Whether modern media support or subvert
the development of informed, responsible citizens may depend less on the
products and programs themselves than on the process by which creative teachers
bring them into the classroom and curriculum to meaningfully engage students in
thinking critically about media representations, industries, and ideologies,
together with social effects and consequences.
Considine,
D. (2009). From Gutenberg to Gates: Media Matters.
The Social Studies, 63-73.
Teaching student to read through and
about the newspaper better prepares them to be educated citizens. We believe
that an active sense of citizenship entails being critical of how news is
received and used in society. Developing the practice of critically reading the
newspaper fosters no only newspaper reading skills that are useful for citizens
but also general practices that allow citizens to discern the world around them
and act accordingly.
Segall, A. & Schmidt, S. (2006). Reading the Newspaper
as a Social Text.
The Social Studies, 97(3), 91-99.
The media is a pervasive, influential
part of students’ daily lives and one that they need to be aware of and
understand, both as consumers and as producers. Both Considine (2009) and
Segall & Schmidt (2006) express the importance of students learning to be
critical of the media and its message, and suggest methods to teach to these
skills. Considine (2009) covers the wide array of media that students encounter
– from news outlets, to movies, to music – and offers an method to help
students make sense of their encounters with all of these types. The TAP method
(Considine, 2009, 64) has students examine each media representation through
looking at text, production and audience. Similar to Lesh’s (2011) “text,
context, subtext,” the TAP method teaches students that media is just another form
of the texts they will encounter and teaches them how to read (or view, or
listen) to them in a way that they understand the author’s purpose and to be
aware of how that affects their understanding. Segall and Schmidt (2006) focus
on an examination of newspapers. They see how newspapers are often used in the
classroom as an extension of the textbook – a seemingly unbiased “living
textbook” – and explain the importance of reading them, and thinking about
them, critically. They argue for teaching activities that teach students to
read the newspaper, examining it from front page on with a critical eye for how
the language, layout and content choices create the news.
Being a critical consumer of media
is an important aspect of citizenship. Just as students need to be taught that
there are many representations of history, the same is true with what is
happening currently in the world around them. The same skills that students use
to examine any text or video in the classroom should be extended to modern
media. Media literacy does not need to be a pull out class, or taught only in a
Civics class, there are many opportunities for it to be integrated into the
Social Studies curriculum. Historic newspapers, advertisements, photographs and
other media can be examined as primary sources using the “text, context,
subtext” method – adding another dimension to the study of many eras and
historic events. Using the media as a primary source lends itself to the
examination of media as a primary source about the world today and a discussion
about how just as historic documents are examined on multiple levels, the same
needs to apply to modern media.
Just as it is important to be a
critical consumer of media, it is also important that students learn to see
themselves as producers of media and to understand the power of the free press
and what that can mean, and what responsibilities, that holds for them. The
media can be a method of civic engagement and offers individuals opportunities
to have their voice heard – if they know how to use it. The role and
responsibilities of a free press (and what limits that entails), is especially important
now that it is no longer just reporters who are producing media, but rather any
person who blogs or tweets, or even re-posts something on facebook. Media
literacy is no longer just about what one receives, but also how one interacts
with it. The responsibilities that the press must hold itself too – including issues
on liable and privacy – can now apply to individual students. Creating
opportunities in the classroom for students to create media – weather it be
interacting with newspapers through writing letters to the editor or submitting
an op-ed to a local paper or making videos or a blog, and opening it up to the
outside world, these are important skills for students to practice, and to
understand.
Here are some
other resources for teaching media literacy (in all its dimensions) in the classroom:
- · Newseum (resources for teachers on teaching media literacy): http://newseum.org/education/teacher-resources/lesson-plans/index.html
- · Bill of Rights Institute (articles about current controversies over the freedom of the press): http://billofrightsinstitute.org/resources/educator-resources/headlines/freedom-of-the-press/
- · Library of Congress (teaching with historic newspapers): http://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2013/03/teaching-with-informational-text-historic-newspapers-from-the-library-of-congress/
