Student-Made Media

Students commonly produce media projects for their class work, and certainly, most students are active producers in every-day life through social media.  

But to be media-literate producers and consumers, students need to know and understand the Core Concepts and Key Questions of media literacy, and how to apply these Concepts and Questions to construction, so that they are critical producers.  It is with this challenge in mind that CML developed Questions/TIPS (Q/TIPS), so that students and teachers alike could have ready access to a critical production and deconstruction framework, and develop assessment tools that relate to media literacy basics. Insightful and innovative messages, both print and electronic, that young people have created using the powerful multi-media tools now at their command. Q/TIPS, combined with the Empowerment Spiral of Awareness,  Analysis, Reflection and Action, provides a powerful approach to community engagement anywhere, anytime.

New additions:

Just released! Fake Off, a series of videos by graduate student Jason Handin, with comedian Jeremy Briggs (for ages 18+).   "Fake Off" is an entertaining news trivia game show that uses fake news, memes, and social media to introduce the Five Key Questions and Core Concepts for media literacy.  Jason Handin is a CSUN Graduate Student with a BFA in Music Technology from CalArts. He has worked in production for the Huffington Post, AOL and more. This is his final project before earning a Master’s degree in Mass Communication/Journalism (expected Fall of 2018).  Jeremy Briggs is a comedian who originally hails from Reno, Nevada. He has trained at the Groundlings, and UCB, and was a main stage performer and director at iO West. He is currently directing and performing at the ACME theatre in Los Angeles.   Find the videos on CML's channel.

CML was pleased to work with Dr. Bobbie Eisenstock's undergraduate journalism/diversity students at California State University, Northridge in fall 2017. The students created service learning projects as part of their classwork and we share a few here along with assignments completed during the semester:

• Kaylee went into a local classroom to teach media literacy skills.  Watch her Service Learning video  https://youtu.be/eKqEvMmqrOk  
• Salvador researched and produced this presentation on Social Media Platforms and Depression.
• Students recorded their statements on the importance of media literacy during National Media Literacy Week. Watch CSUN students Commit2MediaLit!
• For Media Literacy Week, students participated in CML's Facebook Challenge. We posted one image or video per day along with a Key Question for media literacy.  This is an easy and informative activity for your students to reinforce their knowledge of the 5 Key Questions and Core Concepts.  See sample activity here. 
• Over a period of 5 weeks, students submitted journal entries related to a photo deconstruction assigment using the 5 Key Questions and Core Concepts. We have included one week of the What do you notice? assignment and student repsonses with feedback from CML.  

Student-Produced Podcast: Media Literacy Among Adolescents in Austin, Texas
Project by Gabriela Gonzalez,  Senior / Psychology, B.A.  The University of Texas at Austin 2018.
Description: As our society becomes increasingly more digital and driven by media, the importance of developing media literacy skills for adolescents is more crucial than ever. By analyzing at the state standards for media and information literacy in Texas, the affordances of media literacy skills, and informal media literacy education models, this audio documentary seeks to understand what opportunities Austin adolescents have to develop their media literacy skills. Listen to podcast.-aust

Many examples of Student-Made Media are contained in CML's YouTube channel.  If you or your students care to add to this collection, please contact CML.