Assigned Readings
The readings that were assigned in module 1 had a lot of variety. It seemed as though each text had a different audience that it was directing their message to. There were readings that were for anyone who has an interest in media literacy, or is just starting to learn what media literacy is. There were articles that were directed more towards educators that were trying to introduce media literacy in the classroom, or parents who wanted to learn more about media literacy and apply the skills at home. All the articles were thought provoking and helped really lay out what media literacy is, the challenges faced by those who are trying to integrate it into the education system, and the ways the media literacy would help benefit our society.
The “What is Media Literacy” document was a helpful document that went over what media literacy was in a plethora of different ways, it was described with different examples of media literacy, the different types of media literacy, while also discussing how it relates to education and how it’s changed over time. This document included the writings of several different professionals in the field, and if you didn’t know what media literacy was before reading the document, it is now clear and if you did know what media literacy was this document helped solidify many key concepts; whereas the power points that were used were helpful in condensing the information that was stated in the text, and was a nice refresher to go over the important points. The “three models of media literacy” PowerPoint was an important tool to use when reading the documents as it defined each of the three perspectives and was nice to go back to when reading the different texts to see what perspective each writer was coming from.
One of the main differences between the articles, aside from the target audience was the perspectives from which they were writing. The three main perspectives that were discussed were the protectionist model, the ideological analysis model and lastly the constructive model. Each one is a way of seeing how to handle the media and its impact on individuals. Some of the text was difficult to determine what perspective was being represented however there were a few articles that were clear. For example, the article That it was Made by People Our Age is Better by Emilie Zaslow and Allison Butler, was leaning more towards the constructive perspective. “By privileging the voices of the youth participants in the Videocultures project, we found that these teens have a complete understanding of their own culture and of the larger world within which they live” (Butler and Zaslow 38). They acknowledge the fact that the students aren’t just passively being impacted by media but are aware that there are messages being advertised but they’re not blindly listening, however they are still able to enjoy the media and popular culture. They also discuss how the protectionist or ideological models have the ability to be elitist and focus on anti-media, which often results in a sort of censorship.
All the text was enormously helpful in the introduction to media literacy as whole; all the different types of text were helpful because if one is having a difficult time understanding one author’s definition of something they may be able to understand better coming from another author. The combination of all the readings really helped introduce me to media literacy, what it is and the ideas and research behind it.
