Media Literacy: A Media Educator’s

Perspective Sue Turnbull

Media Studies

La Trobe University

OFCOM Definition

Media literacy is the ability to access, understand and create communications in a variety of contexts

Jean Marc Cote: View of a Classroom in 2000 (1899)

Visions of Media Futures Utopian

About ‘empowerment’

What people do with the media

Dystopian

About ‘victimization’

What the media do to people

The Media Classroom 1975

The Media Classroom 2006

The Old vs the New Paradigm Producer

Text

Consumer

The produser

Using and producing a text

Axel Bruns, produsage

http://snurb.info/

The same old Manichean scenario The forces of ‘good’

Beauty, truth and enlightenment

And sex

the forces of ‘evil’

Lies, propaganda and deception

And sex……

Jenkins, Convergence Culture, 2006 The key battles are being fought now. If we

focus on the technology, the battle will be lost before we even begin to fight. We need to confront the social, cultural, and political protocols that surround then technology and define how it will get used (212).

The Importance of Critical Media Literacy

About questions of judgement Evaluation of sources Formation of opinion Matters of taste

Particularly in relation to the self and social world

Mambofaith’s diary ‘Our main character is a knight who serves

in the king’s army; he is an attractive young man with muscular look also lean and brave, He rides on a horse with a sword and shield.. Due to the target audience being 18 year old females, we decided that the young knight must look handsome as well as polite and kind.’

‘Prince Charming Has Perfect White Teeth’

Rhysay’s Reflections ‘I almost always agreed with what Natasha

had to say, as she had quite a knowledge of what the purpose of video games and their relation with sexism. One of the things I learned today was that just because Tomb Raider gave precedence to a female character, it still doesn’t necessarily appeal to females’

Lessons Through dialogue, boys forced to confront

their expectations about what women want.

Encouraged to develop a critical understanding of their own position and that of others

The Challenge for ACMA To think more broadly about issues of media

literacy NOT just in terms of access and skills

But also in terms of critical understandings about how we use the media to bring about our social world through our media creations