Reviews
Media Alert, Fall 2009
January 12, 2010
Barry Duncan, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
American Media Education Conference
August 1- 4, 2009 - Detroit, USA
Title: Bridging Literacies: Critical Connections in a Digital World
Presented by NAMLE (The National Association for Media literacy Education), the largest group of media educators in the United States. Their organization has come a long way since its beginnings in 1995. A poor choice of date combined with many people's unwarranted misgivings about the city of Detroit helped to explain the low turnout (200 people).
With over 50 workshops and five keynote addresses, the conference was stimulating and well organized. NAMLE welcomes a range of educators, from those immersed in digital media to a faction of strong protectionists who take the view that the media are generally toxic! As one of two Canadians attending, I presented a workshop on assessing effective models for media education. (I still have difficulty with NAMLEís reluctance to distinguish between teaching through vs about the media)
Among the leading lights, Renee Hobbs (Media Lab, Temple University, Philadelphia) and Cyndy Scheibe (Look Sharp program, Ithaca College) have published some excellent, field-tested multi-literacy curriculum.
The keynote addresses were impressive. Chris Sperry of Project Look Sharp made some important points about media and experiential learning. Prolific UK scholar Sonia Livingstone spoke in-depth on the basis of her many faceted interests: domestic contexts for media, audience theory, curriculum, and new media.
My favorite moment occurred during a panel assessing the effectiveness of media education in which the influential Renee Hobbs offered cautionary optimism on our progress but then warned us that the softer, trendy school curriculum programs such as visual literacy and critical thinking had all but crashed and burned in the United States. Could media education meet a similar fate?
The next conference will take place in 2010 in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, there are numerous committees and caucuses to keep the flame burning. Of special note, they launched an interesting fully accessible online journal: Journal of Media Literacy Education (Jmle.org). Check it out and tell us what you think.
Until Canadians can put together a comparable conference we should make every effort to attend and present in Philadelphia.
NEW BOOKS
Mapping Media Education Policies in the World: Visions, Programs and Challenges, eds. Davina Frau-Meigs and Jordi Torrent. The United Nations Alliance of Civilization for UNESCO.
This collection of articles on media education around the world will fulfill an important role: informing us of the struggle to critically understand their global implications. Few will read this entire collection but it is worthwhile dipping into a cross section of the articles. Media educators from the developing world offer testimony to the enormous difficulties in developing suitable school curriculum. Some of the reports include those from countries such as Canada (AMLís Carolyn Wilson and Barry Duncan. N.B. Carolyn is a consultant to UNESCO), U.S., Turkey, Spain, UK, Zambia, Morocco, India, Egypt, and Ghana.
The last section deals with action plans, youth voices, and civic engagement. The editors write: 'It is UNESCOís hope that the information and knowledge contained in this collection will inspire readers to take action that is informed by expert knowledge.' Based in large part on the work of the Alliance for Civilization, the commission behind this document will be making recommendations for implementing best practices in media education. It is fortunate that the commission has made such a good start in making the case for the centrality of media education in school curriculum and beyond.
Media Literacy is Elementary: Teaching Youth to Critically Read and Create Media by Jeff Share, Peter Lang, 2009.
Jeff Share worked for Liz Thoman (Center for Media Literacy), did his doctorate under Douglas Kellner, (Cultural Studies guru at UCLA), observed an impressive critical literacy program in some elementary schools, and piloted some innovative curriculum. The book reflects all these inputs and offers us some exemplary curriculum.
I like the tough minded, transformative critical pedagogy appropriate throughout, accessing the work of social and media radicals such as Henry Giroux, Paulo Freire, Len Masterman and Robert Ferguson. The book becomes, in effect, an activist's guide for media literacy that acknowledges the necessity of social justice and an engaged citizenry. Clearly, the media literacy defined here as 'critical media literacy' (see the work of Peter McLaren) will make some educators who prefer bland and depoliticized material, wince.
A Guide to Effective Literacy, Grades 4-6, Vol Seven, Media Literacy 2008, 108 pages.
As school curriculum evolves, new guidelines are created and teachers scramble to look for guidance and concrete ideas for their classroom. This new Ontario Ministry of Education Media Literacy Resource will provide significant help, especially for elementary teachers who are new to the game. (Although this is a well laid out document, there was a limited printing. Access it electronically through www.cworkshop.on.ca (scroll to Documents, then Guide to Effective Instruction, to Writing, to Guide to Effective Instruction, finally to Volume Seven.
Using the media triangle and the Five Key Concepts, the guide presents a coherent framework to apply to media texts. There are detailed lesson plans on topics such as creating PSA'S, constructing a web site, and organizing promotions for feature films. All serve as exemplary models. The charts and rubrics will also be welcome.
My reservation about the document comes as no surprise: government documents avoid controversy, ideological, values and oppositional activities, which foster social justice. (It is unfortunate that after initial work by the writing team that there were no consultations. When will the Ministry come down from its lofty perch and allow stakeholders a needed voice?)
Congratulations to the writing team for their work in creating such a helpful document.
The Struggle for Literacy by Irving Lee Rother, Detsilig Enterprises, 2008, 205 pages
There are many positive as negative dimensions in the book by Lee Rother, a Montreal teacher and media educator whose book draws heavily from his doctoral thesis on the programme he devised for hard-to-serve students at ACEA (Alternative Career Education Programme.) The material connected with this project is fresh and his studentsí comments demonstrate real growth through dynamic new ways of presenting literature, creativity, and the social and cultural values of media studies.
The book's title - The Struggle for Literacy - (on the cover, there is a picture of a TV set) is so broad and unhelpful that only a meaningful subtitle could rescue the beast.
Rother spends a great deal of time on the development of English curriculum primarily in the United States and the UK through such seminal events as the 1963 Dartmouth conference and the work of the NCTE. There are numerous short overviews of such events scattered throughout. Except for models for media studies, regrettably none are Canadian and there is no reference to the important work of Marshall McLuhan.) In one unfortunate philosophical comparison, the views of media education gurus David Buckingham and Len Masterman are incorrectly reversed ('Demystification' is Masterman's position on textual analysis not Buckinghamís. See page 84.)
Finally, in 2009 many media teachers are now encouraged to engage multi-literacies and critical pedagogies which are given short shrift. With too many irons in the fire,
The Struggle for Literacy is perhaps too ambitious. Fortunately, when read selectively it will still be useful to those English teachers who also teach media.
Rethinking Technology in Schools by Vanessa Elaine Domine. Peter Lang, 2009
An avid media educator with a PhD in media ecology, Vanessa Domine brings excellent credentials to the task of rethinking technology. The book challenges the reader to critically and conscientiously investigate the new media and communication technology. We should be grateful that media education is a major part of this book and others to be published soon. We have nothing to fear except proliferation.
Ikonica: A Field guide to Canadaís Brandscape by Jeanette Hanna and Alan Middleton. Douglas & McIntyre, 2008.
Beautifully illustrated, the book celebrates Canada's achievements in the many faceted world of brands, from Hudson's Bay to Canadian Tire.
Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times by Megan Boler. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008.
Megan Boler, a professor at OISE, U of Toronto, Canada, presents a compelling case for new definitions of democracy as it intersects with the demands of new communications technology.
The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future by Mark Bauerline. Penguin Group, 2008.
This recent, controversial book has received many counter arguments to the authorís thesis. What we are given is a highly debatable study of how kids are using the new digital technologies to further their narcissism, and in the process ignoring politics and reading books. Value? Why not stage a debate using the author's examples of 'dumbest' to start the fire?