that those who are not equipped with CML skills will become victims to the media propaganda machine. Similarly, Kincheloe (1999) believes that racism and promotion of white-supremacy has become a critical component of mainstream media. Similarly, others argue that gender inequalities, substance abuse and violence prevention can all be addressed by educating the masses through CML programs (Carnes, 1996; Jospin, 1992; Landa, 1992). In the same way, parents feel that the popular culture has made it difficult for them to control their children. Scholars who support CML believe that all these issues can be addressed is children learn to consume information actively and critically, instead of being passive consumers. However, there are those who oppose this viewpoint all together. For instance, Hobbs (2001) writes,

Many teachers at both the K12 and university levels have found that students are unresponsive to the idea that they are helpless victims of media influence who need to be rescued from the excesses and evils of their interest in popular culture."

Media production skills will lead to enhanced CML skills

Some scholars believe that until and unless students become actively involved in media production activities, they will be unable to fully grasp the concepts of CML. Students need to be engaged in pre-post production activities to strengthen their creative skills. For instance both Lambert (1997) and Fraser (1992) assert that students will be empowered and highly motivated when they are actively engaged in the learning process. They will learn to not only demonstrate and improve their vocational skills but also work on their vocational abilities. They will appreciate team work and learn to think both visually and orally throughout the planning, directing, editing and performing process (Lusted, 1991; Stafford, 1992).

On the contrary, those who oppose CML assert that such skills are secondary to reading and writing skill, which ultimately lead to growth of creativity and imagination. Offering children programs that require specialization will not develop their critical thinking skills. Hobbs (2001) writes,

According to this view, teaching media production to children or youth is a bogus type of vocational education that lures students with the claim of learning job skills when, in reality, students are distracted from learning the culturally valued skills of reading and writing."

Similarly, there are those who believe that spending resources and time on such exercises is futile. One cannot simply convert schools and classrooms into production houses. Hobbs (2001) explains,

The practical limitations of many production activities preclude their being offered to most elementary- and secondary-school students. For example, video and multimedia production often requires more equipment, classroom time, personnel, and teacher training than not is available in many schools."

Use of popular culture text will enhance literacy skills

Some scholars believe that if what students see and hear in everyday is provided to them within the realm of classroom to critically then they will be in a better position to go beyond the traditional meaning given to a subject. These scholars argue that information and knowledge is socially constructed. They feel that meaning and concepts are derived from experience both inside and outside the classrooms. Therefore, they make their case, CML skills can be taught by engaging students in not only the classical works in literature, theatre and films, but also in popular television programs like Beavis and Butthead or the Simpsons (Dewing, 1992; Giroux, 1994).

Texts from popular culture may challenge and disrupt the routines of the classroom and provide opportunities for teachers and students to discuss epistemological issues relevant to students' growing understanding of the processes involved in learning and communication (Hobbs, 2001)."

Those who oppose the use of popular culture in classrooms to equip students with CML skills argue, "Schools, at all levels, are constituted to devalue popular culture, including its electronically mediated forms" (Aronowitz and Giroux, 1991, p. 153).

Similarly, they argue that certain media characters, even though aimed at children entertainment, negatively influence adolescent behavior. Characters like Simpsons and the ever popular MTV Beavis and Butthead are not the ideal personalities that should be taught in class. Hobbs (2001) explains,

Other educators, however, wonder how an average parent might respond if his or her 10th-grade son or daughter came home from school talking about a classroom lesson that compared an episode of the Simpsons to a Mark Twain short story."

Politics and ideology should be part of the CML programs number of scholars believe that CML can advance a number of goals, both ideological and political. For instance, CML can be used to modify the inflexible public schools and transform its bureaucracy. It can help put an end to the media sponsorship in schools. Furthermore, parents, teachers and students alike can together support a more strict regulation on media. Similarly, CML can also be used to promote racial harmony, decrease sexism, and prevent violence and homophobia. These scholars argue, "Without an explicit connection between media literacy skills and social and political advocacy, media literacy may degenerate into a substitute for action instead of a spur to it (K. Montgomery, personal communication, April 24, 1997; as cited in Hobbs, 2001)"

However, there are those who oppose this notion of CML as they believe that the whole purpose of CML was to educate the students about how messages are constructed and invite them to ask critical questions. They believe that any political message will alter the purpose of CML. Instead they argue that CML, if used correctly, will alter the relationship structure inside the classroom. Since students will learn to consume information critically, the teacher will not be the sole source of knowledge. Buckingham (1993) writes,

Students may respond to the propagandist approach of... teachers in one or two ways. Either they will choose to play the game in which case they may learn to reproduce the "politically correct" responses without necessarily investigating or questioning their own position. Or they will refuse to do so, in which case they will say things they may or may not believe, in order to annoy the teacher and thereby amuse themselves. (p. 290)"

CML in primary and secondary schools

It is without doubt that schools are the most important of all the social institutions in the country. They have a clear purpose and goal and the methodology to achieve it. However, CML programs are currently unclear and imprecise and therefore many scholars argue that CML skills can be best taught to students by their parents in their homes (Messaris, 1996). Furthermore, schools have yet to outline their relationship with the current multimedia technologies and their usage. Therefore, introducing CML programs in primary and secondary schools, in view of some educators, will turn out to be a disaster (Sizer, 1995).