ERIC ED391500: Teaching Media: English Teachers as Media and Technology Critics.

10 Pages·1995·0.24 MB·English

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 391 500
IR 017 653
AUTHOR
Semali, Ladislaus M.
TITLE
Teaching Media: English Teachers as Media and
Technology Critics.
PUB DATE
[95]
NOTE
10p.; In: Eyes on the Future: Converging Images,
Ideas, and Instruction. Selected Readings from the
Annual Conference of the International Visual
Literacy Association (27th, Chicago, IL, October
18-22, 1995); see IR 017 629.
PUB TYPE
Reports
Research/Technical (143)
Speeches/Conference Papers (150)
EDRS PRICE
MFOI/PC01 Plus Postage.
DESCRIPTORS
*Critical Viewing; *Educational Needs; Elementary
Secondary Education; *English Teachers; Information
Literacy; *Mass Media Effects; *Mass Media Role;
Social Influences; Workshops
IDENTIFIERS
Pennsylvania State University
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the role of media in presenting
information to society and emphasizes the need for English teachers
to incorporate critical media awareness .into education. Four
postulations are identified that are at the core of teaching media as
a form of textual construction: (1) all media are a construction,
which represents conscious and unconscious decisions about what
knowledge is valid and valued;
(2) audiences negotiate meaning;
(3)
the curriculum represents ideology and values and has social and
political implications; and (4) the nature of media messages
can
affect social attitudes and behavior. A group of 20 teachers
attending a media literacy workshop at Pennsylvania State University
in the summer of 1994 were asked to rate the frequency with which
thcy undertook certain core critical media literacy activities;
results revealed that teachers were not aware of what they could do
about media in their language arts classrooms and that nonprint media
are still an isolated phenomena in schools. The workshop encouraged
teachers to work towards integrating forms of media literacy into
their teaching and covered analysis of codes and conventions,
personal experience, cultural and ideological meanings, and
commercial overtones and economic strategies. A table depicts the
teachers' ratings on media practice in the classroom. (Contains 12
references.) (AEF)
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Teaching Media: English Teachers
as Media and Technology Critics
Ladislaus M. Semali
the page for more news to satisfy their
With television, an event is broadcast or ignored:
either it is in enormous headlines or it is no where
appetites or to abandon what is boring.
at all.
This power to choose what the great mass
They do not elect or decide what makes
of people shall see .
is altogether too great to
.
.
the news headlines or commercials of
be kft to the judgement of a few television
that day.
It might be, as suggested by
companies and to private arrangements made by
Andersen
what
p.
(1995,
1),
committees and commercial sponsors.
is
considered objective news or innocent
Walter Lippmann
cultural
shows
been
may
have
placed
strategically
popular
with
Many homes in America have a
programs by advertisers in this age of
television that is turned on for more
commercial clutter.
Thus, Andersen
than seven hours per day.
Individuals
contends that in a highly competitive
spend more time watching television
commercial market, advertisers strive to
than any other leisure
and,
activity
incorporate their products within the
cumulatively, far more time in front of
broader media environment.
In this
the television than school; only work
way, persuasive messages appear to be
absorbs more waking time.
authentic sectors of the landscape of
popular culture, rather than deliberate
Furthermore, polls reveal that
advertisements urging consumers to buy
more people depend on television for
products.
news and information than on any other
medium or source and that it is the most
Indeed the media, particularly,
trusted source of news and information
has become
television
the
nation's
(Broadcast/Cable
Yearbook,
1989;
teacher of choice. In a discussion of thc
Gilbert, 1988; Roper, 1981, cited in
socialization effects of television, Kellner
Kellner, 1990, p. 2). As Lippmann
that
argues
(1982)
television
has
claims in the above quote, audiences
replaced fairy tales and myths as the
have no control over what they hear or
ly)
primary producer of children's
tales.
tp
watch on television, radio, or see in
present day programming,
Even
in
newspaper headlines. However, they
television continues to be one of the
have a choice to flip the channel or turn
most important producers of myths and
207
AVAILABLE
BES1 COM
America and the developing world did
symbol:: in the society. He concludes
they hold that allowed for their reaction
that television has become a powerful
in forming
to the picture? What role
Both television
socializing machine.
those understandings was played by the
entertainment-and information may well
mass media on this day, as on
most
because
precisely
power
in
gain
others, was uncriticaleven celebratory--
individuals are not aware that their
of American military intervention?
thoughts and behaviors are being shaped
ubiquitous idea and image
by the
I felt the need, more than ever,
machines of their homes (Kellner, 1990,
the
of
the
models
understand
to
In a broad sense, this means
p. 126).
of
cultural
and
world
developing
continuous
television provides
that
difference, broadly shared by white,
offering a
education throughout life,
middle-class Americans, that many of
popular day and night school for the
brought to
our undergraduate students
nation.
the classrooms and that I myself struggle
with and against.
One day in October 1994, after
the
of
Haiti,
the
US
invasion
I
consideration,
much
After
Philadelphia Inquirer published a front-
turned to the examination of network
Carol Guzy, a
page picture shot by
pictures
news, particularly the visual
photographer of the Washington Post.
presented as one of the most culturally
This picture captured the looting of a
valued and potent media vehicle shaping
school warehouse in Port au Prince
and
of,
understanding
American
The
while the US troops looked on.
the
responses to, the world outside
woman,
Haitian
read:
"A
caption
United States.
clutching a sack of rice that is caked on
her face, lies injured during a food riot
My interest was, and is, in the
in Port
at the Catholic school warehouse
making and consuming of images of the
fought over
au Prince. Groups of men
raising
topic
a
world,
non-western
even
attacking
yesterday,
food
the
of power,
and
race,
volatile
issues
Passing U.S.
women and children.
history. What does popular education
troops did not intervene"
(Inquirer,
who
about
"non-
Americans
tell
1994, p. 1).
Westerners are, what they want, and
what our relationship is to them.
As
Troubled and perplexed by this
America, the
I wondered what it
any other popular media in
graphic picture,
network news wdsts in a complex system
would mean to my American students.
of artifacts and communication devices:
What images might this picture evoke in
newspapers and magazines, television
What do images of the
their minds?
and
news and special reports, museums
for my students.
poor and hungry mean
exhibitions, geography and world history
So I took the picture to my pre-service
textbooks, student exchange programs,
student teachers. My concern was how
travelogues and films from Rambo and
much did they know about the US
Raiders of the Lost Ark to El Norte.
Did they know
intervention in Haiti?
of
U.S.
the
of
history
anything
Yet these diverse contexts are in
intervention in the CanbbeanGrenada,
another,
one
with
Panama, and now once again Haiti?
communication
purveying and limited
contesting
a
What pre-wdsting understandings about
208
taught to look for certain cues.
of about
It can
cultural
ideas
universe
difference and how it can or should be
also be seen as a commodity, because it
interpreted. To use television network
is sold by a newspaper concerned with
news or newspaper photographs
revenues.
as
is to study not a
pedagogical sights
single cultural artifact but a powerful
The visual structures represented
in the photograph, and the reading
voice in an ongoing cultural discussion
of these issues.
The history, culture,
rendered by audiences, can tell us about
of
and
the
North-South
and
reality
social
cultural, historical
social,
that produced them.
relations is primarily written, of course,
contexts
An
attempt to study visual structures leads
in corporation boardrooms, government
us to the way in which meanings are
agency offices, and encounters between
offered to us and our part in actively
tourists, bankers, military personnel, and
State Department employees, on the
It is important
making sense of them.
one hand, and the people of the
to keep in mind that the assumptions we
make, what we consider as common
Developing Nations on the other.
or
or
knowledge
common
sense,
The role of a cultural institution
or w idespread
knowledge,
"general"
like the Network evening news or the
popular
beliefs
attitudes,
and
are
conventions we form as part of our
Philadelphia Inquirer and its viewers
and readers, respectively, might seem
cultural knowledge.
small by comparison. But its role is not
The
fundamentally
simply to form an "educated public," nor
critical
perspective I take on media and its
err
or
to
it
mislead
simply
is
in
describing those relations; it can also
social context is thus linked in a range
provide support for American state
of ways to deeply personal concerns.
I
policies and for voting and consumer
am concerned with how to imagine and
value difference, how to foster both
behavior (Lutz & Collins, 1993).
empathetic forms of understanding and
While a front-page picture of the
grounded
historically
perceptions.
Philadelphia
Inquirer
seen
These
perceptions
emerge
out
of
as
a
is
straightforward kind of evidence about
childhood and adolescent experiences
the world--a simple and objective mirror
and the choice one makes of adult work.
is in fact evidence of a
My goal here is
of reality--it
to bring a critical
much more complex, interesting, and
perspective into the ways media, such as
consequential world
of
reality.
It
newspaper photographs are constructed,
to point out some of the prevailing
reflects as much on who is behind the
ideas about others
lens, from photographers to newspaper
cultural
through
of the non-
editors, and graphic designers to the
which any photograph
readers
Western world has often been filtered,
sometimes
who look--with
different eyes--through the Philadelphia
and to raise questions about what could
be done in the classroom and in the
Inquirer's institutional lens.
develop such
curriculum
to
critical
A photograph can be seen as a
perspectives. This kind of critical theory
cultural artifact because its makers and
of media must analyze the ways in which
readers look at the world with an eye
media images organize experiences and
not universal or natural but
that
then attempt to specify their effects and
is
209
different audiences respond to these
deconstruct their linguistic discursive
Similarly,
messages in different ways.
positions.
of
method
the
and
the
message
presentation in our schools is accepted
We must ask: How do pictures --
based upon their
or rejected by students
both moving and still-- create for us an
past
including
needs
and
culture
and
almost palpable world of objects
experiences, racial, ethnic and socio-
events? As a young professor at a state
economic status.
I am struggling to teach
university,
that
about cultural differences in ways
Third the curriculum represents
undergraduates in the
are meaningful to
ideology and values and has social and
1990s and beyond.
Mass media
implications.
political
assumptions of
messages are based on
My teaching of media texts as a
truth and affect social and political
construction
is
of
textual
form
Rather
behavior in a variety of ways.
that
the
assumption
in
embedded
of
equality
representing
than
audiences bring individual preexisting
opportunity or principles of equity, the
dispositions even though the media may
and
culture
organization,
content,
contribute to their shaping of basic
climate of both education and the mass
attitudes, beliefs, values and behavior.
media as institutions privilege certain
26),
As summed up by Lusted (1991, p.
sectors of society while ignoring or
construction
at the core of such textual
marginalizing others. This can happen
which include four
are basic assumptions
in the frequency of representations /
postulations.
responsiveness, or in the nature and
quality of these representations and
are
media
a
First,
all
responses.
construction. Any niedia text--written or
electronic, including in large part the
Fourth, the nature of media
a construction.
school curriculum
is
attitudes and
messages can affect social
Also, the viorldview, information and
Equally, the nature of the
behavior.
perspectives created by both mass media
curriculum both plain and hidden, can
curriculum are
messages and the school
affect social attitudes and behavior. For
primarily a construction of reality rather
example, the self-esteem of minority
than reality itself.
audiences can be affected by negative
Such representations
representations.
In a nutshell, textual construction
majority
can also affect perceptions of
incorporates the way the media use
students toward minorities.
make
audiences
how
conventions,
meanings from them, and how these
For many
individual
people,
meanings v.re applied within a cultural
attitudes and worldviews about others
context (Lusted, 1991, p. 123).
Such
knowledge.
seem natural and common
construction represents conscious and
What seems so
actually
natural
is
what
about
decisions
unconscious
learned from our earliest moments and
knowledge is valid and valued.
becomes part of our social experience.
negotiate
audiences
Second,
It is not surprising therefore for
meaning. While media content and the
teachers to take television for granted
are
significant,
intent
producer's
210
-a
sometimes. Today viewers everywhere
values (Barnouw, 1966, cited in Kellner,
tend to accept it as a window on the
1990).
world, and to watch it for hours each
day. Viewers feel that they understand,
Time has come for educators no
from television alone, what is going on
longer to consider television and other
in the world. They unconsciously look
non-print media as the enemy, thief or
to what
to
guidance
for
the ubiquitous bubble. Students feel the
it
as
is
important, good, and desirable, and
onslaught of the information age even
what is not. It has tended to displace or
more acutely than their teachers and are
overwhelm other influences such as
less capable of coping with its demands
and of making sense of the complex
newspapers, school, and church. Thus,
has become our constant
world it presents.
Teachers can help
television
companion, in the home, in the hotel
their students cope with this complexity
room, in the hospital--educating and
by suggesting analytical frameworks and
entertaining us from the nursery school
perspectives for sorting out and thinking
to the nursing home, from womb to
critically about them.
tomb!
But
other
Teachers as Critics
and
television
as
electronic media grow in importance,
social problems in America have grown
Teachers in many school districts
proportionately. Although critics do not
in Pennsylvania pay little or no attention
claim a cause and effect relationship,
at all to television, perhaps because they
they have by and large accepted the
accept TV as a given. The burgeoning
proposition that violence, drug abuse,
movement which
media
literacy
is
and teenage pregnancy, result from a
the
to
change
seeking
relationship
culture
celebrates
that
media
between the media and educators and to
consumerism and instant gratification
engage students in a critical analysis of
undercurrents
tolerating
while
of
television images and other mass media
prejudice and bigatory.
messages has not caught up in many
Pennsylvania schools.
Author Richard Louv quipped,
"Television hijacks so many parts of our
In assessing the level of critical
brain, that it leaves little room for self-
media awareness, a group of 20 teachers
generated
images
and
attending a media literacy workshop at
ideas
.
.
.
Television is simply a thief of time--of
the
Pennsylvania
State
University,
creative time, of family time" (cited in
Summer 1994, voiced their opinions
Aronson, 1994, p. 29).
about classroom practice when asked to
rate the frequency with which they
the
undertook certain core critical media
In
of
span
lifetime,
a
television and other electronic media
literacy activities. On a scale from 1-5,
have replaced
the primary
print
the teachers indicated how often they
as
medium by which we tell our stories,
undertook these core activities in their
report our news and decide on our
classrooms ranging from never, not very
purchases--and our votes, particularly in
often sometimes, often, to very often.
an election year.
It has become the
The mean scores of their ratings are
definer and transmitter of a society's
given in Table 1.
21 1
TABLE 1
Teachers Ratings on Media Practice in the Classroom
Mean
STATEMENT
Rating
2.83
and its social and
I talk to my students, friends and colleagues about the media
1.
political influence.
4.17
deliberately choose
I no longer just turn on the TV or a video game; rather, I
2.
media experiences to which I want to be exposed.
4.11
I seek out alternative sources for news and information.
3.
2.50
thus enable them to
I teach my students critical viewing of television programs;
4.
detect bias or stereotypes of gender, race and ethnicity.
1
3.53
convince us to buy
I can readily identify common techniques used by advertisers to
5.
products, thus becoming less responsive to those techniques.
4.32
cable channels,
I support smaller, local media outlets (newspapers, magazines,
6.
radio, etc.).
0.0
that express my
I create media experiences (videotapes, audio tapes, newsletters)
7.
own viewpoints.
that they
2.11
I help my students identify needs the mass media fill in their own lives so
8.
begin to pick and use the media to meet those needs more effectively.
1.63
producers.
I write letters to advertisers, TV stations, radio deejays, sitcom
9.
2.47
I help my students to question the role advertising plays in fueling the consumer
10.
lifestyle, perhaps beginning to consume less and thus live more responsibly.
seminal in understanding
scope are
The teachers gave a high mean
how teachers view the media and
rating of 4.32 to activities that support
whether they apply critical practice in
local media outlets, followed by a
their classrooms.
rating of 4.17 to indicate that in fact
they choose media experiences which
The overall picture shows that
they wish to watch or be exposed to.
the teachers who participated in the
Even though teachers indicated that
workshop were not aware of what they
they often seek out alternative sources
could do about media in their language
for news and information, there were
Furthermore,
classrooms.
.arts
these
what
to
as
indications
no
nonprint media, especially those that
alternatives were.
lives, arc
are part of students' everyday
still considered as isolated phenomena
The data revealed that teachers
in schools.
did not write to advertisers or TV
to
producers
media
or
stations
theory
critical
Contemporary
to
comment on
or
programming
and media studies point out that the
bias or
express their opinions about
most glaring failure of US schools in
Activities
programs.
stereotypical
this decade is the failure to situate
the
their
students
in
engaging
context
cultural
learning
its
in
production of media were non-existent.
Many English
1989).
(Sorenson,
These results, even though limited in
212
the summer workshop
teachers,
for
teach
example,
curriculum,
still
alluded to above, outlined areas of
literature and literacy (reading) as if
motion
pictures, and
television,
media literacy that could help teachers
make a
computers did not exist. What we are
or
difference
English
in
still missing from the school canon are
language arts classrooms.
examples of the literary genres of our
times: films, television series, serialized
The workshop encouraged these
teachers to join the estimated 3,500
drama, and multimedia experiences, all
of which provide their own versions of
teachers nationwide committed to work
the best of human expression and
towards integrating forms of media
aesthetic experience.
their
literacy
into
The
teaching.
workshop covered
four areas:
(1)
analyzing codes and conventions of
These new media provide their
They are for
own criticism of life.
language,
(2)
personal
analyzing
pleasure,
understandings,
and
Barbara Tothrow, who leads classes in
video production and media literacy at
experience,
(3)
cultural,
analyzing
Alvirne High School in Alvirne, N.H.,
ideological
meanings,
(4)
analyzing
the
the
of
accent
new
commercial overtones and economic
English
"It makes sense to teach
curriculum.
strategies.
our kids how to read this medium just
as critically as we have traditionally
Borrowing from the field of
taught them to read print" (Sorenson,
semiotics, an important area of study
of textual
1988, p. 42).
are
texts
analysis,
all
constructions
of
meaning
constructed through language.
As educators, we can no longer
To
the
that
ignore
fact
increasingly,
many teachers and students, texts, like
nonprint media -- including television,
weekly television programs, newspaper
music, video, videotape, film, radio,
or
articles
the
pictures
one
like
compact
for
and
describM above, might seem simple
hypertext
disk,
personal computers -- have become
and obvious reflections of reality; but
sources of information and
primary
when teachers and students begin to
recreation, as well as emotional and
read them critically (and deconstruct
for Americans.
them as languages), they begin to
artistic
experiences
Efforts like the teachers' workshop of
understand them in a new light: as
Summer
or
the
complex, technical
regional
constructions or
1994
workshops sponsored by Newspapers
representations of reality, not reality
In Education (NIE) group for teachers
What they may have often
itself.
to learn how to use the newspaper to
sensed, then, as "realistic" might more
teach students how to deconstruct
be
accurately
described
their
as
newspaper
be
the
messages,
can
a
familiarity
with
and
codes
wonderful
opportunity
conventions of the language used to
to
develop
students'
construct imagery.
critical awareness in the media and
how the media represent people.
far
As
television
as
is
concerned, the conventions used seem
so familiar to many students in our
In an attempt to forge new ways
of integrating popular media across the
culture. For example, most television
213
I.
potentially controversial, need to be
known to
programs use characters well
examined so students can confront the
These characters already
viewers.
of
deluge
the
stereotyping,
appeal to a loyal audience with their
propaganda, and editorial gatekeeping
It is acceptable
established identities.
media. Such study
so prevalent in the
for familiar characters whom viewers
will allow students to discover how
know and loveto smoke cigars and
nonprint media works are
indeed
Exposure),
say "damn" (e.g., Northern
that
have
reality
of
constructions
and to persuade audiences to purchase
value
and
ideological
commercial,
goods, services, and gadgetry they do
messages.
Jordan
not really need (e.g., Michael
advertising for Nike; Whoopi Goldberg
for AT&T or Candice Bergen (Murphy
Brown) for Sprint).
References
Because of the dearth of media
literacy awareness in classrooms, it is
Consumer
Andersen, R.
(1995).
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not surprising to find youngsters
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years and still graduate
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Teachers are
Aronson, D. (1994).
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what TV tells them about the world.
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Teaching Tolerance, Fall 1994. pp. 7-
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12.
to be critics!
A Tower of
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recognize the students' knowledge and
Compendium of
Gilbert, D. (1988).
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students'
the
to
develop
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thinking about nonprint media.
File.
It is in this respect therefore
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the
develop
must
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that
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and
awareness
critical
knowledge,
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215