Search Results

Digital media literacy provides opportunities to take advantage of the changed media ecology, but low-wage immigrant workers face persistent digital inequality. Chapter 5 describes how organizers, activists, and educators at the epicenter of the immigrant rights movement struggle to support their communities by setting up computer labs and organizing courses in computing skills. Some go further and use popular education methods to link digital media literacy directly to movement building. The chapter discusses the mobile media project VozMob (vozmob.net) and the community radio workshop Radio Tijera to illustrate the ways that immigrant rights organizers are creating popular education workshops that combine critical media analysis, media-making, participatory design, cross-platform production, leadership development, and more. The chapter develops the idea that community organizers are developing a praxis of critical digital media literacy within the immigrant rights movement.

To enact a campaign aimed at changing the “shape” of the media often requires engaging in myriad forms of communicative work, which in turn demands knowledge of policymaking processes, the regulatory and legal history of the issues at stake, and the contemporary legal and political environment. This chapter seeks to re-conceptualize media policy advocacy by foregrounding not only the work that it involves but the multiple forms of knowledge on which it is based, and argues that media reform is, therefore, centrally connected to media policy literacy. Media policy literacy can be engendered through a combination of critical media policy pedagogy and opportunities for situated learning.

The concluding chapter summarizes the book's key points, with a short section on each. 1. The immigrant rights movement, like all social movements, operates within a rapidly changing media ecology. 2. Activists increasingly engage in transmedia organizing, or cross-platform, participatory media making that is linked to action and, ideally, accountable to the movement's social base. 3. Many immigrant rights organizers are caught between the desire to act as spokespeople for the movement, and the need to amplify the voices of the movement's base. 4. Translocal media practices modify the broader media ecology, as migrants adopt new tools to remain connected to their places of origin. 5. Although digital inequality remains a key dynamic in immigrant communities, organizers are developing a praxis of critical digital media literacy. 6. Many people become activists through mediated pathways: media-making strengthens social movement identity. 7. Finally, the professionalization of transmedia organizing provides important opportunities, but also requires stronger accountability mechanisms. The chapter ends by noting key gaps and further research questions, provides recommendations for scholars, organizers, and activists, and invites a broader conversation about how transmedia organizing can strengthen movement identity, win political and economic victories, and transform consciousness.

This chapter discusses media literacy in greater detail, touching on its impact and necessity in video game cultures, and particularly the modding scene. Machinima and modding are special cases of the use of digital games. When turned into a machinima film or a mod, games are diverted from their original purpose—the player no longer follows the developer’s carefully prefabricated gameplay structures. Instead, she empowers herself to transform the game, to play creatively with its underlying structures, rules, and mimetic elements. It is exactly through this principle of deconstructing and rearranging the basic elements of video games that machinima and modding qualify as means for enhancing computer game literacy. The chapter differentiates and exemplifies several ways in which these practices are suited for enhancing the basic elements or skills of computer game literacy.

Media literacy is the ability to think critically about how media messages shape culture, society, and behavior. Pornography literacy, then, involves teaching people to think critically about the messages about behavior that they receive from pornography and building their capacity to choose whether to internalize what is being imparted. Increasingly, there are calls to incorporate porn literacy into sex education curricula. This chapter explains the theory behind media literacy interventions, summarizes their success, defines porn literacy, and provides an in-depth introduction to one porn literacy intervention designed to reduce dating and sexual violence. The chapter describes parents’ reactions to the porn literacy intervention and outlines ongoing questions about porn literacy.

This chapter examines how media education can leverage one game to support its twin goals of cultivating media production and analysis competencies. It begins by reviewing how twenty-first-century media literacy has been defined and framed. Next, it demonstrates how the process of machinima making is strongly compatible with constructivist learning theory. Finally, it argues that The Sims is a game primed for educational application because it easily doubles as a virtual film school, providing a clear framework and workflow for students wanting to learn both production-related skills, such as screen aesthetics and editing, and analytic skills, such as media criticism and narrative strategies.

Efforts to integrate digital media and information literacy into education are expanding, and some schools have already adopted a whole-school integration approach. There are many pedagogical practices for using audiovisual media in ways that support learning. Media-based activities support literacy development when they strengthen the oral language, inference-making, and reasoning skills that are required for reading comprehension. To learn for a lifetime, the most practical competence is the ability to ask good questions and get answers in order to make wise decisions. The active process of learning to formulate good questions is an essential life skill that school, public, and academic librarians can help to develop in learners and patrons alike. Librarians in school and public libraries have done amazing work in paying attention to stereotypes that exist in children’s literature and books. They can also help students and parents unpack and reflect upon the stereotypes offered in children’s television shows, movies, and games. Close reading of media—the core pedagogy of media literacy—builds a habit of mind that promotes deep awareness of and sensitivity toward the rhetorical purposes of informing, entertaining, and persuading, whether it is print, video, or web-based content. There are challenges to using media effectively in some settings, including restrictive school policies for video use, how to assess credible sources, and choosing the most effective pedagogy for an audience.

This chapter analyzes a third-grade public school classroom. Moral panic discourse asserts that media damages girls; media literacy scholarship argues that girls and boys need skills to make sense of and resist media; and after-school and empowerment programs maintain that producing media is good for girls. All of these assumptions partly subscribe to the Ophelia Thesis assumption that girls are vulnerable, that the media exploits that vulnerability, and that protective structures must be built around girls. The chapter then turns to the idea of the thinking girl and identifies four ways in which girls (and boys) engage with media analytically: they focus on minute details; they ask endless questions; they reflect on media structures through creative production; and they pay a great deal of attention to the cultural production of gender.

Between 2004 and 2014, one particular category of children's comics exploded: children's comics based on licensed properties. Two specific companies—IDW Publishing, founded in 1999, and Boom! Studios, founded in 2005—have recently emerged as major players in the comics market thanks largely to their comics based on licensed properties, including many, such as IDW's My Little Pony and Boom's Adventure Time, that appeal primarily to children. Through the analysis of IDW's My Little Pony comics, this chapter seeks to demonstrate that comics, when used as a component of larger transmedia narratives, can help young readers develop a critical awareness of media. In reading comics, children can learn media literacy skills that are applicable across all components of a transmedia franchise. In other words, comics make children better transmedia readers, and potentially better transmedia players and producers, as well.

How we use audiovisual media has changed dramatically in the past 10 years. What we watch and how we watch have both been transformed by the rise of the Internet and digital culture. Naturally, as a result of this reality, educators are changing how they teach with and about film and media. Today it’s important that film and media literacy education provides everyone everywhere with a fundamental set of competencies that enable them to both enjoy moving image media and learn from it. Film and audiovisual media are texts that have as much value as books and print media, and new forms of film distribution are creating opportunities to develop film collections that reach everyone around the globe. Often in partnership with community organizations or media makers, school, public, and academic librarians bring film and media education into and through their libraries. They are also well positioned to provide resources and trainings to help people of all ages critically analyze news and information in a posttruth era. This book was written for public, school, and academic librarians and others with an interest in utilizing the emotional power of film and the fascination with popular culture to inform and entertain their communities as well as to help create discriminating consumers and media makers. The five major practices and key themes of the book are introduced, as well as what to expect in the following chapters.

Librarians and educators are lifelong learners, connecting people, spaces, and film and media resources in ways that delight, engage, and transform. Because film and video are so much a part of our culture, access to film and digital resources in libraries is critical. Film and digital collections do not always receive the same level of love and appreciation that librarians hold for books, but they deserve equal footing. Librarians are increasing community engagement through the use of film screening and discussion sessions. But librarians may not uniformly have the skills in place to create robust post-viewing discussion experiences, according to research conducted in hundreds of public libraries. Some educators are exploring the value of online dialogues through synchronous and asynchronous video create robust opportunities for interpreting, discussing and sharing ideas about film and media. Teachers have different motivations that underlie their interest in digital media and learning, and professional development programs can be designed in ways that are sensitive to differing motivations and areas of interest. For their own professional learning, librarians rely on email listservs, which democratically enable any member to bring forward a question or solicit the experiences and opinions of the professional community. Globally, the concept of media and information literacy (MIL) is on the rise as librarians and educators link the information and learning process and the decision-making process in using appropriate resources and technology for critical thinking. Information literacy is a key pathway to promote the competencies required to use film and media for learning purposes.

Bias impacts all aspects of research: from the questions formulated in the study design to the dissemination of results and perceptions by different target groups. The implementation of evidence is not a simple, unidirectional pipeline, nor do target groups operate in a vacuum, eagerly waiting for any information. Recommendations are made to improve the evidence base and message design through (a) public funding of clinical trials, (b) development and reinforcement of information standards, (c) improvements in the delivery of information in continuing medical education, (d) support and development of information sources independent of commercial interests, (e) helping clinicians communicate uncertainty to their patients. Recommendations are also made to correct and/or avoid imbalances in the delivery of health information. Powerful stakeholders can influence the production of evidence (research) as well as its dissemination. In most countries this poses a greater threat to pluralism than the suppression of individual opinions. The interplay between private sources (industry), voluntary and academic organizations, and a broad range of media and government regulation is necessary for a balanced expression and promotion of information. To ensure this, public regulation and intervention may be needed.

This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on the influence of the supernatural and paranormal on the religious beliefs and practices of American teenagers. It discusses the proposed theory called “the religion of the possible” and considers the role of the media in religious change and in the context of religious pluralism. It suggests that media education and media literacy should train teenagers to recognize the distinctions between reality and fantasy.

This chapter describes European children's level of self-reported digital literacy, measured by the ability to perform specific tasks, the range of online activities undertaken and the belief about one's own internet abilities. A nuanced answer is presented to the question whether European youth is really as skilful as often assumed. Differences in skills persist between children, due to gender, age and parental education. Moreover, skills vary between European countries. By multi-level analysis, both types of skill differences are studied simultaneously. The chapter discusses how self-reports of digital skills relate to digital literacy and the broader concept of media literacy. Care is needed, however, in using self-reported skill measures as proxies for media literacy when drawing out implications for future research and policy agendas.

The Doha Centre for Media Freedom has introduced numerous capacity building initiatives to improve the ability of media consumers in Qatar and in the region to process the vast array of information with which they are bombarded on a daily basis, while also focusing on developing the abilities of those behind producing this information. DCMF’s Media and Information Literacy (MIL) programme is one of the centre’s flagship initiatives, which since its launch in 2011 has grown into one of the world’s most successful programmes, with the centre working alongside partners such as UNESCO to promote MIL education in Qatar, the wider region, and around the world. While DCMF has hosted training sessions for local journalists, the centre also conducted training workshops across the wider Arab region, with a particular focus on Syrian journalists covering the ongoing conflict. In a region where the right to information and free expression is too often denied, educating a young generation of media consumers who are aware of the importance of defending these rights is an essential aspect of DCMF’s mission.

This chapter discusses the recent discourse surrounding sex work and pornography that uncannily recalls the rhetoric of the Victorian age. Current bad-faith efforts to combat “sex trafficking” and regulate pornographic access and content signals a return to the sex panic of the nineteenth century. Porn studies as a pedagogical movement is vital in turning the tide toward a more informed and helpful understanding of sex work and sexual representation. Ironically, much of what pornography has to say about the Victorian era applies to the present day, an echo that pornographers are all too aware of. The chapter advocates for further developments in porn studies, greater attention to meaningful engagement with porn as a media product and sphere of labor, and porn literacy as a standard component of education.

Much advertising aimed at children promotes food and drinks, and most of this advertising is for products that play little role in healthy diets. This chapter considers some of the evidence concerning the effectiveness of such advertising for children of different ages, as well as observing why such advertising is so problematic from the point of view of ethics as well as health. It then considers three strategies that might be adopted in response. First, there have been several attempts to restrict food marketing to children, involving both self-regulation and statutory measures. Second, social marketing campaigns attempt to use the tools of commercial marketing in order to encourage behavior change. A third strategy is to encourage children’s ability to interpret and decode media and advertising messages. Though each strategy has significant limitations, each has a valuable role to play.

The last chapter reassembles the histories of individual microsystems and identifies critical questions about the changing nature of the ecosystem and online sociality. Although each of the dissected five major platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia) nurses its own mechanisms, they are staked in the same values or principles: popularity, hierarchical ranking, neutrality, quick growth, large traffic volumes, fast turnovers and personalized recommendations. The cultivation of online sociality is increasingly fenced off by three major chains of platforms (Facebook, Google and Apple); these chains share some operational principles even if they differ on some ideological premises (open versus closed systems). Questioning the role of algorithms in the steering of desires and the power of users to control their data—their ability to opt out—this chapter articulates larger political and social concerns, such as the changing meaning of “social,” “public,” “community,” and “nonprofit” in an ecosystem dominated by corporate forces.

The final chapter addresses current issues in news and social media, as well as the tandem problems of public trust in journalism, democratic institutions, and everyday personal communications inaugurated by digital media’s proliferating resources for fabrication and obfuscation. After introducing a cognitive-rhetorical model for identifying promotional enthymemes online, this chapter carefully considers the ways in which media criticism is taught in higher education; it questions traditional methods of interrogation and deconstruction that individualize the ethics of media engagement and have the potential to breed further mistrust within already trust-poor cultures. Alternative modes of analysis are considered for their pedagogical merits, including the uses of postcritique and surface readings of media texts. Ultimately, I make the case that there is an imperative to guide a hopeful, forward-looking, normative search for solutions in our classrooms, in addition to describing the political problems we currently confront. The alternative is to prescribe a disempowering culture of suspicion for the next generation, who will be the inheritors of a fraught media ecology that scholars continue to document as it unfolds.

Chapter 10 describes how games may help people practice critical literacy skills such as reading, evaluating, and interpreting information. How is it determined which evidence and data are valid and reliable, and how might games support this? How might games help people to engage with news and current events, or to counter fake news? The chapter includes an overview of why reading and interpreting information matters in civics and ethics, and why games may support this. It also includes the limitations of using games to explore evidence and information, and how to minimize those limitations. Finally, it reviews strategies that teachers can take to use games to practice literacy and information evaluation skills. It opens with the example of the game Factitious, and also shares three examples-in-action: Executive Command, Thoughts and Prayers, and Bad News.