CI5472: Goals and Media Literacy

How to justify media instruction in a “back to basic” era

Describe your media use List some different media you use For each one, describe the literacies

involved in using that media effectively or critically Websites: search strategies Chat rooms: use of emoticons Games: social interaction

Value of Media Literacy Adolescents living in a media-rich/mediated

culture Literacy constituted by hybrid texts

Texts combine digital/print/visual Construction of identities around/through

media uses Need to integrate media as instructional tool

in all subject matter areas

Approach: Media Controllers Time devoted to media use detracts from

reading or social life. Need to limit/control amount of viewing

The portrayal of violence, sexuality, or anti-social behaviors has a negative cause/effect relationships on behaviors/attitudes Need to limit/control viewing content

Media use is mindless/intellectually vapid Need for exposure to “high art”

Eden Prairie School Board Member statement To me, showing movies is a pretty low skill

level. I would rather that teachers use the skills they have to get students involved in reading and discussing topics. . . . If we're showing a lot of videos in the classroom, then I view it as a problem. We do get parents calling us, saying: 'Why are they showing "Schindler's List?" Why are we showing "Pippi Longstocking?"

Behavioral Perspective Assumes a cause/effect relationship between

viewing or media use and certain attitudes or behaviors Viewing of violence will lead to violent behavior.

Problem: “protecting” adolescents from “harmful effects” of the media Does not recognize extensive uses of the media to

for pleasure and as a tool for defining their identities.

Critical thinking advocates Value of fostering critical thinking skills,

particularly in the English classroom, through critical analysis, interpretation, and production of media.

given adolescents’ high level of knowledge and interest in media and film, that media texts can serve as a platform for engaging in critical analysis.

Critical pedagogy theorists Commitment to addressing social issues that

lead to improvements in society. Challenging larger institutional or corporate

interests Pro-Western values promoted by Disney Limited political perspectives on news Control of music industry by Clear Channel, etc.

Adopting Critical Stances How am I being positioned to respond by the

text or context? Do I accept or reject how I am being positioned to respond? , television or magazine ads for casino gambling

invite viewers and readers to accept the belief that gambling is as an enjoyable activity.

“modes of address” to position readers or viewers to adopt certain desired responses consistent with certain stances

How media audiences are constructed and positioned Study how audiences are invited to adopt certain

stances and positions Reflect on how they are being positioned and

constructed as audiences, leading often to active resistance of such positioning

Conducting media ethnographies of audience uses and participation in different media.

Stances in Response to Media 1). Dominant-hegemonic reading: accept or

identify with the dominant value stance without challenging that stance

2). Negotiated reading: Students may negotiate or struggle with the dominant stance, applying some of their own value stances.

3). Oppositional reading: Students resist, challenge, disagree with, or reject the dominant value stance.

Critical Discourse Analysis Discourses are basic ways of knowing

and thinking The discourses of law, medicine, religion,

business, or education define the social and power relationships within a certain culture or community

discourses function as “identity tool-kits” the discourse of the law serves to define

one’s identity as a lawyer.

Discourses in the Media Advertising: portray desired practices

constituted gender, class, and race Editorials/news reports: discourses of

business Schooling analyzed in terms of “accountability”

Film/TV programs: discourses of romance, religion, sports, “law and order”

Critical Response to Consumerism that through using certain products, you will

gain happiness and popularity with peers. that acquiring and owning material goods is a

primary goal of life. that consumption or buying is a necessary

good for a capitalist economy. that if something wears out or breaks down,

one should buy something new.

Goals: Pleasure from media uses Uses of media to engage in social

events/relationships Defining one’s identity Being entertained Appreciating quality of production Creating own productions

Media Tools as Mediating Relationships/Communication tools mediate the relationships between

speakers, writers, and readers and their purposes, objects, or outcomes in social contexts.

Clarifying uses of media and reasons for those uses. Adolescents (4 1/2 - 5 hours daily on

average) on the computer, playing computer/video games, watching TV/videos/DVD’s, listening to music, reading magazines, etc

% of 6-17 year-olds use of media 99% TV 86% Music 81% video 64% computer games 57% read non-school book 36% non-game computer 28% comics 19% Web

Different Types of Media Users Traditionalists:

12-14: TV, books, magazines Low media users

2/3’s under 12/few media in bedroom Screen entertainment fans

TV/video/computer games/males 12-14 Specialists

Book lovers PC fans (tend to be in media-rich homes) Music lovers 15-17 females

Media Use: Type of Day/Uses Outside vs. Inside Home “Really good day”

41% go to movie 39% see friends 35% play sports 23% homework on computer

“Really boring day” 41% watch TV 28% read a book 22% play tapes or watch video

The Bedroom Culture Increasing independent uses of media

vs. shared, common uses with family Less participation in community activity Increased participation in virtual

communities/chat rooms/Buddy-chat Segregated/niche audiences built on

adolescent consumer power/demand

Understand different media forms Compare/contrast experience between

forms Film, book, TV, theater, radio, computer,

music Recognize differences in nature of

experience Formulate reasons for differences in

quality of experience

Foster appreciation of film, television, or media as art forms.

acquire knowledge of these aspects of production through understanding their purpose—what they are being used to portray or communicate.

acquire a critical vocabulary for analyzing media texts in order to make judgments about those texts

Understand the historical development of different media How media evolved in terms of technical

changes Digital media “remediating” old media: TV/print

How changes in media reflect different cultural and historical values Television in the 1950s served as a primary force

in creating new consumer markets Films reflect different values of different decades

Understand economic, institutional, and political forces Economic, institutional, and political

forces are defining the nature and variety of commercial media

Contemporary media conglomeration of fewer corporations

Lack of variety in perspectives Control of ideas

Web use About two-thirds of American adults use the Internet 55 percent have access to a high-speed Internet connection at either

home or work. 53 million people have contributed material online, (2003, Pew

Internet & American Life Project). More than 15 million have their own website. 2 million children aged 6-17 have their own website, Twenty-nine percent of kids in grades K-3 have their own e-mail

address Lower access: 25% over age 65; 18% of African Americans

Media texts “re-mediated” by digital media TV news/newspaper “remediated” (Bolter) by news web

sites MSNBC, CNN, New York Times

Film: Digital construction of sets/actors: The Polar Express Improved camera access: Collateral

Student learning/production of texts Hypermedia productions Access to digital texts

Making digital literacies explicit When students use X digital tools:

Web site Hypermedia production Chat/email/IM Video games

…what do students need to do to be successful in using these tools?

C-Span series: The Digital Future http://www.c-span.org/congress/libraryofcongress.asp

Questions: Student tool use outside of school What are students learning in using these digital tools

outside of school? That could transfer to school learning. That are excluded from school.

How does access outside of school influence digital tool use?

Do teachers use the “digital divide” as a rationale for not building on/assigning tool activities

Web “reading” processes Reading for relevance (Kress, 2003)

Vs. left-right linear processing: print texts Determining purpose for accessing Selecting relevant icons/buttons

Use of a site index/map Navigating options

Reading web sites: Charting pathways (Kress, 2003) Principles of relevance Determine site’s organization Select from a range of possible reading

paths Observe and follow a given order Construct meaning from principles of

relevance

Modularity Different parts combined together in

different ways without losing their independence.

Different parts can be readily added, deleted, or revised without having to totally redo the original text

Production of digital texts differs from the production of traditional texts

Automation Production of part/texts completed

through automated systems Editing systems for digital photos Computer graphics/3-D movie production Websites adjust to different users

Variability The same texts can be varied to create new texts

different combination of links or pathways continually updated, creating new, more recent versions

of texts. The size or scale of a text can be varied using

zoom/close-up features on Mapquest maps or images. different versions of the same media content can be

varied Tomb Raider are made into films.

Transcoding Translating texts into another format. “Cut and paste”

Store, save, and open up files on the computer screen, as well as click on images and files.

Combine together texts from three different ways of organizing text

the printed word the cinematic presentation of moving images the computer interface

Culture-jamming Culture-jamming of commercialized media

productions through parody and satire (Lankshear & Knobel, 2003). Adbusters

E-zines adverse effects of consumerism on the society and

environment.

Attention-transacting Getting people to pay attention to your Knowing which bits of important are

important or relevant create “attention structures” that assist them

is eliciting and providing relevant, timely information, Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com

Web search literacies

Defining/ refining search terms Clarifying purposes for search consistent

with an assignment Versus simply cut/paste material for no

purpose Being lost in virtual text space

Chat rooms/fan sites Internet chat rooms

Roles/identities/language (Turkle) Fan club activities (soap opera/Star

Trek) Online clubs: sharing of expertise Rules for appropriate postings

Observing/recording interactions Voices adopted in online chat/responses

Shifts in roles/identities: reflects narrative roles Social roles: “reteller,” “provocateur”

Game-playing talk (think-alouds) Strategies/techniques

Social bonding strategies Need for shared community

IM’ing live onscreen chat window showing participating members.

use IM while doing homework (McCampbell, 2001). For instance, a group of students can work together to synthesize information for a report. students "talk" to each other via IM about what they have found, evaluate the importance of the information, share interpretations about what it means, and ultimately, decide what to put in a final synthesis. contributes to cooperative learning communities outside of school.

hopping or toggling from window to window, allows readers to rapidly read multiple texts in different genres and to intersperse online conversation about what they are reading.

Blogs Receiving responses from readers outside the classroom

versus just peers Alternative, non-mainstream media perspective on news

and information. Stories are often investigated more depth than their

counterparts in the mainstream media. Need to read critically to understand what is reliable

information versus what is provocative.

Blog use A new blog is created every 5.3 seconds On Nov. 1, there were almost 4.3 million blogs, a

million more than three months before. Half of them are regularly updated by their

creators, producing more than 400,000 fresh postings every day.

Joshua Marshall's Talking Points Memo, gets more than 500,000 monthly visitors.

(Sifry, 2004, The Nation).

Digital storytelling/essays Using digital tools to create hypermedia

texts HyperstudioTM StoryspaceTM

http://www.eastgate.com/ PowerPointTM/BreezeTM

Hypertext links: understand cultural/literary connections Nancy Patterson’s: Use of Storyspace:

hypertext narratives with links to information about slavery.

http://faculty.gvsu.edu/patterna/ace.html

http://www.npatterson.net/mid.html

Hypertext fiction: links based on cultural/literacy background

Eastgeate Storyspace rading room:

http://www.eastgate.com/ReadingRoom.html

iMovieTM as presentation tool Allows learner control. Fosters social collaboration/construction of ideas Makes thinking audible. Engages learners in literacy practices. Enhances critical viewing skills of videos/film. Sample applications of iMovie:

http://ali.apple.com/ali_sites/ali/new_high.php

iChat AV and iSight: videoconferencing

Civil War iSight event: Civil War re-enactment group encamped at South Gate Middle School, Los Angeles

Using iChat AV and iSights, wireless connections and projectors, students as far away as Martha’s Vineyard connect with Civil War experts.

http://ali.apple.com/ali_sites/ali/exhibits/1001367/

Digital audio recording Use of compressed digital audio files, DSS

files Oral feedback to students’ writing

E-mail students files/record of feedback Recording interviews

Analysis of data by stopping Creating sound files/”radio” productions

Files shared with others

DUSTY—“Digital Underground Storytelling for Youth,” Oakland multimedia digital stories

author’s voice, photographs, video, and music http://www.uclinks.org/voices/vce_home.html

“ The story has a remarkable opening in which several photographs are juxtaposed, including a sphinx and pyramids, Malcolm X, Tupac Shakur, Marcus Garvey, and Biggie Smalls, all icons that Randy chose to associate with himself and to transcend” (Hull, 2003)

Multi-genre/hypertext presentation of results Boese (1998): dissertation

study of Xena fan club 1,100 Web sites related

to the show, data on fan conferences, and analysis of fan responses

Includes reader comments/reactions

http://www.nutball.com/dissertation/index.htm

Digital media representations Critical analysis of how web sites

represent: Entertainment: casinos, sports, TV/film Genre worlds: romance, mystery, comedy,

soap opera, detective, reality-TV, etc. News broadcasts/political issues Groups according to race, class, gender Consumer product/consumer needs

Merging: games/schooling Computer games

Interactive role play Sims

Narrative worlds Roles, norms,

Gee (2003): learning principles

Socialization Levels of expertise Agency /Community

Simulations/fiction Interactive drama

Game design as metaphor for learning

communities of practice Online chat/simulations Tappedin.org

Game design: Narrative architecture (Jenkins, 2004) Environmental storytelling

Spatial stories: Tolkien/Verne/Baum Theme parks: evoke world of “pirates”

Enacting stories Use of micronarratives: touchdown pass

Embedded narratives: detective genre Emergent narratives: Sims

Gee (2003): learning principles related to games Amplification of Input Principle

For a little input, learners get a lot of output. Achievement Principle

Intrinsic rewards from the beginning, customized to each learner’s level, effort, and growing mastery and signaling the learner’s ongoing achievements.

Practice principle Learners get lots and lots of practice in a context where the

practice is not boring. Research on game playing on learning

http://www.lsda.org.uk/files/PDF/1529.pdf

Teaching digital literacies Rethink literacy curriculum

Notions of “texts”/text design Learning tool use in activity

Engage students in hypermedia production

Exploit student out-of-school expertise Mesh literary “worlds” with digital

simulations