Confessions from the Media Classroom

By Lisa Wilk

A Public Voice for Youth: The Audience Problem in Digital Mediaand Civic Education By Peter Levine

Imagining the Audience: language,creativity and communication inyouth media productionBy David Buckingham & Issy Harvey

Structure vs. Chaos

A Closer Look at My Field Experience and the Key Points Found in the following texts:

My Field Sites: Two Public Schools

Teaching Video Journalism

Civic Education Meets Citizen Journalism • “It seems likely that active citizens check corruption and mismanagement.” – Levine

Journalists are the “watchdogs” of society.

• “Service learning means a combination of community service and academic work or classroom discussion; it is now present in half of American high schools.” –Levine

Students exposed to service learning gained more knowledge of civics and government and felt more confident about their own civic skills.

• HOWEVER, “[a]ctive learning can be counterproductive unless projects are well conceived and executed.” – Levine

This is a reoccurring problem in the Video Journalism course. Students are unsure what they really want to write about and even after sitting down with us, they resort back to their uncertainty.

•Community vs. School Stories school newspaper benefits those who produce it but has

no effects on the student body as a whole, because students are not sufficiently connected to the school community to care about its news.

Public and Private Voice•“All of these purposes of civic engagement are best served when people deliberate before they act, expressing opinions to some body of peers in an appropriate voice.” – Levine

• “Public voice as any style or tone that has a chance of persuading any other people (outside of one’s intimate circle) about shared matters, issues, or problems.” – Levine

We have introduced the Op. Ed. writing style to the students to promote their own passionate opinions in over generalized topics.

We have also gone over the issue of non-biased journalism, which confused them when we introduced Op. Ed.’s.

• PRIVATE Voice in Video Journalism = NO FACEBOOK Thanks to the School District of Philadelphia there is no

distraction of Facebook in the classroom. However, we do not have access to YouTube or Vimeo which is

really frustrating for me. Teaching how to write an email for an interview request (PBS

Newshour Student Reporting Labs).

Real Audiences?

• Audience for Video Journalism @ Rush School Community Student’s Local Community Parents Temple Students and Faculty NEastPhilly.com (Personal Outreach)

• How

The Production Context • Video Journalism

Demonstrating Understanding• USEDDD“Active learning can be counterproductive unless projects are well conceived and executed.” – Levine

This is a reoccurring problem in the Video Journalism course. Students are unsure what they really want to write about and even after sitting down with us, they resort back to their uncertainity.

•