The Imperative for Media Literacy
As television penetrated American living rooms in the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan warned us that television constituted much more than mere entertainment. Societies, he argued, are always shaped more by the nature of their communication technology than by the content it carries and conveys. Television represented a sensory revolution, a world of “allatonceness,” the era of the “global village” (McLuhan & Fiore, 1967, p. 63). McLuhan saw the writing on the wall for education; though perhaps he would be happier with the metaphor of the image on the screen. The rapidly expanding electronic environment of the 1960s challenged the very relevance of education. McLuhan and Fiore called school a “rear-view-mirror” (p. 75), suggesting that children reared on television technology interrupted their education by going to school. By privileging print, schools were failing to prepare students for tomorrow as well as for the day-to-day reality that surrounded the first generation of television students.
The emergence of ICT has intensified the impact of media on culture and schooling. Ravitch and Finn (1987) observed that “This generation as well as their younger siblings, has been weaned on television and films. It takes more than a textbook and lecture to awaken their interest and grab their attention” (p. 241). The Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development (1995) also acknowledged the powerful role media played in the lives of young people. The world of the adolescent cannot be understood without understanding the media landscape they live in. They concluded that electronic media have the potential to negatively influence impressionable children and teens, but more importantly, they can be harnessed for good. Developing media literacy skills, they wrote, “deserved widespread consideration in schools and community organizations as an essential part of becoming a well-educated citizen” (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1995, p. 118).
It should be noted that media literacy is not merely teaching with or through media or technology. Using an overhead projector, the Internet, a SMART board, a DVD, or a VCR is not, in and of itself, media literacy. Media literacy requires teaching about media—the language it uses along with its narrative, codes, and conventions. Explicit instruction in media is good practice for at least two reasons. First, students who can easily comprehend and master the meaning of printed texts may not be equally adept at comprehending images, sound, or multimedia texts. And second, students have different strengths, so that the use of both sounds and images enriches instruction, enabling us to reach beyond students whose comfort zone is the printed page.
Strategies for engaging students in media literacy activities are becoming more available as instructional frameworks or templates have been identified for analyzing different types of media. Caldecott Medal winner Gail Haley has developed templates for identifying the “look of the book” (Haley, 2003, p. 26). This helps children appreciate and understand the relationship between illustration, text, and layout in picture books. Thus a balance exists between information carried in words and information addressed only in the illustrations. For additional suggestions see www.gailehaley.com (Haley, 2007). Templates have also been identified to assist teachers and students to critically analyze and evaluate broadcast news, advertising, and films (Considine & Haley, 1999).
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