Critical Media Literacy to Imagine, Empower, and Transform Educational Research and Practice

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This session explores how critical media literacy (Author 3) can be used to unforget erased narratives and imagine thriving futures in education research and practice. Drawing on cultural studies and critical pedagogy, we engage a critical inquiry process to unpack the politics of representation, social constructivism, semiotics, and ideology across historical records, current media, and popular culture. The three presenters share research and practice with K-12 educators, pre-service teachers, and university students, positioning curriculum design and media-making as collective “futuring” work (Winn, 2025). Their research projects highlight examples of teacher-designed curricula and student-created media that address colonization, immigrants’ rights, environmental justice, identity development, and artificial intelligence–offering models for transforming classrooms into sites of possibility for justice-oriented media education.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Media, Culture, and Learning

Chair

• Douglas Kellner, University of California - Los Angeles

Papers

• Teacher Collective Agency, Disciplinary Literacies, and the Praxis of Critical Media Literacy in Teacher/Education - Noah Asher Golden, California State University - Long Beach

• “We Teach Anyway”: Community-Responsive K-12 Critical Media Literacy Education - Andrea L. Gambino, University of Southern California

• Critical Media Literacy and the Climate Crisis: Interrogating Ideology and the Politics of Representation - Jeff Share, University of California - Los Angeles

Session Organizer

• Noah Asher Golden, California State University - Long Beach

Discussant

• Amina Humphrey, El Camino College