Group items tagged

"When we ask students to challenge their sacred cows but don't give them a new framework through which to make sense of the world, others are often there to do it for us. For the last year, I've been struggling with media literacy. I have a deep level of respect for the primary goal. As Renee Hobbs has written, media literacy is the "active inquiry and critical thinking about the messages we receive and create." The field talks about the development of competencies or skills to help people analyze, evaluate, and even create media. Media literacy is imagined to be empowering, enabling individuals to have agency and giving them the tools to help create a democratic society. But fundamentally, it is a form of critical thinking that asks people to doubt what they see. And that makes me nervous."

"The 1st Annual U.S. Media Literacy Week will be observed November 2nd through 6th. You can help spread the word using the hashtag #MediaLitWk. Here, noted author and consultant Frank W. Baker (@fbaker) offers clear evidence for the need to raise awareness about media literacy in a world saturated by media messages."

"Do you use media? That's why media literacy matters. Too simplistic? Really it is as simple as that. If you use media, then it has influence on you. If you use it a lot, then it has a lot of influence. Doesn't matter whether your preferred media is the latest iPhone or the Playstation 4 or the app Heads Up. Influence. Influence. Influence. And of course, fun. Therein lies the need. The potent combination of influence + fun.   Media is a central part of most of our lives and therefore deserves to be understood and thoughtfully considered, as well as enjoyed. This logical progression makes so much sense to me, I have trouble understanding why others need convincing of its value. They don't need convincing about the value of media, just the value of media literacy."

"One solution to the problem of cross-media ownership dominating an entire media landscape in Britain and across the world is incorporating a one media owner per one media outlet policy. I have continued to support this idea for media reform but it was fascinating to hear other solutions discussed at an all-day event called the Media Democracy Festival in London last month. "The problem is independent voices are rarely heard. It is essential that we protect journalists working with big corporations - who are put under editorial pressures - if we are to reach media freedom". Natalie Fenton, founder of Media Reform Coalition (MRC) and -professor of media and communications made this point in her speech at the event hosted by the MRC and Goldsmiths University. Her speech was one amongst many made by campaigners, academics and journalists, all there to answer the event's central question: How can we create a more democratic media?"

"In a 2011 op-ed about media literacy I posited the following questions: "Are you illiterate if you don't know how to interpret a tweet? If you can't tell the difference between fact and fiction on Twitter, does that mean you are lacking media literacy skills?" If you can't make a determination of truth about the content in your Twitter and Facebook feed, or if you can't figure out which sources are trustworthy in a set of Google search results, then all that information is doing you a disservice. As our technology evolves, and our streams become even more packed with tweets, articles, videos, pictures and posts, the concept of media literacy evolves with it."

"The videos demonstrate the process of facilitating group learning about media literacy. Students are prompted to think critically about all media messages by asking questions such as: * Who produced this media message, and for what purpose? * Is the information credible, how would you know? * What techniques were used to communicate this message? * Who might be the target audience? * Who might benefit or be harmed by this message? * How might other people interpret this message differently? As shown in the videos, teachers respond with evidence-based prompts such as: "What makes you say that and where is that shown in the document?" These literacy principles are often preceded by content questions that encourage students to analyze media documents, including: * What are the main messages here about… (fill in the blank)? * What bias or point of view do you see here? * What information is left out of this message and why? Project Look Sharp developed these materials after assessing how some teachers present media documents to illustrate key points rather than to engage students. The videos include running annotations that explain how to conduct discussions about media messages using the constructivist methodology. Teachers will learn how to shift their practices from predominantly delivering facts to engaging students in rigorous analysis, application of key knowledge, and reflection on their understanding of the mediated world they live in."

"With the advent of "fake news", social media and non-stop media bombardment, three leading media literacy educators explain why media literacy is more important now than ever before."

"Project Look Sharp is a media literacy initiative of Ithaca College that develops and provides lesson plans, media materials, training, and support for the effective integration of media literacy with critical thinking into classroom curricula at all education levels."

"Kent State University is one of only 15 universities across the country to receive a grant from the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) to screen Eyes Wide Open: This is Media, a documentary that explores individual roles in the changing media landscape. Kent State's School of Journalism and Mass Communication will host the premiere at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 20, in the FirstEnergy Auditorium in Room 340 of Franklin Hall. The event is free and open to the public. Produced by Pivot TV, the documentary is a call to awareness about the critical balance between being connected, being responsible and being private. "This is a must-see and an eye-opening video for everyone, especially millennials engaged with social or traditional media," says Federico Subervi, Ph.D., professor in Kent State's School of Journalism and Mass Communication and National Association for Media Literacy Education member."

"News literacy is a relatively new field in media studies that focuses on defining and teaching the skills that citizens need to evaluate the credibility of the information they encounter, and on examining the role that credible information plays in a representative democracy. It's also a subject that most students find inherently engaging and relevant. In fact, a recent study found that 84 percent of young people between the ages of 15 and 25 say they would benefit from learning these skills. 3 Exercises in News Literacy"

"Our own study of over 1.25 million stories published online between April 1, 2015 and Election Day shows that a right-wing media network anchored around Breitbart developed as a distinct and insulated media system, using social media as a backbone to transmit a hyper-partisan perspective to the world. This pro-Trump media sphere appears to have not only successfully set the agenda for the conservative media sphere, but also strongly influenced the broader media agenda, in particular coverage of Hillary Clinton."

"Media Literacy is the ability to access, analyze, critically evaluate, and produce communication in a variety of forms. It is similar to information literacy and involves many components of technology literacy as well. "

"Project Look Sharp is a media literacy initiative of Ithaca College that develops and provides lesson plans, media materials, training, and support for the effective integration of media literacy with critical thinking into classroom curricula at all education levels."

"Boyd did not direct her concerns to the institutional actors who are reshaping the public sphere in ways that increase people's access to disinformation through platform capitalism. Boyd never once mentions a tech company or platform in her talk. As Benjamin Doxtdador points out, the disinformation that's fueled by hate groups and spread by algorithms is an embedded feature of the platforms we use. These platforms are nontransparent and outside of democratic control. Instead of mentioning the role of the platforms, boyd claims that media literacy is the problem because it causes people to "doubt what they see." Her SXSWEDU talk repeats a distorted depiction of media literacy as she claims that questioning media has led to social and political destabilization."

"Gold and Phillip offered their insights on examples of rumors and misinformation in the 2016 campaign, discussed the competing issues and agendas they must navigate in their reporting, and chatted with students and educators about the active role young people can play as consumers and creators of news and information about political issues. The hangout was part of a special series on "Building News Literacy, Critical Media Skills, and Political Awareness Today" produced in connection to Letters to the Next President 2.0.  NLP NEWS Check out the News Literacy Project's latest developments. "

"We all have magazines at home and at school. They have a high student engagement factor in the classroom and are proving to be a very effective way to teach visual literacy, media literacy, and a host of Common Core standards. It all started for me when NBA basketball player LeBron James adorned the cover of several magazines, published within weeks or months of each other. Using Google's image search function, it was easy to locate and download cover images for the activity I planned with a large group of teachers. I created a one-page handout, which you can find here. (I have since revised this activity, using cover images of actress Jennifer Lawrence.) It seems every week, some celebrity is featured on more than one magazine. So this activity can easily be updated. Here's the trio I chose:"

"Students at Capital Preparatory Magnet School, in Hartford, Connecticut, are watching a video of a basketball drill. "Keep track of how many passes the players dressed in white make," Marcus Stallworth tells them. He is a media-literacy educator. Many of the kids correctly count the number of passes. But they don't notice a man in a bear suit who moonwalks across the screen. Why did so many kids miss the furry bear? That's the question Stallworth asks them. The answer, he says, tells us something important about media literacy. For Stallworth, the video shows that people miss much of what's going on around them. "It's the same when we're reading information online," he told TIME for Kids. "It's important to be aware of the messages, and the ways authors are trying to capture our attention.""

"Nichole Pinkard is the founder of the Digital Youth Network, a digital literacy program that works with middle school students both in and out of the classroom. She is also a visiting associate professor at DePaul University in the College of Computing and Digital Media. This post is part of a series of conversations with thought leaders on digital media and learning, then and now. In conversation with journalist Heather Chaplin, leaders reflect on how the field of digital media and learning has changed over time, and where it's headed."

"An introductory assignment may ask students to think about representations of different social groups in the fictional TV shows, films and books that have shaped their lives. For example, at the beginning of the semester, I will give students an assignment titled "The Stories in Your Life" with the following list, and ask them to think of characters from these social groups that are represented in their favorite stories (this list of groups corresponds with the chapters in the textbook Diversity in U.S. Mass Media): African Americans, Native Americans, Latino Americans, Arab Americans, Asian Americans, teenagers, elderly people, people with disabilities, wealthy people, impoverished people, LGBTQ, and women. When we come together as a class and discuss their lists, the students have typically made some startling yet obvious discoveries: there may be no characters in a certain group, or the characters might be one-dimensional stereotypes. They quickly have those lightbulb moments that will open their minds to deeper discussions about underrepresentation and misrepresentation in entertainment media. They often realize that more often than not, the stories in their lives ask them to identify with white males. This introductory step in media literacy education gives students the reflective and analytical tools to examine what media tells them about themselves and others."

These "persuaders" use a variety of techniques to grab our attention, to establish credibility and trust, to stimulate desire for the product or policy, and to motivate us to act (buy, vote, give money, etc.) We call these techniques the "language of persuasion." They're not new; Aristotle wrote about persuasion techniques more than 2000 years ago, and they've been used by speakers, writers, and media makers for even longer than that. Learning the language of persuasion is an important media literacy skill. Once you know how media messages try to persuade you to believe or do something, you'll be better able to make your own decisions.