Media literacy is not teaching with media, it’s teaching about media. The difference between the two is not at all trivial, but indeed profound. In this issue of Connections, we explore the differences between media literacy and other approaches to media in the classroom. Writing within a cultural studies framework, Len Masterman helped to revolutionize the field of media studies in his 1985 book Teaching the Media. In doing so, he also articulated the core principles of media literacy education. Also, an interview with media literacy educator and scholar Gretchen Schwarz on the goals of media literacy education.
Connections Newsletter Archive
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Publication Date:December, 2011Download Newsletter:Topics:
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Publication Date:November, 2011
We explore the significance of the meteoric rise of direct-to-consumer drug advertising, and identify the strategies which drug companies use to increase physician prescriptions of their products. Also includes a look at how pharmaceutical advertising—like advertising for any other consumer product--encourages us to believe that prescription drugs will transform our lives.
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Publication Date:October, 2011
Advertising helped financial institutions convince consumers that incurring debt was not only reasonable, but a wise choice. We discuss the role of consumer credit in the U.S. economy, and how advertising and other media have kept us reaching for that credit. We also analyze the strategies that advertisers use to enable audiences to bypass their rational minds as they make purchasing decisions.
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Publication Date:September, 2011
Most researchers agree that children are able to understand the persuasive intent of advertising by the age of 8. But that doesn’t mean they arrive at that age with the media literacy skills they need to adequately respond to the sophisticated strategies food advertisers use to draw their attention.
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Publication Date:August, 2011
The Voices of Media Literacy project, sponsored by Tessa Jolls and Barbara Walkosz, features interviews of 20 early pioneers who shaped the field into what it is today. As Executive Editor Tessa Jolls comments, “These people know what media literacy is, and are able to articulate it and express it because they lived it and helped invent it.”
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Publication Date:July, 2011
In this issue, we discuss the work of the Waters Foundation and the movement towards the use of systems thinking tools in K-12 education and the strong connections to media literacy. We explain what systems thinking is, trace the connections between systems thinking and media literacy, discuss the research which supports the use of systems thinking in K-12 schooling, and discuss how systems thinking can be used to solve real-world problems.
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Publication Date:June, 2011
Gateway Media Literacy Partners has been able to sustain an ongoing conversation about the importance of media literacy education across the St. Louis region. Researchers at the MacArthur Foundation imagine the directions learning institutions might take in response to the exponential growth of informal learning online.
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Publication Date:May, 2011
This issue introduces the use of comic books and graphic novels as tools for media literacy. We demonstrate how readers of comic books and graphic novels make complex choices to construct meaning from text, illustrations as conventions of the medium; demonstrate how comic books can be appreciated as works of storytelling art in their own right; and how writing and producing comics can help students develop complex literacy skills.
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Publication Date:April, 2011
This issue focuses on the network of informal learning institutions, particularly museums and libraries, through which media literacy learning often takes place and we examine the evolution of these institutions in a digital world, illuminating the learning opportunities which these developments make possible.
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Publication Date:March, 2011
In 2007, Bennington College President Liz Coleman led a re-structuring of the entire curriculum. With its renewed focus on problem-solving and empowerment, Bennington is joining a growing number of educational institutions which are fashioning a curriculum radically different from what’s been taught in 20th century schools. First, we survey the structure and curriculum at several schools to arrive at an overview of New Curriculum principles. Next, we reveal how media literacy instruction embodies them.
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