Exploring Media Literacy Education Through Classroom-Based Research: A Case Study of Three Teachers

• In Event: Roundtable Session 14
  In Roundtable Session: Missing the Boat? Examining the Potential Power of Media Literacy Education for Policy and Practice

Abstract

Objectives
This paper explored the media literacy education practices of three classroom teachers. The research questions were:
• How do classroom teachers negotiate curricular demands to integrate media literacy education?
• How do classroom teachers define the benefits and challenges associated with integration of CPMLE into their practice?


Perspective
The educational practice of media literacy education (MLE) may help reduce the cognitive alienation experienced by PreK-12 students who interact with an abundance of digital media of all forms outside of school, but are not always provided with opportunities to access, analyze, evaluate, or communicate with these forms in school. The disconnect between young people and school furthers an intellectual poverty that not only limits the preparedness of young people for college, work, and life, but also creates a gulf between the child and school, decreasing the transformative power education might have in the lives of young people.

Mass media is instrumental in framing the expectations, ideas, and opinions of people of all ages. In the digital age of the twenty-first century, movies are only one of a vast multitude of information and communication technologies (ICTs) made up of a complex blend of multimodal texts including: language, pictures, sounds, symbols, multimedia, and transmedia. Through MLE, young people develop the skills and expertise to question, evaluate, and create texts in a variety of forms, cultivating intellectual, moral, and civic awareness. MLE promotes analytical practices and higher order thinking in addition to opportunities for collaborative content creation and artistic self-expression.

Methods & Data Sources
MLE is still missing in local and national educational policy and practice in many places. This paper examines the complex contextual aspects of teachers’ classroom practices through a purposive case study of MLE at the middle level conducted during the 2010-2011 school year in a large northeastern city. The Core Principles of Media Literacy Education (CPMLE) published in 2007 by the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) were used as a framework to better understand not only what educators included in their media literacy curriculum, but also how they taught media literacy (e.g. the pedagogy of MLE) and what supports or challenges they experienced in their efforts.

Results
The applications, implications, contributions, and limits of the CPMLE are reflected through this rich and detailed case of three teachers who collaborated in the design and enactment of a media literacy course. Exploring the CPMLE through the lens of a classroom-based study provides the occasion to better understand both the state of MLE and how the CPMLE might be instrumental for evolving practice.


Significance
Most importantly, this work provides insight into how educational reform efforts might be refocused in a technological age to create connections across media and between students and school. Revisiting the CPMLE may foster continued efforts to grow MLE in turn reaffirming a commitment to providing a relevant and engaging education for twenty-first century students by increasing opportunities for critical thinking, creative expression and innovation.

Author

• Theresa Redmond, Appalachian State University