Media Literacy in School and at Home by Omar Benton Ricks Are children learning to think critically about the things that

Media Literacy in School and at Home
by Omar Benton Ricks

       Are children learning to think critically about the things that
shape their world? This is a question many parents and educators
have on their minds, especially with regard to media. The average
American child ages 8 to 18 watches over 6 hours of TV a day and
uses other media (including the Internet) an additional 2 hours a day [6].
Scholars estimate that by the age of 18, children in the United States
will have spent more than 16,000 hours in front of the TV set, compared
with only 14,000 hours in the classroom [2].

With their children having that kind of exposure, most parents are
concerned about their children's use of media -- what Web sites they visit,
what movies and TV shows they watch, and what music they listen to.

       Over many years, this concern has led to the implementation of
practices and regulations intended to protect children from negative
influences in the media. Industries now have ratings for movies, music CDs,
video games, and TV programming. Some parents have begun to take action
on their own -- from reducing the amount of time children watch TV or videos, to
getting a TV that has a V-chip (an electronic device that allows
parents to control what shows a child watches), to putting computers in
conspicuous areas of the home so it is easier to monitor what the child is doing on
the computer.
       Recently, the President approved legislation to provide a domain
extension of "G"-rated Web sites for children [4].

       But are these protective methods enough to keep children safe from
the negative influences in the media?

       Empowering Children

       Many parents and educators think that preventive measures cannot do
enough by themselves. Children, they say, must be educated on how
the media operates and come to see the media as something that can help or
harm them. To accomplish this end, some groups have created media
education resources to encourage schools and parents to prepare children to
participate in the world of information by asking questions and
thinking critically.

       The Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA) says that media
education is the effort to teach children how "to access, analyze,
evaluate and communicate information in a variety of forms including print and
non-print messages" [1]. A big part of media literacy involves
learning to find the not-so-hidden motives -- usually commercial in nature -- that
underlie all media. In learning to identify the many methods used
in the media to influence their choices -- including nonverbal techniques like camera angles,
audio/visual editing, and special effects -- children can learn to
think more critically about what they see on TV, hear on CDs, and read on the Internet.
Children can learn both how to protect themselves and why it is
important to do so.

       Objective: Media Literate Students

       Also called media literacy, media education is a subject area that
has recently begun to gain widespread acceptance in U.S. schools,
although other countries have included media literacy curricula for decades.
Almost all states have begun to require some element of media
literacy in their statewide standards, and a few have adopted media literacy curricula [3; 7].

       Cyndy Scheibe is an associate professor of psychology at Ithaca
College and the director of Project Look Sharp, an organization
that helps teachers to integrate media literacy lessons into their classes. She says that
media literacy is more than just "critical analysis and awareness
of images." She says, "Being able to express yourself in multiple forms of literacy
is very empowering for kids." She likens teaching children about
understanding and producing media to teaching them about poetry. "We don't just have
students read and memorize other poets," she says. "They also write
their own"
       (Cyndy Scheibe, personal communication, 13 November 2002 ). The
same, she says, must be true of any effort to teach students about
print and non-print communication media.

       Many media educators say that media literacy should be considered a
part of traditional literacy (Cyndy Scheibe, personal
communication, 13 November 2002; [8], p. 60). They argue that, given the extent to which
today's children receive and create information using non-print
media, it is no longer sufficient to see literacy as merely a print proposition.

       Media literacy in the classroom can take many forms.
Age-appropriate activities are available at the following Web
sites:

       http://www.ithaca.edu/looksharp/library/

       http://www.msde.state.md.us/assignment_media_lit/Elementary/elementary.html

       http://www.msde.state.md.us/assignment_media_lit/Middle/middle.html

       http://www.msde.state.md.us/assignment_media_lit/High/high.html

       http://www.media-awareness.ca/eng/med/class/teamedia/tupe.htm

       http://www.media-awareness.ca/eng/med/class/teamedia/tujs.htm

       http://www.media-awareness.ca/eng/med/class/teamedia/tmintro.htm

       http://www.media-awareness.ca/eng/med/home/medwise.htm

       Parents Play a Major Part

       There are many examples of home lessons that can be used to foster
media literacy.

       Scheibe mentions one simple game that parents can start playing
with their preschool-age children: "Guess What They're Selling."
Here is how it works:

            1) Watch TV with your child.
            2) When the commercials come on, ask her to guess what product
this advertisement is trying to sell to her.

       This game can help her learn to recognize that there is a
distinction between commercials and programs. It may also help her
to learn that media is used to sell people things they may or may not want (Cyndy Scheibe,
personal communication, 13 November 2002 ).

       "As children get older," Scheibe says, "they may begin to learn to
identify the ways commercials use special effects to make products
look bigger, what information gets left out, and how ads play loose with facts"
(Cyndy Scheibe, personal communication, 13 November 2002 ).

       Children may also discover for themselves how the creation of media
messages involves the omission of information. Scheibe describes a
second-grade social studies unit about understanding communities that was used
in a diverse school district that included students from rural,
urban, and suburban communities. Teachers wanted their students to understand what
people mean when they say they live in a rural, urban, or suburban
community. The teachers gave their students disposable cameras and asked them to
use the cameras to document the types of communities in which they
lived. The parents had been notified about this project and were asked to help
their children with collecting images representative of the
communities in which they lived. Teachers then electronically scanned the students' pictures
and used computer software to create documentary films, narrated by
the students,about the community. The teachers and students from different
schools then got together and shared these films with each other.
Scheibe recounted some of the discussion questions teachers asked:

            What does it mean to say that ours is a rural, urban, or
suburban community? Do these pictures include only people who
look nice? Do they include people from certain occupations? Do they include
pictures of the garbage? (Cyndy Scheibe, personal
communication, 13 November 2002 )

       "This kind of community showing is really empowering for kids,"
Scheibe says. "It provides a deep way of understanding what type of
community they live in" and presents a pedagogical alternative to simply teaching
the students that they live in a certain type of community (Cyndy
Scheibe, personal communication, 13 November 2002 ). It also shows students how they
can create media messages.

       Advancing Media Education in America

       Although many state and local school districts have adopted media
literacy components or curricula, the United States as a nation
lags behind many other countries (including other English-speaking countries such as
Canada , Australia , New Zealand , and the United Kingdom ) in
integrating media literacy into the curriculum [5]. One major impediment to
furthering media education is the need for in-service teacher
training and teacher education to include media literacy. Few if any teacher education programs
include coursework in media literacy as a requirement for
graduating teachers (Cyndy Scheibe, personal communication, 13 November 2002 ). While many
teachers probably teach some form of media literacy when they
require students to do things like comparing and contrasting a variety of sources in
writing assignments, most teachers have not received support in
teaching media literacy.
       If states continue to integrate media literacy into their statewide
standards, Scheibe believes that it will likely become essential
for colleges of education to offer training in media literacy in the future (Cyndy Scheibe,
personal communication, 13 November 2002 ).

       There is a lot of further information about media literacy on the
Web. See the additional resources below. And look for future Parent
News articles on this timely topic.

       Acknowledgment
       The author would like to thank Dr. Amy Aidman of the University of
Illinois for lending her expertise and resources on this topic.

       For More Information

       About-Face
       http://www.about-face.org/

       Action Coalition for Media Education
       http://www.acmecoalition.org/

       Alliance for a Media Literate America
       http://www.nmec.org/

       Association for Media Literacy
       http://www.aml.ca/

       Center for Media Education
       http://www.cme.org/

       Center for Media Literacy
       http://www.medialit.org/

       Children, Adolescents, and Television
       http://www.aap.org/policy/re0043.html

       Has Media Literacy Found a Curricular Foothold?
       http://www.edweek.org/ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=09ubey2.h19

       Just Think
       http://www.justthink.org/

       Mastering the Media: The Graduate Program in Media Literacy at
Appalachian State University
       http://www.ci.appstate.edu/programs/edmedia/medialit/

       Media Awareness Network
       http://www.media-awareness.ca

       Media Education Foundation
       http://www.mediaed.org/

       Media Literacy Clearinghouse
       http://www.med.sc.edu:1081/

       Media Literacy for Drug Prevention: A Unit for Middle School Educators
       http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/NIE/medialiteracy/

       Media Literacy Online Project
       http://interact.uoregon.edu/MediaLit/HomePage

       Media Literacy Project
       http://www.reneehobbs.org/

       Media Literacy and Youth
       http://leep.lis.uiuc.edu/publish/medialit
       This is a web site on media literacy designed by graduate students
in Dr. Amy Aidman's information science course.

       Media Matters
       http://www.aap.org/advocacy/mmarticles.htm

       Media Workshop New York
       http://www.mediaworkshop.org/

       MediaStudies.com
       http://www.mediastudies.com/

       New Mexico Media Literacy Project
       http://www.nmmlp.org/

       Project Look Sharp
       http://www.ithaca.edu/looksharp/

       Speaking, Listening, and Media Literacy Standards for K Through 12
Education
       http://www.natcom.org/Instruction/k-12/K12Stds.htm

       Talking with Kids about the News
       http://www.talkingwithkids.org/television/twk-news.html

       Sources

       [1] Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA). (n.d.). Media
literacy [Online]. Available: http://www.nmec.org/medialit.html.

       [2] Comstock, George A., & Paik, Hae Jung. (1991). Television and
the American child. San Diego , CA : Academic.

       [3] Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE). (n.d.).
Assignment: Media literacy [Online]. Available:
       http://www.msde.state.md.us/assignment%5Fmedia%5Flit/home.html.

       [4] McGuire, David. (2002, December 4). President signs "dot-kids"
legislation. Washington Post [Online]. Available:
       http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A8016-2002Dec4&notFound=true.

       [5] Media Awareness Network. (n.d.). Media education around the
world [Online]. Available:
       http://www.media-awareness.ca/eng/med/bigpict/worlmtxt.htm.

       [6] Roberts, Donald F. (2000). Media and youth: Access, exposure,
and privatization. Journal of Adolescent Health, 27(Supplement),
8-14.

       [7] State-by-state media frameworks (n.d.). [Online]. Available:
http://www.med.sc.edu:1081/statelit.htm.

       [8] Tyner, Kathleen R. (1998). Literacy in a digital world :
Teaching and learning in the age of information. Lea's
Communication Series. Mahwah , N.J. :
       Erlbaum.

       How to Get ERIC Documents and Journal Articles

       References identified with an ED (ERIC document), EJ (ERIC
journal), or PS number are cited in the ERIC database. Most
documents are available in ERIC microfiche collections at more than 1,000 locations worldwide
(see http://www.ed.gov/Programs/EROD/). They can also be ordered
through EDRS:
       800-443-ERIC or online at http://www.edrs.com/Webstore/Express.cfm
[NPIN Editor's note ( 10-04-03 ): This url has changed:
       http://www.edrs.com/Express.cfm]. Journal articles are available
from the original journal, interlibrary loan services, or article
reproduction clearinghouses such as Ingenta (800-296-2221).

* * * * *

> where can I locate this document?
> http://npin.org/pnews/2003/pnew103/int103b.html

Note: the above website has been taken down. thus I have reproduced this article
as the new web master cannot guarantee it will be reappear.