Teaching (With) Alternative Media (original) (raw)
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Critical Media Education, Radical Democracy and the Reconstruction of Education
Educação & Sociedade, 2008
This chapter explores the theoretical underpinnings of critical media literacy and analyzes four different approaches to teaching it. Combining cultural studies with critical pedagogy, Douglas Kellner and Jeff Share argue that critical media literacy aims to expand the notion of literacy to include different forms of media culture, information and communication technologies and new media, as well as deepen the potential of literacy education to critically analyze relationships between media and audiences, information and power. A multiperspectival approach addressing issues of gender, race, class and power is used to explore the interconnections of media literacy, cultural studies and critical pedagogy. In the interest of a vibrant participatory democracy, educators need to move the discourse beyond the stage of debating whether or not critical media literacy should be taught, and instead focus energy and resources on exploring the best ways for implementing it.
This paper asserts that truly activist media must be dually committed to critical education and to political action. Whereas my previous work has focused on the need for activist media to challenge media power from within, it is my goal here to build a model of activist media characterized by direct action through engagement in critical education and activism in both content and production. Such a model will provide insight both into the limitations of previous research on the oppositional potential of alternative media and into the challenge facing alternative media scholars and practitioners alike – that of rising above the noise of the dominant media of the cultural industry in order to communicate for radical social change.
Critical Media Literacy: crucial policy choices for a twenty-first-century democracy
Policy Futures in Education, 2007
The concept of critical media literacy expands the notion of literacy to include different forms of mass communication and popular culture, as well as deepens the potential of literacy education to critically analyze relationships between media and audiences, information and power. The authors argue that critical media literacy is crucial for participatory democracy in the twenty-first century, and that the only progressive option that exists is how to teach it, not whether to teach it. The article, first, explores the theoretical underpinnings of critical media literacy and demonstrates examples from community-based after school programs and an inner-city elementary school that received a federal grant to integrate media literacy and the arts into the curriculum. A multiperspectival approach addressing issues of gender, race, class and power is used to explore the interconnections of media literacy with cultural studies and critical pedagogy. It is argued that alternative media production must engage students to challenge the master narratives and the systems that make them appear natural. The article then explores the public policy options open to implementing a critical media literacy program. Focusing on media literacy policy in the USA, different approaches commonly used for teaching media literacy are explored and a hybrid critical media literacy framework is proposed. In this day and age of standardized high-stakes testing and corporate solicitations in public education, radical democracy depends on a Deweyan reconceptualization of literacy and the role of education in society. The authors conclude that on the public policy level critical media literacy must reframe our understanding of literacy so that these ideas become integrated across the curriculum at all levels from pre-school to university.
Critical Media Literacy, Democracy, and the Reconstruction of Education
This chapter explores the theoretical underpinnings of critical media literacy and analyzes four different approaches to teaching it. Combining cultural studies with critical pedagogy, Douglas Kellner and Jeff Share argue that critical media literacy aims to expand the notion of literacy to include different forms of media culture, information and communication technologies and new media, as well as deepen the potential of literacy education to critically analyze relationships between media and audiences, information and power. A multiperspectival approach addressing issues of gender, race, class and power is used to explore the interconnections of media literacy, cultural studies and critical pedagogy. In the interest of a vibrant participatory democracy, educators need to move the discourse beyond the stage of debating whether or not critical media literacy should be taught, and instead focus energy and resources on exploring the best ways for implementing it.
Critical Media Education and Radical Democracy
Abstract: This article explores the theoretical underpinnings of critical media education and analyzes contrasting approaches to teaching it. Combining cultural studies with critical pedagogy, we argue for a critical media literacy that aims to expand the notion of literacy to include a wide range of forms of media culture, information and communication technologies and new media, as well as deepen the potential of literacy education to critically analyze relationships between media and audiences, information and power. A multiperspectivist approach addressing issues of gender, race, class and power is used to explore the interconnections of media literacy, cultural studies and critical pedagogy. Our version of critical media literacy integrates analysis with production and aims at empowering students to participate fully in their society and thus promotes radical democracy and social justice.
The corporate news media serves as the primary instrument by which the ideologies of neoliberalism and racism are transmitted and solidified in the public mind. In contrast, alternative news media provides counter-hegemonic content that disrupts corporate media messages. This paper calls for a transformative and revolutionary pedagogical intervention encouraging educators to fuse alternative media content with a critical media literacy framework in their classrooms. It provides examples of how to facilitate the introduction of alternative news into the curriculum to challenge and break classist and racist frames that are reproduced by the corporate media.
The Neutrality Myth: Integrating Critical Media Literacy into the Introductory Communication Course
Basic Communication Course Annual, 2021
Our current cultural moment requires reflective urgency. COVID-19 has forced a collective pedagogical confrontation with new media's materiality, and how such materiality intersects with, for example, the public speaking traditions within introductory communication courses. While COVID-19 has spotlighted online-only educational conversations, our disciplinary need to refocus new media introductory course curricular practices pre-dates the pandemic. This essay extends Rhonda Hammer's (2009) critical media literacy framework into the introductory course, a practice whereby students are empowered to "read, critique, and produce media" rather than be passive consumers. We explore critical media literacy as pedagogically fruitful in identifying and resisting dominant ideologies that sustain inequalities through new media, focusing on information, power, and audience as core pedagogical principles that can reshape introductory content and teaching.
Critical Media Literacy as a Transformative Pedagogy
Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal, 2016
Critical media literacy is important because media's ubiquitous presence has become the digital wallpaper of life, and students need to learn how to use media responsibly for learning, communicating, and participating in democratic societies. Media literacy skills have been defined historically in uncritical ways: awareness of the dangers of (over) exposure to media; the study of media as an art form; or learning about the technical elements of media such as audience. The focus of this paper is on deeper, more complex conceptions of media literacy within its complicated social and educational contexts. The authors argue that critical media literacy can provide rich learning for students. Critical media literacy builds skills of analysis and critique in the deconstruction and interpretation phase where students learn to recognize hegemonic aspects of media. Deconstruction is only one side of the critical equation, however. During the media production phase, critical media literacy can give voice to students and empower them to take action to make changes in society. In the process, critical media literacy can lead students to deeper understandings of literacies and discourses in society than previously considered possible. This paper theorizes critical media literacy in both of these phases: its deconstructive, critical phase and its transformative and critical production phase. An analysis is provided also of some of the challenges associated with critical media literacy as a transformative pedagogy.
Rising Above: Alternative Media as Activist Media
Stream: Interdisciplinary Journal of Communication, 1969
This paper asserts that truly activist media must be dually committed to critical education and to political action. Whereas my previous work has focused on the need for activist media to challenge media power from within, it is my goal here to build a model of activist media characterized by direct action through engagement in critical education and activism in both content and production. Such a model will provide insight both into the limitations of previous research on the oppositional potential of alternative media and into the challenge facing alternative media scholars and practitioners alike – that of rising above the noise of the dominant media of the cultural industry in order to communicate for radical social change.