Media education in the '90s - 1992 'Constructing Culture: Media Education in the 1990s' conference

"Media literacy" has its theoretical roots in left-leaning cultural studies. it is also the inheritor and, to some degree, synthesizer of media education projects, versions of which have circulated since the 1920s. Further, media literacy acts as an umbrella term for teaching practices that make students aware of the constructedness of mass media: The theory and the practice of media literacy don't always meet, but the term is nonetheless generating some fascinating experiments in teaching about mass media, as was evident in May of this year during "Constructing Culture: Media Education in the 1990s." The conference was the second held by the Canadian Association for Media Literacy in Guelph, Ontario.

Canada, where in the province of Ontario a media literacy program is now a mandatory part of the K-12 curriculum, provided the great bulk of participants, many of them public school teachers. In his opening remarks Barry Duncan, a Canadian public school teacher and administrator who has been something of a guru for the media literacy movement, charted the successful history of efforts to place media literacy into the public school curriculum. Present as well were representatives from a clutch of Canadian film and video distributors, and nonprofit organizations such as the liaison organization Center for Media Literacy and the Vancouver-based watchdog and grassroots activist group Media Foundation, which publishes Adbusters.

From Britain and Australia came leading theorists and practitioners of media literacy such as Len Masterman (author of Teaching the Media, 1985), Cary Bazalgette of the British Film Institute (author of a variety of teaching packages and of Media Education [1991]), and Barrie McMahon and Robyn Quin, Australian educators and authors of the media literacy textbook Meet the Media (1988).(1)

United States representatives, most of whose work in media literacy has no institutional curricular support, made up a hardy and diverse band. Kathleen Tyner, who with her San Francisco-based organization Strategies for Media Literacy has long been a lifeline for U.S. educators, provided informal networking services throughout the conference. Elizabeth Thoman, founder and head of the Catholic Church-related Center for Media and Values, was also in attendance, as was Steve Goodman from the Educational Video Center in New York and several representatives of the Madison Wisconsin-based National Telemedia Council, a clearinghouse on media teaching issues Attendees such as Bill Constanzo from the National Council of Teachers of English, David Hoppe from the Indiana Humanities Council, and Renee Hobbs, a Harvard professor who has done extensive teacher training in media education, were typical of the U.S. participants - people pioneering in media education at their respective institutions.

Media literacy is a contentious concept from the start. If literacy is defined as being able to read, then what needs to be "read" about the mass media? What does a conventionally literate person need to know to be "media literate" about a newspaper or magazine? Toddlers can listen to the radio and watch TV and "read" them with sometimes disturbing ease. And if critical "reading" - the ability to divine construction and decipher buried codes of meaning - is at issue, then what kind of critique is the goal?

If there was any consensus about what media literacy is at the conference, it came from the formulations Duncan and others put forward in the Ontario Ministry of Education's guide to media literacy.(2) There, eight "media literacy key concepts" are spelled out, including "all media are constructions," "media have economic implications," and "media contain ideological and value messages." Unifying these concepts is the idea that all mass communication is crafted, for a purpose, and within certain cultural parameters. Media literacy acknowledges, although sometimes only implicitly, that communication is a cultural artifact, not a transparent recorder of "fact," and that mass communication is shaped by powerful social and political forces. A media-literate person does not accept television programs, films, or newspaper articles at face value but rather recognizes the constraints under which they have been made, perceives the social implications of the shaping of the message, and is able to manipulate - at least in theory or model - the constructing devices.

Sounds pretty clear, and even a lot like what many teachers have been doing with "critical thinking skills" for some time. Still, just below the surface media literacy as a project easily becomes confused, not only because of its political implications but because it is mired in the swamp of debates around mass media theory, audience reception, and cultural studies and research.

Cultural studies is among the most ambitious of the intellectual projects to address popular culture, and it has been particularly strong in the left wing of the academy.(3) But while conservatives have portrayed cultural studies as a politically dangerous project designed to deconstruct the canon and glorify the forces eroding consensus, as a wildly diverse intellectual movement cultural studies has lacked a relationship with social movements that would justify conservative fears. Academic and education critic Henry Giroux charged in a November 1990 Afterimage interview with David Trend (author of Cultural Pedagogy, 1992) that the movement "has no frame or political project. Cultural studies for what?"

This question might have been rephrased at the conference as "Media literacy for what?" Why do students need to be media literate? Answers were various. Some teachers want to give students the tools to control their own expression, or even provide them with a job skill - a perhaps unreasonable expectation for the great majority of students. Some want to give them weapons against mass media's seductions, a noble concept that unfortunately pits the teachers against a pop culture envisioned as the latest Satanic lure from high culture. Some see media literacy as a Trojan horse that leftists can use to sneak their critique of commodity culture and its concomitant ideologies into the public schoolsan agenda that is at odds with that of many public school teachers. Teachers may even get caught up in a sentimental solidarity with students, or indulge a voyeuristic fascination with the students' pop culture.(4)

The problem of defining goats reflects the state of research on popular culture generally. How influential are the mass media in shaping our attitudes and actions? We do not have good answers, although competing and conflicting preconceptions jostled each other comfortably at the conference. For instance, plenary speaker Susan Cole, a Canadian feminist journalist, gave a vivid, although familiar presentation of negative and stereotypical images of women in magazines and newspapers. Her outrage drew great sympathy from the audience, which included several female members incensed at the choice of a violent popular film, Lethal Weapon III (1992) by Richard Donner, for a screening the night before.

At the same time, sessions included a virtual litany on the importance of a positive approach to popular culture and to engaging the student's response to mass media. The emphasis on the role of culture and media in students' lives has something to do with successful management - don't disparage the stuff they like or they won't talk in class - and something to do with theories of audience reception. In contrast to the old-guard Frankfurt School theorists of mass delusion, many analyists who focus on the position of the viewer argue that different audiences "read" media very differently and that ostensibly oppressive messages may be read in empowering ways. For instance, unlike some adult critics who see Madonna as reinforcing sexist stereotypes, young women may see her as a positive role model because she commands the center of attention in her videos and governs the construction of her many images.

Theories of audience response have promised to take the snobbery out of pop cultural studies, but it remains an area in need of much more concrete research. This has not impeded a flood of romantic empowerment rhetoric, postulating without substantiation pop culture as a culturally liberating force?

The very idea of teaching about popular culture can be inflammatory to some. Several public school teachers at the conference noted parental anxiety when students were assigned to watch prime-time television, for example. Conservative administrators and teachers often abhor the intrusion of "trash culture" into the school day. Students, ironically, may also see the subject matter as inappropriate because they don't want adults invading their cultural privacy.

Other conflicts of vision also surfaced at the conference. For many teachers and analysts, "media" might as well be coterminous with "television," admittedly a powerful source of information but only one of the mass media. (Radio is my personal selection for the most unjustly neglected medium.) Some would like to incorporate media literacy through the entire curriculum, while others want a separate media studies class.

And some, especially television producers and distributors like TV Ontario and HBO, use the term media literacy to include television about anything "educational"-gun control, family stress, teen pregnancy - rather than media about media itself. Ironically, HBO has produced two excellent examples of media about media, Buy Me That and Buy Me That Too (1991), about TV commercials for kids.

Although theoretical issues and questions of definition emerged during the conference discussions, what many attendees came for were teaching techniques and materials. These abounded, although U.S. participants suffered from the fact that many audio-visual materials have not been cleared for US. distribution. Thus, impressive BFI media teaching packets and a multi-hour compilation video on documentary produced through the National Film Board of Canada are unavailable in the U.S.

One session, demonstrating how two Canadian teachers had used discussions of The Simpsons and Beverly Hills 90210 with sixth and seventh graders, suggested the wealth of creativity teachers bring to popular culture material. Class exercises explored the difference between media and reality ("Do you know someone like Homer Simpson?") and the transmission of values ("Do you want your parents to act like those in 90210?"). They also required students to dissect the structure of television shows by recording the length and type of shots in the opening teasers.

The teachers, who say students enjoy the sessions, believe they are effective. There is no followup evidence to suggest how such approaches affect long-range media habits, of course. But Canadian educators are beginning to address questions of evaluation and assessment questions that follow upon the institutionalization of media literacy.

Several teachers brought teaching materials that they are in the process of developing, such as Ellen Bessen and her inventive, stepped approach to teaching about film production. Many of the practical exercises do not require film production facilities, which some schools do not have.(6) Screenings exposed viewers to an array of films and videos, including the savagely witty, 20-minute The Middle Child (Mark Sawers, 1989). The video, which appears at the outset to be a ham-handed home video made by several members of a suburban family during a birthday party, gradually evolves into a black-humor narrative of dysfunctional family dynamics. It raises issues of authenticity, documentary style, editing form and narrative structure.

On display in an exhibit of books and other resources on media literacy was a tidy, effective, half-hour Canadian video on gender stereotyping and the media, What's Wrong with This Picture? (1991) by MediaWatch, which spelled out several "media literacy key concepts." The interactive videodisc The Critical Eye: Inside TV Advertising (1992), produced by Strategies for Media Literacy, briefly showcased in a mock-up demonstration, enables viewers to create their own ad campaign. Workshop kits from the Center for Media and Values on subjects such as tobacco and alcohol advertising, media coverage of the Gulf War, and sexism were also on display. Perhaps the most dazzling example of media criticism was the work of San Francisco video artist Phil Patiris. His Network Wars (1992), shown at a plenary session, intercut manipulated segments from U.S. television coverage of the Gulf War with science fiction imagery to make explicit the implicit ideology of the news images.(7)

Other recent conferences and newly-formed organizations demonstrate the growing popularity of media literacy in the U.S. Under the umbrella of the National Association of Media Arts Centers, the National Alliance for Media Education, a coalition composed both of groups and individuals, was formed last spring. The National Council of Teachers of English held a media literacy-focused conference in late May in Philadelphia. The Annenberg School of Communication has launched the Annenberg Scholars Program, in which a rotating group of in-residence scholars address a common theme, with an April conference focused on "Media Literacy and Children." In addition, the Aspen Institute's Communication and Society Program has targeted media literacy as a concern. However, it remains mainly outside the U.S. that the movement has been able to deepen its institutional roots through changes in curricular practice.

NOTES

1. A sizable collection of media literacy books is available at Theatrebooks, 25 Bloor St W, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4W 1A3 (416-922-7175).

2. Media Literacy Resource Guide: Intermediate and Senior Divisions, 1989, (Ontario Ministry of Education, 1989).

3. See Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson and Paula A. Treichler, ads., Cultural Studies, (New York: Routledge. Chapman and Hall, 1992).

4. These problems of defining goals are discussed in Henry Giroux and Roger Simon, "Popular Culture and Critical Pedagogy: Everyday Life as a Basis for Curriculum Knowledge." Critical Pedagogy, the State, and the Cultural Struggle, Henry Giroux and Peter McLaren, eds., (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), p. 247.

5. See S. Elizabeth Bird, "Power to the People? Some Questions on the Optimism of Cultural Studies," paper presented at International Communication Association, Miami, FL, May 1992; this perspective is further elaborated in her for Enquiring Minds, (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992).

6. Ellen Besen, Keith Lock, and Barbara Sternberg, A Filmmaker's Guide to Teaching Film (in Media Literacy). (Rough Draft). Sponsored by the Canadian Filmmaker's Distribution Centre. 67A Portland St, Toronto, Ontario, MSV 2M9 and the Ontario Ministry of Culture and Communications.

7. The Middle Child is distributed by Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, 67 A Portland St., Toronto, Ontario MSV 2M9 (416) 593-1808. For more information about What's Wrong With This Picture contact MediaWatch, 517 Wellington St. W., Suite #204, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 1G1 (416) 408-2065. Distributed by Canadian Filmmakers West, (604) 684-3014. Critical Eye is distributed by Strategies for Media Literacy, 1095 Market St., #410, San Francisco, CA 94103 (415) 621-2911. Workshop kits are distributed by the Center for Media and Values. 1962 S. Shenandoah St., Los Angeles, CA 90034 (310) 202-1936 Network Wars is distributed by Phil Patiris, 992 Valencia, San Francisco, CA 94100. (415) 826-1534.

Patricia Aufderheide is currently Associate Professor in the School of Communication at The American University, Washington, D.C., and a Senior Editor of In These times.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Visual Studies Workshop
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group