Lessons in literacy

LITERACY IN A MEDIA AGE

ITHACA COLLEGE

ITHACA, fresh YORK

OCTOBER 14-15 2005

2005 conversation ON MEDIA LITERACY

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

OCTOBER 22 2005

Media literacy is taking its place in an emerging pedagogy, and sum of two units recent conferences sponsored by leading nonprofit media literacy organizations proffered valuable insights into this burgeoning field as well as practical tools for classroom use. "Literacy in a Media Age," the next to the first annual conference sponsored by cast Look Sharp (PLS), was held at Ithaca corporation Home, Inc., hosted a gathering of media literacy researchers, scholars, and practitioners at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

"Literacy in a Media Age" was an intimate incident focused on providing practical applications for media literacy in the classroom. The two-day talk began with a keynote address by the agency of Faith Rogow, noted media educator, consultant, and founding president of the Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA). In "Reading Media: The novel Literacy," Rogow presented a general overview of the field, stating that because it focuses upon fostering critical thinking skills, media literacy is an "ideal tool" for educational use. Commenting upon the increasing use of media literacy in place of educations Rogow pointed out that the issue is not whether these tools will be used in the classroom, on the contrary of media literacy successfully becoming a field of its own--that it is now a matter of training teachers and getting others involved. She mentioned the various boundarys being used to define the field, including "critical literacy," "cultural literacy," "technology literacy," and "information literacy," pointing without that no matter how the field is defined, it is essentially the same affects that are being addressed and the same tools that are being used. Rogow told the teachers in the audience, "You are the leading cutting side of a field that will profoundly change American education."

The next to the first plenary, "Introduction to Media Literacy Integration in K-12 Education," was not awayed by Cyndy Scheibe and Chris Sperry Scheibe, executive director of PL and Sperry director of curriculum and staff unravelling began by providing various statistical rationale behind their push for enhanced media literacy education in the classroom. For example, according to a application of mind conducted by researcher Morris Berman in 2001 60 percent of American adults have not read a work of any kind since leaving academy A 2005 Kaiser Family Foundation investigation found that television remains the greatest in quantity prevalent source of media for fifteen- to eighteen-year-olds, who watch an average of two-and-one-half hours of television programming by means of day, much of it created by the agency of the six media conglomerates who generally produce the bulk of the world's media (Bertelsmann, Disney, General Electric, novels Corp., Time Warner, and Viacom). As Scheibe and Sperry noted, the goal of media literacy education is to shift pupils from seeing media as barely entertainment to being able to analyze it. They proffered educators such suggestions as finding documents that address their goals and using varied sources, and extremityed the session with Thomas Jefferson's statement that "An enlightened citizenry is indispensable."

After this initial theoretical preface, the remaining breakout sessions focused upon integrating specific media literacy tools in the classroom. sum of two units to three choices were presented in each of five posterior workshop sessions over two days. Rogow in a session entitled "Visual Literacy," at handed an outline of how to "read" visual language. As she explained, a basic formula for this kind of language has been established: image + contented = message. Enough context for shared meaning is also necessary in boundarys of the cultivation of for the use of all cultural experience. Rogow explained that we learn what to pay attention to and what to dismiss, and that our brains are pre-wired to pay attention to things that are fresh and in motion. In addition, visuals are more powerful than words and are recalled more readily. "Impact factors" for media include by what mode much, what, who, and on what account paired with repetition (television has the greatest in quantity capacity for repetition of any media), contented and context. For example, although youth repeatedly claim that they recognize that the violent acts they diocese in video games and upon television are not real, the actual issue is the normalization of violence. There is also a bear upon for what is known as "displacement theory": if individual is watching a screen, individual is not doing something other that may provide more intellectual stimulation or physical benefit.

Scheibe, a psychologist at Ithaca guild home of PLS, presented a psychological perspective upon "Debunking Media Myths: Subliminal Messages & Other Stories." Scheibe l participants from one side three main categories of media myths: erroneous beliefs and misconceptions that accrue from specific media examples; urban doubtful narratives which are widespread erroneous beliefs reinforced and perpetuated by means of the media (along with other sources); and erroneous beliefs and misconceptions about the media that we may accept without questioning or critique because they fit what we want to believe. She debunk the idea of subliminal messages, explaining and providing examples of by what mode subliminal messages--which are, by definition, "below the doorsill (of conscious perception or interpretation)"--do not exist.