For 5
days in May, Toronto was the site for the international
conference, Children,Youth and the Media: Beyond the Millennium.
After successful programs in Melbourne, Australia and London, the
Summit 2000 conference assembled a veritable who's who of media
educators from around the world including, Cary Bazalgette,
DavidBuckingham, Andrew Hart and Len Masterman [United
Kingdom] ; Barrie McMahon, Robyn Quin[ Australia] ;
Neil Andersen, Derek Boles and Barry Duncan[Canada]
;Marilie Rowe, Elizabeth Thoman, Frank Baker, Renee Hobbs, and
Kathleen Tyner[USA] . In addition to the media educators,
the program also featured an international list of producers ,
executives and representatives of children's television and other
media . The combination of the 2 groups provided a unique
opportunity for each side of the frequently contentious media
education debate to interact with each other, and learn from each
others perspective.
For this
opportunity, conference chairs, Adrian Mills and Madeleine
Levesque are to be congratulated. Kudos too belongs to Executive
Director Joseph Pereira, and his affable and skilled co-workers,
including John Pungente SJ and Carolyn Wilson. The results of
their combined efforts, was a hugely successful conference;
diverse in the program it presented, skillfully managed,
technically efficient, and perhaps most important of all, rich in
the time allowed and opportunity afforded for personal interaction
and social time with the assembled delegates. In short the
learning went on long hours after the conference sessions
adjourned each day.
Putting kids
first,said Nickelodeon executive Marva Smalls, means encouraging
media literacy, means telling them to get off the couch and turn
off the TV. In her child-centered opening address, Ms. Smalls not
only lauded Nickelodeon programming, but espoused their
programming philosophy of recognizing and respecting their
audience, of rejecting a cookie cutter approach, of being guided
by children, following their, lead...being a reverse Pied Piper.
As a fan of Nickelodeon in general and Linda Ellerbee in
particular, I personally was excited to listen to this address
which had both reverence and respect for children. It seemed to
strike a particularly important note and signal the theme and
spirit of the conference.
Unfortunately
it took just one more session, when for me at least, these
illusions and this idealism began to
unravel.
For
my first breakout I attended a marketing session which
included representatives from Harris Interactive and SmartGirl.
Let me simply note that issues of self-esteem, developmental
appropriateness and the sanctity of the child, were banished from
this session. The role of the child and adolescent as
consumer, eradicated any thought for the emotional, spiritual and
psychological development of children. Instead came the
psychological and scientific tools and studies that focus on deep
rooted motivations and attitudes that predict kids behavior. In
the words of one of the organizations, now you can discover
quickly and easily what all the cool girls are thinking-about
their world, your product,and everything in
between.
Where I was
left
wondering
were the moral and ethical considerations about not just marketing
to kids ,but manipulating them. Where in these polling techniques
, were questions or concerns that recognized as has the Carnegie
Council on Adolescent Development,that many of today's teens are
kids in crisis, trying to contend with complex social pressures ?
Does this form of marketing hurt or help these young people? Does
it define their lives simply as the pursuit of material
possessions?
PREPOSTEROUS
VIOLENCE: A Panel
Cam
Macpherson[Canada] David Buckingham[UK] Rose Dyson
[Canada] Pat Kipping[Canada] Gordon
Lawrence[New Zealand]
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Pictured at
left, David Buckingham , delivers a cogent critique
of protectionist approaches in the U.S.A.
To the right, we
see Canada's Pat Kitting, Gordon Lawrence from New
Zealand and Rose Dyson from Canada.
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With a
loaded title and panel, the anti-protectionist forces had most of
this discussion to themselves including the luxury of taking pot
shots [ [some of them cheap] at the United States
which went unrepresented . This for me was the weakness of this
important session which would have been stronger if for
example, the panel had included Brandon Centerwall , George
Gerbner or a representative of the Salem Mass. District Attorneys
Office which has created the Flash Point curriculum kits for
juvenile offenders. Canadas Rose Dyson, argued that the debate on
research is over and now it is a debate about policy. Moderator
Cam Macpherson made reference to the fact that Toronto's new
police chief has been visible in linking juvenile crime to video
violence. His perspective, panelists noted , is based to a large
degree on American research. Drawing upon this evidence and her
own work, Dyson said serious consideration must be given to the
restriction of a cultural commodity that contains and promotes
violence as a cheap industrial ingredient, all in the name of
profit. Pat Kipping invoked the name of another Canadian, Marshal
McLuhan, who warned many years ago, of the danger of handing over
our eyes, and minds, and ears and nerves to commercial
interests.
From the
outset, David Buckingham, one of the most distinguished media
educators from the United Kingdom, made his perspective clear. " I
am here he said,to argue against gravity ."
Buckingham
denied the research debate is over,saying that the jury was out
and in his view was not likely to return. "If the U.S.
thinks it's over, that's their loss ". Indeed those of us involved
with media education in the U.S. have much to owe Mr. Buckingham
and much still to learn from him. It would however be easier to
recognize this fact if we were not so frequently the subject of
his sarcasm and derision. The debate about media violence he
declared, is one which is "illogical,ignorant and self righteous."
The protectionist model of media education, which has much support
in the United States, was characterized as "behavior modification
and moral manipulation."
For the most
part, Buckingham believes much of this approach is a self-serving
smoke screen used by politicians to avoid the complex social and
economic issues[gun control, racism] that America seems to
be incapable of confronting. The day after Buckingham made these
remarks, hundreds of thousands of American women including Tipper
Gore and Hillary Clinton marched in Washngton DC to voice their
opposition to hand guns. While Buckingham rejects the idea that
media messages may make people more violent than they might
otherwise have been, he does accept the idea that people should be
protected from unwelcome exposure to potentially harmful and
hurtful emotional messages, such as those containing racist
messages. He makes a significant distinction however between
emotional response and imitative behavior. Further, he justifiably
criticizes much of the so-called scientific evidence accumulated
in the American debate[ if it moves count it] and calls
for a much more rigorous and meaningful
methodology.
Moving from
research and theory to classroom practice, New Zealand's Gordon
Lawrence provided a refreshing insight into his own classroom and
some approaches he uses in helping high school students struggle
with the controversial issue of media violence. These included
examination of news violence, consideration of the role of
narrative shortcomings in the use of media violence, and 2
different tools for analyzing and evaluating cartoon violence.
Significantly, Gordon commented on what he called, the third
person effect, which is to say, while his students discounted
media effects on their own lives, they believed that it could
influence friends , peers or siblings. Question and answer time,
broadened the debate,with an Indian delegate suggesting beyond the
issue of media violence was the wider question of the
representation of good and evil. For his examples he cited media
constructions of India and Pakistan and American news media's
demonization of Sadaam Hussein.
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Shown above,
Western Australia's Robyn Quin laptop. Middle
photo shows David Considine and Neil Anderson at
a post conference workshop for Toronto teachers.
Vamping for the camera, on the far right,
Babson's Renee Hobbs and Cary Bazalgette from
the British Film Institute.
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WHAT'S
REALLY WRONG WITH MEDIA EDUCATION? Len Masterman.
It takes a lot
to get me out of bed and into a lecture on a Sunday morning,
including this Mother's Day . But the chance to hear Len
Masterman, even when he has been lead astray by an Aussie elbow
bender the night before is an opportunity I for one will
also respond to. Masterman, who is a consultant to UNESCO and the
Council of Europe is recognized as one of the most influential
intellectual forces behind media education in the U.K. and much of
Europe. He also made a major contribution to the development of
media education in Ontario throughout the 1980s and
90s.
His
focus on this Mothers Day , was to address what he regarded as the
central question and challenge now confronting media educators in
his own country. This challenge he said, was maintaining a
position of critical inquiry, now that media education has been
institutionalized. What he wondered, would prevent the critical
questioning stance of media education in its earlier incarnations,
from becoming one more boring, mind numbing, alienating subject of
the school curriculum, once it had been accorded the status of a
legitimate subject for examination at the A levels[
[college bound]
.As chief
examiner, Len Masterman has had the opportunity to see some 10,000
A level media education exam papers completed by 18 year olds
seeking admission to tertiary institutions. Typically the
questions on the examinations seek to test students for critical
autonomy and the ability to apply and transfer principles and
concepts to new situations and readings. This includes responding
to previously unseen media samples. While this has been the aim,
the result in some cases, he notes, is that students have been
trained and prepped , subjected to cramming and coaching, with the
result that memorization, regurgitation and formulaic
answers,substituted for independent, autonomous reflections and
readings. Media educators, we were told, must help students become
active, critical readers, who think FOR THEMSELVES, rather than
simply thinking LIKE US.
For
Americans, still trying to find a legitimate location for media
education in the curriculum, Masterman's sessions was a flash
forward to models to both emulate ad eschew. It was particularly
interesting to look at the type of questions students would likely
encounter as high school seniors.
Sample
#1.
Describe the
difficulties which face anyone who wishes to give an accurate
media representation of any one group of your choice. What advice
would you offer to help the producers create a more accurate
picture?
Sample
#2.
Describe the
ways in which any one group is represented across a range of
media, paying particular attention to any differences you
observe
in their
representation between different media. Account for the
differences.
In the
examples above, Masterman suggests that the first question lends
itself to rehearsed answers, while the second encourages greater
awareness of difference, range and variety. Significantly he also
notes that when students address representation from a personal
perspective, that is when they themselves are members of the
depicted group[e.g. people with disabilities etc.] the
answers are more meaningful. As he put it, its the felt response
and personal voice that is important. This personalized approach
is also evident in teaching about audiences,with Masterman
commenting on the importance of addressing the students own media
consumption.
When teaching
media narrative, Masterman, also recognizes useful and less
successful questions. In the memorized responses and rote teaching
modes,he observed that the approach seemed to be doing as much
harm as good...seemed to discourage close engagements with the
text itself.
A successful
example of a question addressing issues of media narrative was
provided:
Sample
#3.
Outline the
central themes or major ideas dramatized in any one film of your
choice. Analyze the techniques used to realize and develop these
themes and ideas.
NEW
DIRECTIONS IN MEDIA EDUCATION: A Panel.
Kathleen
Tyner[USA] Barrie McMahon[Australia] Barry
Duncan[Canada] Costas Criticos[South Africa] Len
Masterman[UK]
The only
thing this session lacked was Diana Ross singing Mahogany [ do
you know where you're going to? ] . The focus was an
exploration of where media literacy had been, where it currently
was and of course where it is going to. While the answer to that
clearly depends on what culture and context we address, the
session pointed to several signposts that might help us find our
way.
Currently
absent from much media education, said Barry Duncan, was a serious
exploration of cyber technology. With technology and media
transforming itself, Duncan called this a lost opportunity and a
critical area of neglect. Further, he said, media education should
pay much more attention to shopping malls[ television proposes
and the mall disposes] and children's toys . While discussion
focused on which paradigm was or was not appropriate or currently
in vogue,[literacy criticism,protection, etc.] Duncan
concluded that the new paradigm is an eclectic
circus.
From the
British perspective, Len Masterman, located a discussion of media
education within the context of English which he characterized as
not so much a subject, as a bucket in to which everything else is
thrown. Confronted with an ever increasing list of topics to
address, it is not uncommon to find English teachers establishing
priorities that privilege the printed page. This he said,
represents a return to the 1950s and ignores the central fact that
mass media constitute the dominant symbol system of our society.
Restricted to the discipline of English, media education becomes
diluted. What is needed, he suggested was the vigor and strength
to be found in an interdisciplinary context. For American
educators, this provides a crucial area of concern as we struggle
with the issue of integrating or isolating media education within
the curriculum.
Kathleen
Tyner, author of Literacy in a Digital World, advocated an elegant
marriage of production and analysis. She supported an
apprenticeship model and noted that too often, student production
simply mimics a broadcast media model because they have not been
exposed to personal, non-narrative, experimental production.
Perhaps the most contentious issue of this panel came over the
question of activism. Costas Criticos said that media education is
not just about UNDERSTANDING our world but about about ACTING in
it. Referring to the battle of Seattle and recent demonstrations
in Washington DC , Barry Duncan suggested that separating
ourselves from discussion about world trade, globalization and the
branding empire would be rather sad. Carly Staskos, a young
self-described Canadian culture jammer, said she found this
approach stimulating. Sounding a cautionary note, Len Masterman
spoke of the need for teachers to survive and warned of the
dangers within British education, of radicalizing the classroom.
Once the media education genie is out of the bottle, he implied,
it is not long before students not only address the ideology of
the mass media, but also the ideology of the school and what
schools do to kids.
Our approach
at Appalachian State University is well aware of this issue of
transfer and change. The front page of the brochure for our media
education graduate program features the following statement by
Jerome Bruner. Education must be conceived as aiding young humans
in learning to use the tools of meaning making and reality
construction, to better adapt to the world in which they find
themselves and to help in the process of changing it as
required.
As the
conference demonstrated , media education is evolutionary in
nature. It is clearly not a one size fits all cookie cutter field
with a single model or paradigm at work. Within the U.S. we have a
great deal to learn from approaches utilized in other countries,
particularly Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. However, to
attempt to slavishly replicate any of their models without taking
in to account the significantly different nature of American
schools as organizations, runs the very real risk of embracing an
inappropriate model.
For more
information on managing media literacy within American society and
schools please consult, Media Literacy As Evolution and Revolution
in the Culture,Context and Climate of American Education
[David Considine. JAI Press 2000 in Reconceptualizing Literacy
in the Media Age] or email me for a copy of this chapter.
Considinedm@appstate.edu
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On the far
left, Andrew Hart from the U.K. makes a
point.
Center, young
Canadian culture jammer, Carly Satskos has
her say. On the right,PME president Frank
Baker, outlines the status of media education
in an overview of state standards.
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