Media literacy education for everyone!

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.