Media Literacies: A Critical Introduction

Whether we like it or not, communication technologies – ever smaller, more convergent, and more comprehensive – are tightly woven into the cultural fabric of our everyday lives. How did we get here? And what exactly does it mean to be literate′ in this new media era? Media Literacies: A Critical Introduction traces the history of media literacy and grapples with the fresh challenges posed by the convergent media of the twenty–first century. The book explores the history and emergence of media education, contemporary youth and its digitally mediated lives, digital literacy, and critical citizenship. Sidebar commentary written by leading media researchers and educators spotlights specific issues and media phenomena. Media Literacies provides students and educators alike with an invaluable theoretical and practical approach to understanding media literacy in the remarkable digital age we find ourselves in.



Preface ix

1 What is Media Literacy? 1

Media Literacy 2.000 4

Natives and Aliens 7

Media Education has a History to Draw On 9

Media Education in the Twenty–First Century 12

2 Children′s Media Lives 17

Researching Young People in Mediated Environments 19

Getting Older Faster, Staying Younger Longer 20

Life Inside a Media Wonderland 23

Inequities and Parents Worries about Media Use 25

Media Concentration and the Big Four 28

Creating Cradle–to–Grave Consumers 30

Conclusion 33

3 Media as Public Pedagogy 35

Media as Threat 37

Media as a Form of Public Pedagogy 39

New Learning Horizons 41

Debating Dangerous Screens 43

The Merits of Television for Education 46

Children s Learning Television 48

SIDEBAR: An Inconvenient Truth as public pedagogy 50

Public Service Announcements, Entertainment Education, and Culture Jamming 53

Bricolage 58

SIDEBAR: Pre–teen girls and popular music 60

4 Media Literacy 101 63

A Demand for New Heuristics 65

Cultural Life 67

Production 68

SIDEBAR: Moral makeovers: Reality television and the good citizen 69

Text 76

Audience 84

SIDEBAR: Children′s media encounters in contemporary India: Leisure and learning 88

Cultural Life 92

SIDEBAR: The Simpsons: Not such a dumb show after all! 95

5 Media Production and Youth Agency 100

What Creative Work Adds to Media Education: Production as Praxis 101

SIDEBAR: Youth cultural production and creative economies 102

SIDEBAR: Assessing learning from practical media production at an introductory level: The role of writing 106

What does Production Mean? 110

How is Production a Form of Agency? 112

SIDEBAR: Youth as knowledge producers in community–based video in the age of AIDS 119

SIDEBAR: Youth Radio 126

6 Literacies: New and Digital 137

What does it Mean to be ′Literate′ Today? 137

Expanded Literacies 139

New Literacies and New Ways of Thinking and Doing 141

Digital Literacies and Top–Down Approaches 144

The Role of Learning Environments in Relation to Digital Literacies 146

7 Media Literacy 2.0: Contemporary Media Practices and Expanded Literacies 151

Media Literacy 2.0: The Seven Cs of Contemporary Youth Media Practices 153

SIDEBAR: Learning in Second Life 156

SIDEBAR: Immersive advertising and children s game spaces 164

SIDEBAR: Rethinking media literacy through video game play 175

SIDEBAR: Understanding remix and digital mashup 180

SIDEBAR: YAHAnet: Youth, the Arts, HIV and AIDS network 184

Conclusion 190

8 Critical Citizenship and Media Literacy Futures 191

Thinking, Judging, and Critical Citizenship 195

Last Words 200

References 203

Index 217

Michael Hoechsmann is Associate Professor and Chair of Education Programs at Lakehead University, Orillia. He is co–author of Reading Youth Writing: New′ Literacies, Cultural Studies and Education (2008), and the former Director of Education of Young People′s Press, a youth–oriented non–profit news service.

Stuart Poyntz is Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University, and the former Director of Education at Pacific Cinémathèque, Western Canada′s leading film institute. He has published articles in the Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies, Sociology Compass, the Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, the Canadian Journal of Education, Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education, and various edited collections.

That being the case, the authors primary recommendation is for media literacy to assume an increased role in school curricula worldwide. As Hoechsmann and Poyntz demonstrate, media practice is sufficiently academic and promotes critical citizenship, agency and empowerment qualities that all teachers are sure to agree are highly laudable educational outcomes.   (Pedagogies: An International Journal, 24 May 2012)