In 1986, Len Masterman wrote a comprehensive guide for educators interested in teaching the media. He argued for seven key reasons why media education is important (all of which are still applicable today): the high rate of media saturation in society, the media's ability to influence personal and public ideology, the growth in the media manufacturing business, the penetration of the media into the political process, the importance of visual communication in society, and the increasing pressure to privatize information. He then outlined his perspective on both how to and how not to do media education in schools, followed by a detailed description of the various relevant components of mass media and how they communicate, such as ideology, rhetoric and audience.
Kathleen Tyner joined the discussion in 1998 with her book Literacy in a Digital World, in which she built on Masterman's ideas, but with added consideration for the explosion of digital communication technology that had since taken place. Her book argued for expanding our concept of literacy to include digital media forms (like visual and audio) in order to prepare students to participate more fully and equally in social and political arenas. Tyner advocated for the synthesis of analysis and practice. She believed students should be taught how to use the information tools of the digital age as well as understand and critique them.
In 2003, David Buckingham contributed his survey of the field of media education. Out of frustration regarding the lack of progress by policy-makers as well as the misguided attempts of practitioners, Buckingham's book offered a restatement of the case for media education, focusing on a "'media pedagogy' that is both theoretically coherent and practically possible. (p. xi)" He reiterated with conviction and clarity much that has already been said about media education, but he added a particularly compelling section on the importance of play and creativity. Media production, according to Buckingham, should not be used as a form of assessment, rather it should be used as a step on the way towards critical understanding. Media production should, therefore, be social and experimental. Teachers should allow and encourage students to use a variety of media technologies to dig deeper into complex issues of genre, audience and theory.
And in 2009, Jeff Share, relative newcomer in the larger media education context, added his voice to the mix with an argument for critical media literacy which, he explained, "focuses on ideology critique and analyzing the politics of representation of crucial dimensions of gender race, class and sexuality; incorporating alternative media production; and expanding textual analysis to include issues of social context, control, resistance, and pleasure. (p. 12)" Observing that most media education was happening at the secondary level (if at all), Share advocated for the importance of teaching students to critically read the media at a young age. And his book profiled a number of elementary school teachers who were doing just that.
In addition to these more theoretical texts, there are also plenty of teacher-friendly textbooks and media literacy manuals that provide helpful instructions and ideas for practitioners who have become convinced that media education is important, but aren't sure how to do it. W. James Potter's Media Literacy textbook is currently on its fifth iteration. It breaks down media education into helpful sections on Audience, Industry, Content, Effects and Issues. And, it contains lots of suggestions for additional reading along the way. Cyndy Scheibe and Faith Rogow, in close conjunction with NAMLE (National Association for Media Literacy Education), recently released a very teacher-friendly textbook called The Teacher's Guide to Media Literacy which not only outlines important principles, but also gives examples of lesson plans and activities.
But, despite the wealth of scholarship and helpful instructional texts, if you go into most schools in the United States, you are still unlikely to find any kind of real comprehensive commitment to media education taking place.
And, here's why...
What all these authors' arguments have in common is a mandate to change the way we do education. Media education, they insist, cannot be done well within traditional school structures, on either a philosophical or a practical level.
Tyner reveals the philosophical tensions inherent in teaching media literacy in a traditional educational context. She noted, "Conflicts between present-day approaches to media literacy are in line with historical tension between the purposes for schooling as a mechanism to maintain the social status quo and those of critical literacy, which demand that the social status quo be questioned and challenged. (p. 139)" Media education will struggle to find a foothold in any schooling context that refuses to critically reflect on both its own practices as well as those of society.
Masterman, Buckingham and Share offer insight into some of the practical conflicts that arise in media education. All three insist that teaching media is a collaborative and creative process in which students and teachers should be on the same level in their quest for understanding.
Masterman argued, "teaching effectively about the media demands non-hierarchical teaching modes and a methodology which will promote reflection and critical thinking whist being as lively, democratic, group-focused and action orientated as the teacher can make it. (p. 27)"
Buckingham pointed out, "[media learning] is a collaborative process: through the encounter with their peers and with the academic knowledge of the teacher, students progressively move towards greater control over their own thought processes. (p. 143)"
Finally, Share explained that media education defies traditional modes of teaching in a variety of aspects, making its implementation quite complicated. He said, "A major challenge in developing critical media literacy, however, results from the fact that it is not a pedagogy in the traditional sense with firmly established principles, a canon of texts, and tried-and-true teaching procedures. It requires a democratic pedagogy that involves teachers sharing power with students as they join together in the process of unveiling myths, challenging hegemony, and searching for methods of producing their own alternative media. (p. 12)"
According to these scholars and many more like them, media education requires a dynamic and participatory pedagogy, one in which students and teachers are free to work together on equal footing to read, critique, play with, create and deconstruct media texts and technologies. Even as media scholars continue to advocate for such pedagogy, schools, given the increasing stress on standardization and competition, seem to be moving farther away from it.
There is perhaps some hope for the future. Since media studies remains a largely ignored and misunderstood discipline, it has also escaped the bonds that testing and accountability have placed on its more traditional counterparts. Advocates for media education, therefore, must stay strong and continue to advocate for a robust and holistic media curriculum and pedagogy. Someday, it might just work.
References
Buckingham, D. (2003). Media education: Literacy, learning and contemporary culture. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
Masterman, L. (1986). Teaching the media. London: Comedia.
Potter, W. (2011). Media literacy (5th ed.). Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Schiebe, C., & Rogow, F. (2011). The teacher's guide to media literacy: Critical thinking in a multimedia world. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Share, J. (2009). Media literacy is elementary: Teaching youth to critically read and create media. New York: Peter Lang.
Tyner, K. (1998). Literacy in a digital world: Teaching and learning in the age of information. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
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