Lesson 1 Media Literacy
Part Pre-reading Tasks
Questions: 1. Are you inclined to believe the reports from different media? Why or why not?
2. Do you think you can distinguish between the real event and pseudo event(假新闻)?
3. How much do you know about media literacy?
Part Reading Tasks
慈父上帝 Living in the age of the news media: print media (newspapers, magazine), broadcast media (radio stations, television stations, television networks) and increasingly Internet-based media (World Wide Web pages, weblogs), how can our ability to sift through and ana
lyze the messages that inform, entertain and sell to us every day? And the following principles may give us a hand.
Some Principles of Media Literacy
David Considine１
In England, Australia, Canada and the U.S. media literacy２ educators have fairly common agreement on a set of principles that are explored as part of media literacy. These include the following concepts:
Media Are Constructions
The old adage, “The Camera Never Lies,” is indicative of the way we have been conditioned to accept the relationship between reality and the representations of reality that the media construct. In a day of virtual reality and computer simulations “seeing is
not believing.” All media are carefully assembled, edited, selected and designed constructions. They show us a world but is a selected and often unrepresentative view even though it seems to be true. Learning to distinguish the reality from the reflection is implicit in this concept.
Media Representations Construct Reality
This principle involves the realization that there is a relationship between the way the world is presented by the media and the way we as media consumers perceive that world. Crime is 10 times greater on television than in real life, but many Americans perceive their world to be as violent and threatening as the media constructions. When we have had no direct or immediate experience of the individual, institution, issue, person or place represented, the media tend to mediate. Hence, unless we have been to Australia for example we might perceive it as an odd mixture of “Crocodile Dundee”３ meets “The Thornbirds.”４ For today’s students, born and raised in the post-Vietnam era, their knowledge of that war is likely to have been constructed by “China Beach殷桃与文强亲密图片”５, “Tour
Audiences Negotiate Their Own Meaning
Put simply, “Beauty Is in the Eye of the 后弦Beholder.” While we may often argue about the “beauty” of the media, the old adage helps us conceptualize the audiences are not passive recipients of media messages. Rather we filter media content and messages through a complex nexus of our own nature and needs including our existing beliefs and value systems. Significantly, different ethnic groups exposed to the same media content, select, reject, recall and comprehend quite different components of the same content. Exploring the different perceptions and perspectives students have about programs offers an important opportunity for young people to understand the differences and commonalities between them.
Constructions Have Commercial Purposes
Put bluntly, the bottom line is the buck. Any real understanding of media content cannot
be divorced from the economic context and financial imperative that drives the media industry. While many people lament the rise of tabloidism and “infotainment”, the media industry justifies such trends on the basis that these stories sell. Hence, they are simply giving the public what the public wants.
The same is true in the entertainment media. While opinion surveys frequently show Americans are concerned about media violence, ticket sales and ratings also indicate that programs with high levels of violence also attract audiences. Breaking this cycle clearly involves understanding the dynamics of the market place and a realization that as consumers of media messages we are both part of the problem and part of the solution.
Media Messages Have Social and Political Consequences
This principle explores the relationship between image and influence, content and consequence. In an era of consumption and materialism for example, how do we raise children to have spiritual values? In an age of AIDS, what happens if the messages about
sex provided by the church, school and the family are undermined and contradicted by media messages which promise instant gratification or indulgence without consequences? What is the relationship between the backlash against affirmative action and social and media stereotypes for example about immigrants and welfare mothers? The principle involves exploring the way the media show and shape, reflect and reinforce reality. It involves understanding who and what is portrayed both in quantity and quality, as well as which groups and individuals in our society are left out of the picture. In part it involves understanding who is portrayed by whom, how and why with what effect. (668words)
发布评论