Radio-Television-Film - Media Literacy

Media Literacy

JUNE 6 & 7, 2008
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION
LADY BIRD JOHNSON ROOM - CMA 5.160 (campus map/room map)

SPEAKER TOPICS

KEYNOTE: Friday, June 6, 2008 – 5:00-6:00pm
Digital Media and the Future of Learning (If There is a Future)

Keynote Address from Dr. James Paul Gee, Fulton Presidential Professor of Literacy Studies, Division of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, Arizona State University and author of numerous publications about literacy and learning, including What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Literacy and Learning.

SESSION 1: Saturday, June 7, 2008 - 8:30am-10am
New Media Literacy in the Formal Classroom

Crossmodal Literacies in Youth Media Arts
by Korina Jocson, Stanford University’s School of Education

This chapter examines young people working together across youth arts and youth media contexts. The emphasis is on the use of performance poetry as the basis for their collaboration. My previous research on poetry and multimedia composition serves as a departure point for investigating emerging issues in youth arts and youth media. In this work, I draw on current trends and debates in literacy studies, including new media, multimodality, and convergence, to conceptualize crossmodal literacies within youth arts and youth media. Using ethnographic case study methods, I focus on the genre of poetry—in combined oral, aural, written, and visual modes—as a way (1) to explore the construction of new media literacies and forms of knowledge across youth-based networks, and (2) to investigate the cross-cultural exchanges taking place between young people as performance artists/writers and as new media producers.

Poetry as a multilayered text becomes a bridge to understanding the social worlds and experiences of those who create it—in this case, young people who are also students, cultural producers, and civically engaged members of society. As part a growing body of research on new media literacies, this chapter asserts the importance of youth media cultures and youth cultural production in innovating classroom practice, building knowledge, and shaping democracy. It offers a lens into the power of collaboration and do-it-together media production by young people whose visions, talents, and interests converge in the process. To illustrate the complexities in media production, this chapter highlights the work of youth producers and artists of color from the San Francisco Bay Area. Implications for teaching and learning, particularly in urban educational settings, are also discussed.

Young People, New Media, and Participatory Design: A Study of Cybermohalla from India
by Sanjay Asthana, College of Mass Communication, Middle Tennessee State University

Cybermohalla (Cyber-Neighborhood) is an experimental project designed to enable democratic access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) among poor youngsters, mostly school dropouts, who freely express their ideas and imaginations from the mundane to the serious. Working at the media labs the participants write, draw and sketch a range of interesting verbal and visual narratives and texts published as books, diaries, magazines, and wallpaper that become available in print as well as digitized formats. These young people from the poor neighborhoods of Delhi explore new media technologies not only for self-expression and informal learning, but also as interventions into the cultural politics of the city.

Although the Internet and the new media are increasingly becoming a staging “space” for activism and protests involving a range of social actors, they mostly resemble a benign de-materialized realm of free floating information. In the hands of the youngsters from Cybermohalla, however, the new media forms and narratives acquire a concrete immediacy and materiality that is worth exploring. An important aspect of these new media explorations is the possibility of outlining some interesting theoretical concepts for international and comparative media studies approaches. To this end, the chapter sketches a praxis oriented analytic framework by bringing together the idea of a “hermeneutic self” from Paul Ricoeur’s work, the notion of “social imaginaries” developed by postcolonial theory, and new media studies concepts like participation, remediation, and bricolage.

‘Truthiness’ and Trust: News Media Literacy Strategies in the Digital Age
by Jennifer Fleming, California State University, Long Beach

Digitalization is not only diffusing media audiences at unprecedented rates, it’s also fundamentally changing news media businesses, and the nature of news itself. The “trusted” news anchor is being replaced by an army of bipolar bloggers masquerading as experts; The New York Times’ agenda-setting function in society is being eroded by so-called consensus journalists pointing, clicking and capturing stories with their cell phones. The result is a new media mess of half-truths and lowest common denominator story selection.

Traditional media literacy strategies are helpful but not sufficient in this brave new world of online news. News media have, and will always be, different than most other media; news media are presented and accepted by many as truth, even though their stories are often far from it. Media literacy strategies must address this fundamental difference as digital news media technologies continue to evolve and converge. Thus, the proposed chapter would further refine critical literacy practices by examining how best to use educational spaces to develop news media literacy strategies in the digital age.

The proposed chapter would employ a variety of theoretical orientations and methods to help young adults develop critical thinking skills and lifelong questioning of digital news media sources. Cultivation, agenda-setting and gatekeeping theories would be combined with critical/cultural studies research and media literacy approaches. Quantitative (demographic, Likert scale questions) and qualitative methods (journals, discussions, interviews) would be used to assess the effectiveness of the news media literacy strategies examined.

The “shelf life” for this type of research is substantial. News media are big business in the United States, and abroad. They are not going to go away; in fact, they will likely grow more aggressive with more salacious stories as they compete for increasingly fragmented audiences online. The strategies discussed in the proposed chapter would help educators, theorists, scholars and students understand news media challenges and truths inherent in the digital era.

SESSION 2: Saturday, June 7, 2008 - 10:15am-11:45am
New Media Literacy in the Classroom

Social Networking and the K-12 Classroom
by Belinha De Abreu, Drexel University

At the end of a recent academic year, one of my middle school students left me a thank you note with the closing, HAGS. My immediate reaction was to laugh uproariously because she had left me an IM acronym that she assumed I knew. The truth was that it was unfamiliar and required asking one of my college students to explain. It was revealed to stand for… Have A Good Summer. This one moment with text language illustrated the disconnect between classroom learning and 21st century learning and how they are clearly taking two very different paths. In general, social networking and the language used within its context are not tools that are used widely in schools. The National School Boards Association found strict controls had taken hold at most schools over student internet access.

84% of school districts have rules against online chatting in school
81% have rules against instant messaging in school
62% prohibit blogging or participating in online discussion boards at school.
60% prohibit sending and receiving email in school
52% prohibit any social networking sites in school.

Yet, students of all ages are participating in a wide variety of communication tools that are changing the way we operate in the world. Some schools are finding the values of such ‘places’ as My Space, Second Life, Web 2.0, Classroom 2.0, and others. There is a process of reading and writing that has become unique to these features, which has carried over into students’ conversations and use of text messaging. The importance of participating in this growing branch of literacy has never been more important. This chapter would seek to discuss how the Web 2.0 world is changing the way teachers and students connect, access, analyze, evaluate, and create on digital platforms, while forming communities of learning with shared interests through social networking.

Thinking Inside the Classroom: Notes from the Field
by Alison Butler, New York University and New York Public Schools

Small, theme-based schools are the new face of education and their value in the present moment should not go unexamined. Thinking inside the classroom acknowledges this trend and reports directly from the field, producing knowledge from the intersection of practice and theory. Broad, overlapping shifts have occurred in education and media studies that contribute to the changing face of these fields from autonomous intellectual pursuits to a combined, holistic approach to understanding 21st century students as active producers of their education and media choices. An overlap between these fields includes the implementation of media studies as the primary theme of a small school that reaches out to underserved urban youth. Too often, these fields approach the study of students from a distanced, sterile and arbitrarily authoritative environment. Thinking inside the classroom uses one small school and its students as a case study to examine how media education is integrated across the curriculum, into specific media classes and into relationships with the community. Generally, Thinking inside the classroom questions the value of a theme school, especially when these schools remain woefully underfunded and students must adhere to city, state and national requirements that trump liberal, alternative curricula. Specifically, this chapter privileges young people’s self-awareness and self-told stories on how they experience and make meaning from their education. Thinking inside the classroom interrogates media education directly from the source and works to refine understandings of small-school, theme-based education from those who directly involved in its unfolding.

West Side High School (WSH) is in a unique position to conceptualize integrated educational models and Thinking inside the classroom frames the discussion via Greene’s queries on unequal education and alternative curricula; Buckingham’s analyses of media studies in the classroom; and Tyner’s construction of multiple literacies. This chapter believes that underserved urban youth are constructed as delinquent by larger systems that serve to maintain the ideological dominance of current models and systems. Media education alone cannot alter the cultural capital of WSH students. However, bringing to the surface and making explicit the social and political injustices young people experience may serve to illuminate their self-awareness and thereby give them a more complete set of tools with which to approach their future academic and professional endeavors. To most thoroughly problematize the experience of young people, they need to be a primary source of data. This work is relevant to new media literacies and will impact the field for a significant time because it begins inside the classroom and interrogates a practical approach to media education. It will make a valuable contribution to the field because it provides both direct access to the research site and balances that research against the larger context in which the classroom is situated.

SESSION 3: Saturday, June 7, 2008 - 1:45pm-3:15pm
Beyond the Classroom: Games, Simulation and Virtual Environments

Media literacy 2.0: Critically Analyzing the Unique Characteristics of Video-game
by Aaron Delwiche, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX

When the National Leadership Conference on Media Literacy issued its landmark report in 1992, they reminded us that the “fundamental objective of media literacy is critical autonomy in relationship to all media.” Fifteen years later, our communication landscape has changed dramatically, but the curriculum has not. Young people spend more time than ever immersed in video games and virtual worlds, and the gaming industry charted more than $12.5 billion in revenue last year. However, many media literacy educators have little personal experience actually playing video games. When the topic is addressed at all, teachers typically apply the same analytical frameworks used to critique film and television. While there is much value in using theories of representation and political economy to dissect games, these concepts alone are insufficient. We lack clear guidelines for teaching students about the unique characteristics of video games that make them an incredibly persuasive medium. Furthermore, there has been limited attention to the experiential dimension of hands-on production. We regularly equip students with video cameras to teach them about representation, but rarely encourage them to produce their own games. This chapter addresses this gap by proposing a set of easily grasped principles for teaching students to become critical consumers and producers of video games and virtual worlds. Building on recent research analyzing video-game propaganda, I demonstrate how the persuasive power of video games is directly related to the four I’s: interactivity, immersion, identification and intense engagement. Since all video games are not alike, I highlight ways that different genres encourage different types of behaviors and cognitive responses on the part of players. Finally, I suggest that cheat codes, level editors and other modification tools make it possible for students to produce their own video-games without having to engage in complex computer programming.

The Game School: Developing Theories and Practices Around Gaming Literacies
by Alice J. Robison, Comparative Media Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Game School, New York City

While 2007 was the year of what's "new" in media literacy education, 2008 will be there year of sorting out the ecologies of media literacy practices. Moving beyond consumers, producers, "prosumers," and participants will require us to investigate what it means to practice and experience media in a way that transcends mere "activity" or "skill." Media literacy practices hold weight as situated within particular contexts of use: they require both action and proficiency, but practice is where meaning happens. Therefore if media literacy research is to continue to investigate what's new, it must do so from within participants' media literacy communities.

This chapter discusses a media practice sometimes referred to as "games-based thinking" or "gaming literacies" as they are conceived of by the creators of the Game School, which is set to open in New York City in 2009. Gaming literacies are collections of activities, ways of thinking and participating, designing and playing, all of which contribute to a set of interrelated and interdependent complex systems for thinking about games and gaming. The school is designed to highlight these gaming literacies and use them as a framework for developing an entire sixth-grade curriculum. The school is in its early stages of development but tools and ideas around gaming literacies are underway; this paper will discuss these tools and ideas in-progress.

SESSION 4: Saturday, June 7, 2008 - 3:30pm-5pm
Preparing Educators for Digital Learning Environments

New Media in the Service (?) of Teaching: An Evaluation of Podcasts and Elluminate for Teaching University Education Courses
by J. Lynn McBrien, University of South Florida

As new technological platforms for media increase, so do the calls to utilize them in the classroom. From blackboard to whiteboard to Smartboard, teachers hear claims of the relative advantages the new technology has over the old. Two examples that I have been encouraged to use in my course designs are podcasts (as an initiative by Apple, called iTunes University) and Elluminate, a real-time distance learning platform that allows the instructor to speak, listen to students, project powerpoints and videos, all from the convenience of her home office, with students joining in from their own homes. A glance at articles on podcasts in the Education Full-Text database for the past five years revealed 133 articles, only 34 of which were peer-reviewed, and almost none that were evaluative. For Elluminate, there were only five articles (three peer-reviewed) and no analyses of its effectiveness.

The call to jump on the bandwagon of new media in education is reminiscent of Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association leader Will Hays’ appearance before the NEA in 1922 to try to gain support from educational leaders regarding the use of film for instructional purposes. Indeed, film has become an important educational tool, but media educators continue to explain the need for critical pedagogy when employing this now old technology in the classroom. An exercise I use in my classes is to show several clips from the Iranian film Color of Paradise. I ask my students where they think the film takes place and how the clips make them feel. The majority believe it was filmed in South America, and it makes them feel warm about family relationships. I follow their mistaken impressions with introductory scenes from several U.S.-made educational films about the Middle East, each of which include deserts, nomads, pyramids, camels, violence, and the Islamic call to prayer. This leads to a discussion of how media can humanize or detach us from “the other.” This is an example of how “new” technology does not necessarily convey advanced skills in critical thinking.

My chapter will focus on an evaluation of both podcasts and Elluminate use in college courses of education. Students completed surveys that assessed their competence in using new technologies and their impressions about using these technologies in their coursework. Questions included both quantitative and qualitative responses. Preliminary data analysis indicates that podcasts, as they were used in sections of a Social Foundations of Education course, were ineffective; but Elluminate allowed students to feel more free to express controversial opinions and to receive feedback on such that is critical for them to explore.

Voices from the Trenches: Elementary School Teachers Speak about Their Experiences Implementing Media Literacy
by Jeff Share, University of California Los Angeles

Preparing educators about how to teach their students to think critically about media and how to use different information communication technologies to participate as citizens in the 21st century is a major void in US teacher education. This absence is even greater when the focus is on elementary education. Neither new teachers coming into the classrooms nor more experienced teachers already working with students are receiving support or training to meet the new literacy demands of the 21st century (even though many media literacy objectives are now required in state standards).

Research with a group of teachers in an urban elementary school sheds light on goals, obstacles and new strategies necessary for effective change. These teachers participated in Project SMARTArt, a federally funded project to integrate media literacy and the arts into elementary education.

At the beginning of the 21st century the U.S. Department of Education and the National Endowment for the Arts funded 17 demonstration projects across the country to integrate media literacy with the arts. Based at an elementary school in downtown Los Angeles, Project SMARTArt was one of the largest grant recipients. For three years, students from kindergarten to fifth grade worked with teachers and artists to analyze media and create their own alternative representations of everything from violence, to advertising, to their community. Students produced animation, performed original plays, painted, wrote, photographed, and used numerous types of media to analyze and communicate, read and write their world. In 2006, approximately two years after the grant ended, 14 SMARTArt teachers were interviewed about their past and present experiences learning about and teaching media literacy to their students. The ways and degrees to which these teachers are currently using what they learned from the grant varies across the board, yet all spoke about the importance of media literacy while also admitting to a sharp decrease in implementation of media literacy since the grant ended.

In this paper, a qualitative assessment is used to examine the impact Project SMARTArt had on the project teachers’ pedagogical practices and beliefs. The objective of the research is not to evaluate the project, instead the focus is to learn from practicing elementary school teachers what they found are the best ways to teach critical media literacy. This is a case study of these teachers’ impressions, ideas, struggles and successes to teach elementary students to become critical thinkers in relation to media. It is also a revealing look at the practical implications involved in working for change within a public urban school in the age of high-stakes testing, scripted curriculum and No Child Left Behind legislations (NCLB).