Reading: Hobbs,“The Seven
Great Debates of the Media Literacy Movement”; Kellner & Share “Critical
Media Lit eracy, Democracy and the Reconstruction of Education” and the In-class screening: Digital Nation (2010)
show different perspective towards what can or can’t do Media Literacy. I believe these three articles may
reinforced the idea of media literacy education and expose the possible risks
of media in children.
Should media literacy education aim to
protect children and young people from negative media influences? That is one
of the first questions that Hobbs planted on this debate, to what he propose
that Media Literacy should teach children how to read correctly the media they
consume everyday. He also compares this to a vaccine that injects the bacteria
to prevent something worse in the future.
It is not exposing them to a bad and corrupted media, but educate them
about how easy is to be immerse by that kind of media.
In the film Digital Nation they show an
interesting example in Korea where their teacher teaches children with songs
about the importance of Internet and how to use it. Children become literate on
this matter because they have a responsible person that is showing a new world
of learning and also of danger. The conclusion in the documentary though, is
not very comforting because after showing this good example of teaching
media. There is an enunciation
that expresses this system of teaching children wouldn’t work in America. I think that is interesting how in many
good examples in other parts of the world about handling a different system of
education or economic model, Americans experts recognize the efficiency of those
successful programs, but also says that “in America that wouldn’t work.”
Another important question is should
media literacy be taught as a specialist subject or integrated within the
context of existing subjects? And
the writer would go along with the idea of using media to be integrated within
the subject. For the short interviews that we as a class did, I realized that
here in America that has become more and more a reality in which teachers would
use media to teach principles. In
the documentary the use of media is shown under different cirmstances such as
only as a subject and within the subjects. I think it is very important that
teachers would use media, any kind of media: visual, audio, and audiovisual to
teach subjects of their specific specialty. Also, media literacy education
should be nowdays part of the curriculum to be taught as a subject by
itself. So that students and teachers
would learn how to use it effectively.
Finally the conclusion of Kellner and
Share pointed out the term of critical solidarity that means “teaching students
to interpret information and communication within humanistic, social,
historical, political, and economic contexts for them to understand the
interrelationships and con- sequences of their actions and lifestyles.” This
combine with critical autonomy will form independent critical thinkers that
would not be deceived by media framing and representations. I agree with the
liberation of some sort of agenda when it comes to teach media, although there
is always going to be certain influence on the person educator towards one or
other ideology. Still, trying to be as fair as its possible to be is something
that educators should aim when it comes to teach media literacy.
In short, the documentary Digital
Nation shows some good examples on media literacy, but also falls into an alarmist
view about modernization in the world. After feeling awful for being so
technologically dependent. I realized that society can gain so much from media
literacy, so much more than loose. After reading the questions on the debate by
Hobbs, and Critical Media Literacy by Kellner and Share I can have a stand on
how it should be taught media literacy and why is so essential in this
globalize world. Media literacy
should be taught as a subject and also within other subjects. Children are
learning since their early years how to handle an IPhone or a tablet. It is
time that families within home and schools may be open to an inevitable change
that has already happened, as is the modernization of the present generation.
