Media

The lives of young people today are immersed in media, from text messages, to video games, to the internet, to movies and television shows. Teens are exposed to media all day, every day. Children ages 8-18 spend more time in front of computer, television and game screens than any other activity in their lives except sleeping (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005). The messages young people receive through these different forms of media have a significant impact on their lives. Media messages have the power to influence what kind of products young people buy, which values they adopt, and how they view themselves, their relationships and other people.

Adolescence is a time of self discovery as teenagers are attempting to establish their character and personality. During this time they are often easily influenced by the norms of the culture around them. The messages that they receive can have an affect on their knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and beliefs about health, gender, race, ethnicity, relationships, violence, etc. And while media messages can have a positive affect on students’ development of self, they often provide unhealthy, false or negative messages.

Research from the Teen Relationship Project indicates that:

97% of students think that teens have attitudes, beliefs, and values that are similar to the music they listen to, the TV shows and movies they watch, the magazines they read, the video games they play, and the websites they visit.

52% of students believe that teens are influenced by the media in their dating and sexual relationships.

Take Action

Teach Media Literacy! Media literacy is a critical skill for all of us, not just young people. Teachers are in a unique position to use media literacy to help students examine their relationships and the culture in which they live. Through a variety of subject areas, teachers can use media literacy to build many different educational and developmental skills. For example, PBS’s “Don’t Buy It” website explains, “media literacy education can help students build critical thinking and analytic skills…and goes beyond the idea of just reading and writing.”

Many of the resources at the bottom of this page feature information to help you get started on incorporating media literacy into your classroom. Here are some concepts that you could incorporate into your lessons.

The Media constructs messages with embedded values, and disseminates those messages to a specific portion of the public in order to achieve a specific goal.

Media Literacy is the ability to read, understand and deconstruct media images and messages, including stereotyping, desensitization and objectification.

There are five key concepts to media literacy education:

Media Literacy is the ability to read, understand and deconstruct media images and messages. The 5 key concepts are:

All media messages are "constructed."
Each form of media has different characteristics, strengths, and a unique "language" of construction.
Different people experience and interpret the same media message in different ways.
Media messages are produced for particular purposes, including profit, persuasion, education, artistic expression and to gain power.
Media have embedded values and points of view.

The following is a list of questions from the New Mexico Literacy Project you can use to critically assess a media message.

Who paid for the media and why?
Who is the audience being targeted by this media message?
What messages and values are expressed by the media message?
What kind of lifestyle is presented in the message, and is this lifestyle glamorized? If the lifestyle is glamorized, how?
What is the text of the media message and is there a subtext to the message?
What tools or techniques of persuasion are used?
In what ways is this a healthy and/or unhealthy example of the media?

Involving the School

Studies show that media education is most effective when it includes:

Both media analysis and production
Teacher-created combinations of activities, rather than off-the-shelf curricula
Coordinated efforts across all subject areas

Therefore, to make the most of your efforts, try to work with other teachers in your school to incorporate information on media literacy into additional subject areas. For example:

Art students can examine the use of design elements or trickery in advertising;
Language Arts students can write letters to manufacturers or specific companies explaining why messages in their advertising are disrespectful;
Math students can analyze ratios of healthy vs. unhealthy messages in specific magazines;
Nutrition students can examine messages around health and body image in media; and
Social Studies students can report on trends in advertising.

For additional ideas on how to incorporate media literacy into any subject matter, visit the Media Awareness Network or PBS’s Teachers Guide to Media Literacy

Useful Links

http://www.pbs.org/teachers/mediainfusion
Media Infusion provides teachers with ideas about using multimedia resources to address common instructional challenges.

http://www.pbs.org/teachers/media_lit/index.html
PBS Media Literacy Page features an interactive quiz, PBS websites and programs, activity ideas and resources for all grade levels. All of these resources are dedicated to the topic of media literacy.

http://www.nmmlp.org/
New Mexico Media Literacy Project offers students an annual "Bad Ad" student essay contest, provides a media deconstruction activity on its homepage, and provides teachers with additional media literacy resources.

http://www.medialit.org/
Center for Media Literacy offers one of the most comprehensive catalogs of videos, books, and other curricular materials related to media literacy. The site also includes a reading room on media literacy issues, FAQs and more.

http://www.justthink.org
Just Think works with students, teachers and parents to empower young people to lead healthy, responsible, independent lives in a culture highly impacted by media. Just Think develops and delivers curricula and programs that build skills in critical thinking and creative media production.

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/teachers/index.cfm
Media Awareness Network is one of the largest educational web sites for media literacy in North America, with a large inventory of copyright-cleared media education lesson plans in both French and English, articles on numerous media issues, resources for parents and more.

http://www.understandmedia.com
Understand Media provides free resources, including articles, lesson plans, podcasts, blogs, videos and much more, to help parents and teachers help kids learn the importance of media literacy.