Teaching Media/Cultural Studies

1. Teaching Media/Cultural Studies

2. Teaching Media/Cultural Studes • We live in a media-saturated society. • We are all constantly bombarded with mediated messages, and so critical literacy becomes a necessary skill for citizenship.

3. Teaching Media/Cultural Studies • Focuses on “the literacies and pedagogies that are necessary to teach media/cultural studies to students of different ages and to empower students and citizens to become media literate, active participants in their society” (H&K 2009)

4. Teaching Media/Cultural Studies • Hammer & Kellner’s selected essays provide: • Justifications for media/cultural pedagogies. • Effective techniques and strategies of m/c pedagogy. • 5-essays forming an age-based template for educators of media/cultural studies.

5. Young Children and Critical Media Literacy • Jeff Share • Ages 3-7: Pre- and Elementary Schools • Share makes the case that since we are immersed in media from birth we should also be educated in media literacy as early as possible.

6. Young Children and Critical Media Literacy • Although early childhood education is controversial, Share makes a strong (and valid) case for this type of education. • Croteau and Hoynes taught us that: • Media = Normative = Socializing • Critical Media Literacy should be taught when these processes are taking shape.

7. Young Children and Critical Media Literacy • Share offers 5 basic elements to Critical Media Literacy- not limited by age. • “Recognition of the construction of media and communication as a social process” • “Some type of textual analysis that explores the languages, genres, aesthetics, codes, and conventions of the text.” • “An exploration of the role audiences play in negotiating meanings.”

8. Young Children and Critical Media Literacy • Share’s 5 elements (cont.d) • “Problematizing the process of representation to uncover and engage issues of ideology, power, and pleasure.” • “Examination of the productions and institutions that motivate and structure the media industries as corporate, profit-seeking businesses.”

9. Young Children and Critical Media Literacy • Share’s “TransmediaIntertextuality” • Holy Crapthat sounds really smart. • Croteau and Hoynes called this “conglomeration” and “horizontal integration” • Remember these? • C & H: “Media exists to sell audiences to advertisers.”

10. Young Children and Critical Media Literacy • The question remains, what audiences are channels like: Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and The Disney Channel (and others) selling? • Children • (and pot heads) • Children are a multi-billion dollar market: regardless of ethics (or morality) they’re being targeted by industries – Share argues they need to be trained to defend themselves.

11. Young Children and Critical Media Literacy • Share- “Media as a Cultural Ritual” • Tremendously important concept. • Newcomb and Hirsch “ritual must be seen as a PROCESS rather than a PRODUCT.”

12. Young Children and Critical Media Literacy • Media as a Process • “TV” is a noun, but it isn’t a person, place, or thing, but a system that unfolds over an extended period of time. • Critical Media Studies as Processual • Media evolves, therefore CMS must evolve as well. • Share’s concept works from epistemologies, but serves to construct ONTOLOGIES.

13. Young Children and Critical Media Literacy • The Ontology of “Critical Thinking” • APA (Facione 1990) – Two components of “Critical Thinking” • Cognitive Skills • Affective Dispositions

14. Young Children and Critical Media Literacy • Cognitive Skills • Interpretation • Analysis • Evaluation • Inference • Explanation • Self-regulation

15. Young Children and Critical Media Literacy • Affective Dispositions • A critical spirit • A probing inquisitiveness • A keenness of mind • A zealous dedication to reason • A hunger or eagerness for reliable information

16. Young Children and Critical Media Literacy • Practical Applications • Anderson • Vasquez • Notice these themes (they pop up a lot) • Emphasis on the students becoming producers. • Emphasis on computer and digital media literacy.

17. Teaching Popular Music • Ernest Morrell • Ages: Middle and High School • Morrell’s program specialized in connecting popular culture (hip-hop music) with the themes and strategies of traditional criticism (lit. crit.).

18. Teaching Popular Music • This integration of a popular culture element is fascinating on several levels. • Integration of Popular Culture into Traditional Teaching Methodologies • Inspiration of Student Engagement and Participation

19. Teaching Popular Music • Integration of Popular Culture into Traditional Teaching Methodologies • Contextualizes and contemporizes subject material • Allows for the application of formal analysis to popular culture

20. Teaching Popular Music • Inspiration of Engagement • Creates space in the classroom for students to add themselves and their own interests to the curriculum. • By bridging media by theme, can also serve to destigmatize theory while at the same time enabling its application to the student’s environment.

21. Teaching Popular Music • Problems? • Practical Implementation • “The Hip-Hop Research Project” is really cool, but at the same time it draws from resources that most public school teachers don’t have. • Externally motivated students and participants • Access to the resources of a local university

22. Teaching Popular Music • Problems? (cont.d) • Excessive Genre-Focus Problematizes Material and Future applications. • “Rose (1994) and Tabb Powell (1991) argue strongly that hip-hop music is the representative voice of urban youth as the genre was created by and for urban youth” (Morrell). • But who owns it now? • The Mainstream Media Industry.

23. Teaching Popular Music • Problems? (cont.d) • Rap has been acquired by “the system” it was designed to protest. • The author presents this, but seems to simply ignore it. • “This chapter makes the case that for today’s youth, hip-hop is POPULAR MUSIC. • “I also saw that students in this NON-MAINSTREAM cultural practice (Ferdman 1990) were exhibiting…critical and analytical skills. • POPULAR and NON-MAINSTREAM are antonyms- hip-hop can’t be both.

24. Teaching Popular Music • Problems? (cont.d) • Although applied examples from relevant pop-culture have great potential, they are also subject to contemporary social/industrial forces, are constantly fluctuating, and are thus risky. • Although potentially immensely profitable for education purposes, this educational strategy is going to require significant effort on the part of the teacher, and constant re-evaluation throughout it’s implementation.

25. This Won’t Be On The Final • Rhonda Hammer • Age: University • Hammer explores the goods and the bads of critical education at the University level.

26. This Won’t Be On The Final • Education as a commodity. • “commodity fetishism” • “In fact, this increasing fixation on grades reflects what many experts have described as…a commodity product which is measured solely on the basis of its market value, especially in relation to job opportunities.”

27. This Won’t Be On The Final • Thomas Jefferson and “informed citizenry” • Posits that functional democracy is founded on the education level (and critical skills) of its demos, or public. • Hammer: contemporary education is not preparing students for “citizenship.”

28. This Won’t Be On The Final • Freire’s “banking concept of education” • “ in which students are treated as empty accounts, in which teachers deposit education currency which is stored, filed, and later withdrawn.” • i.e. it’s not about “thinking;” it’s about “knowing.”

29. This Won’t Be On The Final • “Banking System” of education • “teaches us to never question authority and to therefore treat socially constructed hierarchical relations of power as if they are inherent and natural.” • Croteau & Hoynes “hegemony operates on the level of ‘common sense.’”

30. This Won’t Be On The Final • Practical example: Hammer’s Critical Media Literacy Course • “to provide students with the opportunities and skills to recognize and speak out against the exclusion of marginalized and progressive voices [in media and] the dominant factory system of education.”

31. This Won’t Be On The Final • Practical Example (cont.d) • Emphasis on dialogue and cooperation, rather than lecture. (sound familiar?) • The course also emphasizes media production by the students (which I posit is intended to give the students and internal perspective as to the processes of production).

32. This Won’t Be On The Final • Problems: • Hammer’s class is intriguing, but… • In the text, a strong political bent emerges. • Hammer backs away from “neoliberalism” in the beginning of the article, but by the end is leaning strongly in that direction again.

33. This Won’t Be On The Final • Problems: • Is the problem one of political party, or of the underpinning system? • Secondly, by implying the superiority of one party over another, isn’t Hammer acting as an agent of the sort of propagandizing she claims to protest? • Finally, Hammer lauds the new, “radical documentary” movement, however there are serious ethical concerns about the work of Michael Moore and others. What are your thoughts?

34. This Won’t Be On The Final • Despite these problems, however, Hammer’s essay represents a useful perspective on some of the needs for, and complications of, Critical Media Literacy education at the university level.

35. As seen on TV or was that my phone? • Carmen Luke • Age: University • “New Media Literacy”

36. As seen on TV or was that my phone? • Right out of the gate, Luke writes: • “If anything, universities should be the final frontline in giving the next generation of future community leaders, policy makers, scientists, politicians, researchers, educators the critical lenses with which to identify and scrutinize, challenge or change the politics embedded in the current knowledge/information revolution.”

37. As seen on TV or was that my phone? • Whoa. • Don’t ALL citizens need these analytical abilities, not just the college-educated “elites?” • Does this imply that individuals without the academic pedigree should be marginalized from community leaders and denied access to the “critical analysis” skills of the college educated elites?

38. As seen on TV or was that my phone? • Emphasis on digital media criticism • Convergence • Digital media literacy

39. As seen on TV or was that my phone? • Digital Media Literacy • This theme (particularly as regards computer mediated communications (CMC)) seems to wind its way throughout the section. • Comes with both positives and negatives

40. As seen on TV or was that my phone? • Positives of Digital media literacy education (as presented) • CMC and CAD provide students with previously unimaginable production capabilities. • Digital “democratization” of information provides more tools to more people than ever for acquisition and dissemination of knowledge. • CMC is the environment (much like “hip hop culture”) within which we all (particularly youth) operate.

41. As seen on TV or was that my phone? • Negatives- • Much like hip-hop, digital/online content is currently a site of contested control • CMC is far different from the world envisioned by the authors • Because of it’s constantly shifting nature, CMC based education requires MORE effort from educators, not LESS.

42. As seen on TV or was that my phone? • Digital/Online Content and Control • Three areas- • Government Control of information • China- government bans of websites. • United States • Wikileaks • Arrests based on internet activity (not just child-pornography, but also threats or rants posted online as well)

43. As seen on TV or was that my phone? • Industry Control of Content • File-sharing lawsuits (Napster, Kazaa, et cetera.) • File-streaming lawsuits • Croteau & Hoynes- CBS/Viacom simultaneously sued and struck a business deal with Youtube. • Corporate streaming websites • Hulu & Other network sites • It isn’t just about money, it’s about CONTROL of content!

44. As seen on TV or was that my phone? • Industry control of websites • Banner and other ads • Commercials before Youtube videos • User-generated content (UGC) • But still utilized for corporate purposes • Media executives dream possibility.

45. As seen on TV or was that my phone? • Just like with “hip-hop” music, instructors using CMC to buttress in-class instruction may accidentally be adding to the “banking” style pedagogy of media hegemons. • Therefore it is critical that an instructor utilizing these methods try to stay constantly ahead of the curve of media trends.

46. That said. • The authors present strong cases for media literacy education within school, but how about outside of the classroom, or after graduation? • Remember that the lessons being taught don’t always stick as contexts and meanings continue to shift after-the-fact. (Hip Hop and CMC)

47. Continuing Media Literacy Education • For people without access to the classroom, certain members of the media establishment also improve media literacy via their reflexive “satire” • “Cultural Jamming” • Mocking a concept or media strategy so as to demystify it in the minds of audiences.

48. Continuing Media Literacy Education • South Park • Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of South Park, are kind of the godfathers of post-modern mass-mediated cultural jamming. • Systematically the show is legendary (or perhaps notorious) for mocking social processes and American ideologies.

49. Continuing Media Literacy Education • One of South Park’s favorite subjects for lampooning is other pop-media. • One target was the controversial film, “The Passion” by Mel Gibson • http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s08e04-the-passion-of-the-jew

50. Continuing Media Literacy Education • “The Colbert Report” • Comedy Central “News Show” professing to be the conservative rebuttal to the decidedly liberal “Daily Show” • While the “Daily Show” has grown to become a part of the larger media structure, Stephen Colbert’s avowed position as “outsider” enables him to engage the system more aggressively.