Media Education in England

8/9/2019 Media Education in England

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Media Education in England

Dr Chris Richards

Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and

Media, Institute of Education, University of

London


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Outline

1. Popular media as resources for young people.

2. Old and new media in young peoples lives.

3. The opportunities media education can offer youngpeople.

4. What does media education look like? Aconceptual framework for the media curriculum.


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Media Power

In one persistent,enduring and influentialtradition in media

studies, the media areregarded asoverwhelminglypowerful and theiraudiences as mostly

powerless. See, for example:

http://www.mediaed.org


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Young Audiences But what if the way people, including young people,

engage with the media is not at this sub-intellectual level?What if young people, though certainly subject to the

power of the media to frame, form and determine some

aspects of their lives, are also drawing on media texts moreproductively in their talk and their play?


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Research

What meaning and significance do young people

give to the media with which they engage?


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Play

even when children try their hardest to match their own play behavior to that modeled for them bytelevisionthey are forced by their need for cooperation to make all kinds of compromises, such asbargaining for who takes the negative roles, deciding how they can adapt their unique power

feelings to the scenario, devising costumes, weapons, gestures, and sequences. What they reproduceis a playful theatric adaptation. There is no tabula rasa. The point is, no matter what the culturalstimuli might be (toys or television shows), they have to be mediated by childrens fantasy in orderto be accepted, and adjusted to their play norms and social competence in order to be assimilatedinto the active theatric play forms of childhood. (Sutton-Smith, 1997: 154)


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Resources and Constraints

But they are also, like

us, caught up in

processes ofidentification and

idealization that may

be oppressive and

limiting.

Claims about the

power of the media

need to be qualified byattention to what

children and young

people themselves

have to say about theirown media interests.


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Old and New Media

It is important to be wary ofcaricatures (cyber kids forexample) that construe wholegenerations as singularly

devoted to just one, whethercelebrated or reviled, newlyemergent media form. Mediaeducation should be concernedwith both old and new forms,

with their interconnectednessin young peoples lives andwith both the strengths and

limits of what they know.


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Media Education: Opportunities

But the current UKapproach to teaching themedia also emphasizes

and engages with youngpeoples enjoyment of themedia and seeks to furtherboth their enjoyment andtheir understanding

through various forms ofstudent focusedproduction work.

There is a continuing

emphasis on a critical

study of the media,

making critique and

analysis the rationale

for, and priority of, a

great deal of media

education.


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What does media education look like?

Language

Representation

Production

Audience

How do we know what it means? How dothe media produce meanings? Media asconstructions.

How does it present its subject? Media

show a mediated version of the world.

Who is communicating what and why?Economics and ideology of mediaindustries, organisations, institutions.

Who receives it, and what sense do theymake of it? How are audiences identified,

constructed, addressed and reached?


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Conclusion

The version of media education that I have presented to you does notabandon criticism of the media. But it does acknowledge the value ofyoung peoples experience of the media that interest them. It alsoemphasizes that teaching is not simply a matter of inculcating critical skills

but must always engage with young peoples existing knowledge andinterests andfacilitate productive, enjoyable and exploratory forms of

learning about the media.


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Some References Buckingham, D. (2000)After the Death of Childhood: Growing up in the Age of Electronic Media, Cambridge:

Polity.

Buckingham, D. (2003) Media Education: Literacy, Learning and Contemporary Culture, Cambridge: PolityPress.

Buckingham, D., Grahame, J. and Sefton-Green, J. (1995) Making Media: Practical Production in Media

Education, London: The English and Media Centre.

Buckingham, D. and Willett, R. (eds.) (2006)Digital Generations: Children, Young People, and the NewMedia, London: Routledge.

Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, New York: New York UniversityPress.

Sutton-Smith, B. (1997) The Ambiguity of Play,Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Documents

Media Education in England