TIPPR 4

This week's reading made me think about my own experience with conducting qualitative research and the pitfalls and unforeseen problems I encountered throughout the process. In the fall of 2000, I spent the semester living in East London, South Africa conducting research on AIDS education and working in a local technical college. Before going to South Africa, I had done a lot of preliminary research, mostly reading but I'd also talked with some students who had already been to the area and worked on my research topic. To relate it to this week's reading I would say that my research plan was much more loosely designed than the method that Berg proposes. Looking back on it, I can see that I was primarily relying on participant observation for my research and while I think I managed to produce a good ethnographic journal of my experiences, I can see where adding some of the other methods Berg proposed may have benefitted me and made my research more conclusive.

One of the interesting problems I encountered when planning my research project was that while I knew I was going to East London and I had some ideas of the community and the resources that would be available to me there, I could not really narrow my research question until I was in country and really able to see who I would be able to talk with and observe. I do think that if I'd had a better idea of where I would end up interning while I was there I would have been able to coordinate with my professor to create a narrower or at least more defined research topic than simply "AIDS education in South Africa". Of course, hindsight is always 20/20 and part of the field study experience is to teach students to adapt and respond to the challenges of working in the field but as I remember the hours I spent pouring through old newspaper articles in East London's local newspaper office and the hundreds of photocopies I made of anything related to the topic of AIDS education (because it might be useful later) I can definitely see an advantage to going with a more structured research strategy. I also remember that several of the other students in my program struggled because the projects that had seemed so feasible back home in Provo ended up being far too difficult once they were actually in the field and trying to implement them.

While moving this summer I happened to find my field journal from my South Africa trip. I couldn't help but wish I'd had access to some of the technology I have now when I was there. I had two means of recording my research there, my notebooks and a camera. I would carry a small notebook with me at all times and would jot down little notes when I would observe something interesting or that I wanted to write about later and then when I had time I would sit down and flesh out my notes in a larger field journal. I would also try to take pictures of important things, but I was using a camera with actual rolls of film and I worried about carrying around so many rolls of film. I would love to have had a laptop to keep my journal, my fieldnotes are almost 10 years old now and the ink has already started to fade and the notebook itself is falling apart. Additionally, I have the pictures that I developed when I returned but I'm not sure where the film's negatives are and a picture can't capture the energy of a attending a traditional Xhosa wedding in the same way a video recording of the event would have done. Berg may be skeptical of digital media storage but I definitely think back up copies in multiple places is the way to go.





Word Count=649, but I don't think it's fair we're doing this on the one week I've actually gone over :p

TIPPR 4, Jeff Hill

I assume that everyone older than me makes more money than I do and they smoked in High School. I also assume that everyone younger than me hated Seinfeld, but loved Friends and they also know more about technology than I do. Buckingham warned me a few times not to assume the expertise of the student’s technological ability.

In reference to media production, Buckingham said, “the majority of software programs students might use are designed for professionals, and are very time-consuming to learn.” In any situation that I have been working with high school or younger students, we have used very simple amateur editing programs, so this wasn’t really an issue, but I mention it here because I have noticed an interesting omission from the book. During my undergraduate in Film, I took two classes on the technical aspect of an editing program: Beginning and Advanced Final Cut. I didn’t learn anything in those classes because they were either teaching me things I already knew or things I didn’t know I needed to know. Because, in my experience, you understand the theory of something before you care how to do it. And shortcuts and key functions are not something I store away for later use.

There is a lot of discussion on the social benefits and the process of using technology and I agree that the final product may not be the true reward of the project, but I wish a bit more would have been made of the theory of production and storytelling with technology. Not that Buckingham needed to go over the institutionalized modes of representation, but I would have like a little pitch for understanding the form.

I believe that this is what leads to what Buckingham warns about later. The idea that the technology makes things look good and it is easy to cover up bad video (he is referring to Pop music videos specifically), so nobody cares about the mistakes. Buckingham is pleading for more knowledge on the part of the educator as well as more collaboration with peers so that everyone can learn together.

My fear is that we will lose the story. The BYU film department excels with story and helping its student to not be distracted by the spectacle, but to really look deep to find the theme and meaning.

I doubt I will ever spend time in my classroom doing much of a tutorial. People younger than me know more about technology than I do anyway. Also, they need to know why before they know how. This isn’t a rule, but it goes along with Buckingham’s idea on interactivity. The student needs to realize how many decisions they have the power to make. The consumer will interpret their product and they should at least have a basic educated idea of why they made those decisions. I think it will be hard for me to go through the film process with a student and still have them respond with “I don’t know.”

word count: 500

Note: the words "word" and "court" nor this note were included in the word count.

TIPRR 4

To tell the truth, I am completely daunted, even more so after the reading, by the sheer weight of time and effort necessary to do good research. I like research. I am fascinated by the discovery of information that comes from good research – it opens up the eyes and sometimes changes my paradigms. Berg approaches the matter of research in a kind of organic manner that I appreciate but, in order to be truly effective information, it takes a great deal of effort. Triangulation helps bring validity and thoroughness to the research, but it takes an awful lot of effort and time. Of course, who doesn’t want their word to be valid? The idea of two steps forward, one step back found in the Spiraling Research Approach takes time but it sat well with me that one should do that kind of work to be truly good at researching.

Despite the time and effort necessary, the one thing I appreciated most was Berg’s very last segment. After talking us through how to design the whole of the research project, and preparing us for what we are going to do, he has a small but nonetheless significant thing to say: “Regardless of how the information is spread, it must be disseminated if it is to be considered both worthwhile and complete.” I learned in an organizational behavior class that every organization can trace its effectiveness as an organization to its knowledge capability. Knowledge capability is comprised of two things: discovery and diffusion. Discovery is, in this case, the research. Diffusion is the dissemination of information. In our classrooms, dissemination is tantamount to learning, thus we are not successful unless we can turn the process of discovery into an active diffusion of things learned. In other words, it doesn’t matter what we know if we cannot teach others. I know that the intent of the reading is to help us with doing exceptional research, but I was reminded of something very important to our study of media literacy education – we need to be able to teach others what we are learning if we are going to be effective.

One last comment: though the subject matter is not, perhaps, riveting, the reading itself was conversational in its tone and very instructional (albeit more instruction than theory). I’ll give it to Berg; he did a good job covering a lot of ground in a short amount of time – both, as he talks about in his introduction, in theory and in practice. He also applies his own treatise to his work: he is clear in his defining of word usage and also creates clear expectations and works to self-reflexively fulfill those expectations. I bring these things up because I was impressed by his style of covering his own research and conclusions. I know that does not say much about the topics, but this raises my own perceptions of his expertise concerning the subject matter. I was surprised at how specific and practical his examples were of how to do things.

word count: heck if I know! :)

TIPRR 4 --We'll get back to the research methods after the theory break.

First, three non-academic comments:
1. Timbre, I think it's totally hilarious that you put your word count at the bottom, because I had already planned to do that in my post. Now I feel remarkably unoriginal.
2. Did anyone else feel like this was mostly a practical reading with a few brief theory breaks? One minute I'm reading about note card collection, and the next I'm being reading about cognitive reality vs. sensory reality. This seemed odd to me.
3. There were a few glaring and odd typos that annoyed me.

I'm going to be honest and admit that this reading is hard for me to really engage with because I don't feel there's a lot up for debate here. I think that this book is useful in terms of drafting a research project, but reading about the two card system and various types of random sampling procedures doesn't necessarily do it for me. Let me tell you the practical things that I did think about while reading, because that seems most appropriate:

1. I really hate to admit that when researching, I occasionally act like the doctoral student that Berg calls out as relying too much on the internet. I have never used a physical periodicals index to look up anything. I've never even browsed through physical periodicals before Darl's assignment. Granted, a lot of those physical indexes have online counterparts from the actual journals, but there are times when I've given up looking for an article just because my searches in the BYU journal finder didn't seem to yield anything. I think that relying too much on ANY method of research isn't helpful. I need to be more geometrically minded and allow myself to triangulate.

2. As I was reading about project organization and data organization, it occurred to me that for the past few years I've been carrying out a research project without really thinking about practical methods for cataloging the data I collect except to look for great quotes to use in presentations. Furthermore, I haven't even taken much time to consider what sorts of measurable outcomes we're researching in Hands on a Camera, or even what fundamental research questions we're asking. I know that Amy went through all of these steps, I've just allowed myself to focus more on the implementation of the project rather than the actual research (so maybe I should finish transcribing those interviews from last year...).

3. I'm talking about community stories and media creation with my students on Monday, and this quote seemed particularly applicable: "The world is a research laboratory, [and you] merely need to open your eyes and ears to the sensory reality that surrounds all of us to find numerous ideas for research" (24). Similarly, we are surrounded by stories to hear and stories to tell, we just have to be willing to listen. Yes, I know this is a bit of a stretch, but my mind really wanted to find something less systematic...

And on that note, let's take a theory break.

word count: 506, and at least 91 of them don't count.

TIPRR 4

So, in honor of Jeff, I am trying something new this week. I'm going to 1-keep it short and 2-type directly into this text box, say what I think, and not obsess about it all too much. Be proud, this is a big step for me.

So, first off, did anyone else feel as though these first few chapters were written for their parents? I'm not trying to criticize, and I even appreciated the simplicity of some of the ideas and concepts presented, but when Berg went into depth explaining Wikipedia, I actually looked at the copyright date to see how old this text is. Are there really people out there (who are over 17 years old and college educated) who don't know to be wary of Wikipedia?


The other thing that seemed to be a bit archaic to me was the idea of using “The Two-Card Method” for data compilation. I remember the days of note cards, hundreds of them piled on my kitchen table as I wrote my very first research paper on “Man’s Inhumanity to Man” in 9th grade. (I think my dad helped me with the title.) But that was before everyone had a laptop on hand at all times. Are cards, even electronic ones, really still the way to go? I’m not sure.

On a more positive note, I teach research methods in my classes; it still seems to fall very heavily in the English department’s lap to make sure that students know how to do research. As I read this week’s reading, I was very happy to see that much of the methodology and advice given here is pretty much what I teach my students, in much a more simple manner of course. It’s nice to know I haven’t been teaching “false doctrine.” In addition, I think that for any kid/student/person who was initially taught how to research correctly, much of Berg’s instruction here will be much more intuitive.


In addition, I had an interesting experience this week. My little brother submitted his master’s thesis yesterday, and, as I am the English person in the family, he asked me to edit it for him before he sent it to be printed. Well, he’s in England, so I go the copy in the middle of the night Sunday/Monday and had to rush through the reading of it so that he could make his deadline. Oh how I wish I would have read Berg before Landon’s thesis. His “Literature Review” and “Methodology” sections would have made much more sense, and while I assumed that his use of “snowballing” did not, in fact, refer to the fluffy stuff that he’s often aimed at my head, I actually get it now. Too bad he submitted the thing today…though I’m not lamenting the fact that I don’t have to reread it.

Word Count: 474 :-)

TIPPR 3

First, I apologize to you all for my tardiness in posting this week. Second, sometimes reading this book makes me feel like a really horrible teacher. We're currently reading In Defense of Food in my class and as part of our discussion we brought in a guest speaker to show Killer at Large, a documentary he'd produced on the topic of obesity in America. There was a lengthy section in the documentary about advertising and how it targets children/teens to sell them foods that are bad for them. Aha! I thought. An opportunity to discuss protectionism in the media and so I asked my students whether they felt tv ads should be regulated and if they needed to be protected from advertisers. It was a really interesting discussion with some students saying they had never realized how manipulative ads were and some students arguing that while they were old enough to know better, little kids might still need to be protected from media manipulation.

I was feeling pretty good about that class discussion until I did this week's reading for class and suddenly I'm thrown into a mental debate with myself because I definitely started that discussion with an agenda and I steered the conversation to make sure that students actually discussed the topic I wanted them to address and part of me still thinks that part of my job should be steering students but part of me is feeling pretty judged by Buckingham for "falling into the trap of trying to teach students the things they believe they already know."

To add to my shame, in the very next section Buckingham says "Despite our repeated insistence that there were no right answers, there clearly were; and it was these answers(or at least issues that we deemed as legitimate topics for discussion) that had largely informed our selection for advertisements in the first place." Ouch, again I can see myself and many, carefully planned classroom "discussions" fitting all too easily into this description. We've talked about how what Buckingham is proposing would really require a paradigm shift in terms of how we teach and what education and assessment look like but these two examples really illustrated to me that I will have to examine not just how I teach, i.e. use of translations, simulations, etc. but that I must also embrace the idea that media literacy is teaching students to examine everything and that this means really stepping back to allow students to reflect and critique without fear of saying the "wrong" answer or at least not the answer I'm looking for.

TIPPR 3, Jeff Hill

“Unless the discussion of ideology in the media is related to students’ own experiences and identities, it will remain a purely academic exercise.”

We have discussed the distance between home and school in class. Historically, people generally attend the movies to “escape” (i.e. The percentage of people who attend the movies weekly rises during the economic down times, like the Great Depression in the 1930s [65%]. We should ask Darl about current recession and box office trends.) I am not a fan of escapism because I think we have trained ourselves to compartmentalize ourselves into multiple lives that do not intersect. I was complaining about a classroom exercise we did in school that didn’t really have any application outside the classroom, but my wife pointed out that it did help me with my “school life.” My boss at a job I worked this summer told me that when his father, who he loved dearly, died tragically, no one at work knew or could tell anything was different because he was so “good at his job.” The idea that our personal lives shouldn’t interfere with work or school is a fine idea, but have we taken it too far? What is interference? Why must we be so definably different? Amy discussed her first cohort’s attempt to liberalize their students despite their conservative home lives.

“Only one truly critical reading is privileged in the classroom - and that reading tends to be that of the teacher.”

“The notion that students can be given a voice by the teacher and that they will then use this to speak some kind of subjective truth is… an illusion.”

I feel that the conversation naturally (and should) leads to production. These assignments are often in personal voice. The students are required to use their personal voice, which means they must blur those lines between school and home. It is no longer a purely academic exercise. Once we have production, we can do as Buckingham suggests and create “a constant [shift] between different forms of learning – between action and reflection, between practice and theory, and between passionate engagement and distance analysis.” True understanding and analysis of the media (or another subject) will fall short if not coupled with production.

TIPRR 3

The reading led me back to my undergraduate days in theatre production. The new guys would start out with every word becoming a weapon. As they learned “information” and the necessary jargon and “metalanguage” they would attack texts, and especially attack students’ work without mercy. It was ridiculous, to be frank. And, as Buckingham puts it, they really tried very hard to socially “one up” each other by how harshly they could pick things apart and thus show their “superiority.”

Then, there was the transition phase for the students. We all started doing projects, producing theatre, and it was an interesting phasing out of those who were serious about continuing their major and those who thought it only about playfulness. It was the productions that made some say (and I recall distinctly someone saying this): “I never knew it would be so hard,” and then they left the major. Why it was so hard may have caused some to leave the major but, important to our discussion of Buckingham, those who stuck around suddenly began to have discussions that regard “pleasure” in the works. There was (albeit not for everyone) a more general attitude of acceptance in the works of others, even in their flaws, because we began to appreciate the difficulty it takes to create a work.

On the other hand, though there was a great deal of discussion about what texts mean and making sure we are communicating clearly what we meant to communicate, but what we were missing from our discussions was the intent concerning the audience and talking about how well we were accomplishing our intent with that audience. Instead, we practiced the purity of theoretical principles in practice more so than commercial viability. In other words, “creativity is seen in individualistic terms, as the emanation of some kind of ‘personal vision’ – a matter of an authentic ‘self’ finding its ‘expression’” and not as much taking into consideration the needs/wants of our audience; thus, we were not productively prepared but boy did we know how to dissect a piece of work!

I bring this up because, in order to truly understand something, the intent toward the audience has to be taken into account just as much as the personal expression that comes in production. As theatre students we developed a natural experience that went from the power play of cynical theory to greater appreciation for the efforts and creativity of others’ work by doing the work. Buckingham reminded me that going beyond theoretical and “critical” discussions was necessary to really understand and appreciate a media production, and doing a production with that in mind is far more valuable than doing parodies or emulating someone else’s work, and especially just producing your own vision. In teaching about media, I wholeheartedly agree with the need to do production and to discuss production, and I definitely believe that it has to be more than about pleasing the teacher or one-up-manship. As Buckingham concludes at the end, “it is vital that students be encouraged to reflect upon those processes, and to understand the conditions under which their own meanings and pleasures are produced…”

TIPRR 3 -- "On Their Own Terms"

Perhaps because I'm preparing to teach a lesson on ideology, I found this section of reading fascinating in terms of practically incorporating any kind of fair analysis (and by fair I mean avoiding the spoon-fed conversations that Timbre addressed) into the classroom. The overriding theme for all of these chapters seems to be this:

Allow the students room to incorporate their own opinions into any analysis or creative work. Let them work on their own terms. (it's a blog--I'm allowed to change the text size, right? Maybe a little RaNdOm CaPiTaLiZaTiOn?)

Buckingham addresses a key issue when teaching students to be critical--being 'critical', decoding things 'correctly', can become a form of social capital where students can assert their own superiority over the masses that are being 'duped' every day by media messages. Reading it reminded me of this article (yes, I just plugged the Journal of Media Literacy Education) by Paul Mihailidis where he talks about the results of a media literacy study he did at the university level, and to boil it down for you, he did a study comparing student conversations about the media between a group of students who had taken a media literacy class and a group of students who had not. One of the unintended results seemed to be that the students who had taken the media class were on the whole much more cynical than their media 'illiterate' counterparts. Putting down the media as merely something to manipulate, tearing texts apart for potentially stereotypical representations, etc., without ever allowing anything redemptive into the conversation, became par for the course in his conversations with these students. The control group of students who did not take the class were much more willing to acknowledge personal enjoyment of said media, and though they weren't as well equipped with the vocabulary to discuss media's effects, they were still able to have intelligent and enlightening conversations about media without so much of a cynical stance.

I believe I may have previously mentioned how I had lots of friends who didn't want me to "ruin" the movie for them after we'd watched it by breaking it down (as if a close reading of a text spoiled it...), but perhaps this is why; if we're not careful, talking about media texts can become a joyless exercise where students compete to see which of them can rip apart a media text most effectively. There needs to be room for students to express their honest opinions of a media text, to relate it to their own lives, to look not only for the bad or the manipulative, but also for the good in a text. As Buckingham mentions several times (but here most succinctly), there needs to room for "dialogue or negotiation between students' existing knowledge and experience of the media and the new knowledge that is made available by teachers" (153). Proper analytical and creative activities "should encourage students to acknowledge the complexity and diversity of their pleasures in the media; and to recognize the social basis of all such judgments of taste and value, including their own" (110).

This is getting fairly long, so I won't talk about how I also found the emphasis on student reflection really important (important enough that I want to restructure Hands on a Camera to be sure that the screening of the films is not the last activity, but rather the penultimate one);or that I also agreed with the notion of incorporating more creative activities into a classroom other than the big final project; or that I plan on having my students to a small "media autobiography" in class on Monday. These things could take up hundreds more words. All in all, I liked this reading a lot because it gave me lots of things to consider and reevaluate about my own style of teaching, it gave me lots of practical ideas for future use, and while Buckingham acknowledges that all of these things are difficult in practice, he still gives me hope for a successful future in media education.

TIPRR 3

As I began the reading this week, I really appreciated how well it dovetailed with our conversation in class, especially in regards to "becoming critical." In the very beginning of chapter 7, Buckingham warns us to be careful with regards to our students. He says, the "use of the term 'critical' can reflect a dangerous kind of arrogance. In demonstrating our ability to define the truly 'critical' approach, we are making a powerful claim for our own authority. And if we are 'critical', those who do not share our views are, by implication, either ignorant and misguided or actively engaged in an attempt to obscure the truth" (108). We discussed this very thing the other evening in reference to the questions that we ask our students and the way in which we limit their scope sometimes through our personal line of inquiry. Buckingham warns us against this because as he points out, when critically reading, we often run into situations where our reading is the only "truly critical" reading, and the kids begin to play "let's guess what the teacher is thinking." And let's be honest, this is about as effective as spoon-feeding them information and then asking them to regurgitate it. This is something that I know I need to pay closer attention to in my classroom, opening up the focus of readings and interpretations in order to validate many well thought out and articulate readings, even if they don't coincide with my own.

Making a completely abrupt change with absolutely no natural transition, there was another thing addressed by Buckingham that I found very interesting in relationship to my own life. In chapter 8, while discussing creative production, Buckingham talks about a study done by Jeong in 2001. In this specific case, she was examining the balance within group work and found that "male students' greater expertise in aspects of production resulted in a clear division of labour: while the boys made the 'creative' decisions, the girls were mainly responsible for the organizational 'housework'" (130). This was so fascinating to me, because this is exactly how my yearbook class runs. I'm not 100% convinced that gender is the main differentiators, but my co-teacher and I are a perfect example of this division of labor...he does all of the creative work, the photos, layouts, etc. while I am the one doing all of the organizational work. The same holds true with our students as well; it is often the boys who come through with the more "artistic" stuff while the girls are much more pragmatic. I wonder why this is?

And a final word about the last couple of chapters: I really appreciated some of the teaching ideas presented here. I LOVE that there is a final focus on the need for reflection, rather than simply working toward one huge final product and then calling it done. I firmly believe that any sort of real, meaningful learning does have a significant element of reflection. (Now, whether or not I actually incorporate that into my curriculum is another story...) I also really appreciated the acknowledgment that "the realities of classroom practice are inevitably much more 'messy' and contradictory than the well-ordered universe of educational theory" (153). Thank you, Buckingham! Sometimes, all I want to hear is that "Mr. So-and-so Big Shot Theorist/Researcher" does recognize that sometimes real life is a bit more difficult than working in the world of theory, and because of that recognition, I'm much more willing to go our an at least try to see what I can do.

"...curriculum itself is a mediation: it is a constructed representation of the world, not a neutral reflection of it."

"... the potentially threatening nature of the kinds of 'critical thinking' that are inherent in media education."

As I looked back over my notes today, these were the quotes that I kept coming back to. I like to begin my first U.S. History unit by having my students participate in a chalk walk. For those not familiar, a chalk walk is an activity in which I place posters with various quotes and pictures on a given subject around the classroom and students respond to the quotes and pictures by writing on the posters. For this first chalk walk, I include quotes and pictures from a contemporary of Columbus about the Native American people who were enslaved and killed by Columbus and his men. It tends to be a very effective way to show students that what we view as "history" is very much colored by who is telling the story. I feel that helping students to recognize that the curriculum they study in a history classroom-- or in any of their other subjects for that matter-- is not value neutral or objective information should be one of the great goals of education. For that reason, I would embrace a shift that helped students to develop those type of critical thinking skills but then I'm in this program so you probably already knew that. The difficulty comes in convincing others that media literacy can build those skills and furthermore that this is a desirable goal.

The idea that students need to be protected from ideas is still far too common in education. I've been very lucky the last two years in that I work at a school were I'm given a lot of leeway in the choice of media I use in my classroom but I am very aware that not every teacher is so lucky. I do think there are a lot of people out there-- both professionals in the education field and lay people-- who think that students should be taught critical thinking as long as they come to the "right" conclusions. Of course, I am guilty of this myself at times so I can see why it has the potential to be an obstacle in media education.

I feel like I've really focused in on one kind of narrow idea from this week's reading and I'm sorry for that because I really enjoyed these chapters. I felt like Buckingham laid out an excellent case for what elements should be considered essential in a media education program as well as giving lots of good practical solutions for how to teach those elements in the classroom. I'm just hung up on this idea of the rejection of media education because it teaches kids to be critical and evaluate the information they are given--no matter the method of delivery-- and that for some people that is a bad thing.

TIPRR 2

Getting into the practical application of principles that we have studied was very exciting. It was exciting because it meant figuring out ways to teach and train on how media works and developing those preparatory skills for students to interface with media. I was especially drawn to the teaching techniques of simulation and production. For example, when Buckingham talked about developing simulating a rock band, my mind went to the video game “Rock Band” (of which I believe Amberly “rips” [is that the right word?]) and its interactive use in the classroom. Conceivably, the classroom could divide into different bands, even do some “jam sessions” by playing the game, and discover their distinctive styles. Then, as they simulate the performance aspect of their band, they could go through and discuss how their band should continue on the road to success: How should it market itself? How should it get a manager, agent, etc? Who is their audience and how do they attract a larger segment of that same audience? What is their true product? I think it would be both fun and educational, plus it would require a great deal of their thinking about things that they otherwise would not think about concerning the “industry.” If these things were linked back to “reality” a great deal of understanding could be discovered along the way. This was very interesting and led to me really thinking about the subject that began to bug me: What are we advocating in our program of study?

I couldn’t help but wonder, “Are we concerned with teaching about media, or teaching about how to use media to innovate in our classrooms?” Perhaps we are doing both. The evidence behind the Jenkins text tells us that we innovate in our classrooms. The evidence behind Buckingham was overwhelmingly about teaching us to teach about media. But all of the above are falling under the umbrella of “media education” which is defying definition, it seems. We talked on Tuesday about how we used media as a jumping off point to get to talking about the “real” subject matters. There was discussion about us becoming advocates for the use of media in education, but I’m not sure where I should be focusing: using media to teach or teaching about media? Or both?

Now, switching gears a little, I love the discussion about expertise: “There is some truth in the argument that, when it comes to media education, teachers are no longer the experts. Nevertheless, there is likely to be a great deal that students do not already know, and which it is important for teachers to teach.” In my experience, I usually have worked with those who do know better about the product and service provided, but it has always been my experience that I am a “refiner of revelation” and I help them focus and use their personal expertise to get to new levels of understanding and performance. As a teacher, it is necessary to help bring out productive answers to questions you provide that insight thoughtful reflection and Buckingham helps give a framework for doing so in the classroom regarding media. This was very exciting because I’ve noticed that those younger than I certainly know more about media than I but I believe with proper understanding of media pedagogy I can help students effectively.

#2 Jeff Hill

In class last Tuesday, we gave mock pitches to a superior about adding a Media Literacy unit into the coursework at our school. Amy made comments and asked questions after. After class, while looking over my notes, something that Amy said really struck me. I wrote (she said):

“You presented your pitch as a ‘means to an end’ instead of media education.”

I started thinking about how I present my program to those who are not familiar with Media Education, and although I am very pro-media literacy, I seem to have a tendency to project an education about everything around media and not the media itself.

These chapters were fantastically practical and clear cut. I have been taught using many of the principles before, but it is nice have a name from it now. For example, turning a children’s story into a movie or website will now be know as the Classroom Strategy of Translation, which perhaps I should have known, but I didn’t, so now I do.

The examples were helpful as well. Do they watch “The Simpsons” in the UK?


The end of our reading dealt with finding Media Education outside the classroom.
The community aspect of Media Education is something that I connected with in the very beginning and as of now, community will be a big part of my thesis. Dean Duncan spoke at the Orem Library on the subject of “Representations of Teens in Film.” Not that it was necessarily directed towards teenagers, but I did think it was odd that my wife was the youngest person (she’s not a teen). Even more discouraging was that less than ten people show up to hear a professor speak at a free venue, when lots pay lots to take notes on his every word in a school setting. There are opportunities in the community for Media Education. What can we do to help our community take advantage of those opportunities?

TIPRR 2

After my post last week of what I can only describe as negativity, I can happily report that most of the concerns raised by last week's reading were nicely answered (or at least addressed) in this weeks reading (which I knew they would be, so why was I so negative towards Buckingham? Because I only want him to give me ideas and not to set up the debate? Fortunately for you, this post isn't the place for me to answer those questions...). Instead of just getting more and more depressed by the reading, I found myself jotting down ideas for future classes, and wishing that my own students were reading chapter 4 this week.

Of particular interest to me was the whole chapter entitled "Locating Media Education", because last week I felt that this was my biggest crises (which makes little sense since I have a job teaching media literacy education...)-- where do I fit? The challenge is that many people are asking this about media education in general, and there isn't necessarily a 'right' answer. There are some answers that may be more right than others for certain situations, but studying 'media' has so many facets that it's virtually impossible to say that it only belongs in, say, the English classroom. It certainly needs to be applied across the curriculum (as I said in my last post), but as Timbre points out, this does necessitate changes in core curriculum and teacher expectations, and will take time and effort to implement. However, media education located in other places (like in Hands on a Camera) also has a place. It is our responsibility as educators in our own spheres (teachers, parents, members of the church, etc.) to find ways to incorporate media education. For example, how might I convince my Relief Society book group that it is okay to examine texts that are not religious? Should I do this?

Another point that I really appreciated is the way that Buckingham both emphasizes and de-emphasizes production. He treats production as an integrated part of the learning process, but he doesn't place it on the 'end all be all' pedestal that sometimes it gets assigned. We talk about the need to access, analyze, evaluate, and create, and in placing creation at the end we (maybe just I?) treat it as the culmination of all of these skills. Buckingham explicitly states that "production is not an end in itself" (p. 84), but rather that production is something that can encourage "critical participation in media". I feel that this is one area in which the curriculum in Hands on a Camera needs a little bit of tweaking. We do the majority of our analytical work at the beginning of the semester, and then we do a project at the end, and there isn't much time to place the students' projects back into the cycle and have them reflect on their own creations as media artifacts .

So, I find this portion of Buckingham's book to be extremely helpful and hopeful. It is true that monumental change of the sort that fully integrates media education into all subject areas, thus creating a more media literate public, will take time, but that doesn't mean that the small things we do don't matter. Choose your "big things come from little things" analogy or scriptural reference, and the small changes we make will eventually add up to some change.

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During class on Tuesday, I began thinking over something Amy pointed out, and I haven’t been able to completely resolve the issue within myself. And Buckingham, of course, only exacerbated my internal debate…

As we presented our fictional proposals regarding media education to the “administration,” it became evident that, even if unintentional, we all gave off an air or impression of using media as a means of getting into the “real/actual” curriculum of English/History. As I sat and listened to the discussion that followed, I began to wonder, “Is that such a bad thing? So what if Media is being used to purport an ascribed core curriculum? At least we, as teachers, are trying to integrate the technology into the classroom.”

As I continued to mull over this idea, I began the reading, and discovered that much of Buckingham’s text this week was directed at this very thing; making sure that we’re not confusing “media education” with “instructional technology.” (Maybe it wasn’t, but that’s what I found because that’s what has been on my mind—how’s that for a lens?)

So, as anyone could have probably guessed, the section on “Media education in language and literature teaching” was of particular interest to me due to its complete relevance with my life; however, it is not because I was able to read and say “Hey, I’m doing okay here.” In fact, I think I most identified with the statement on page 95 where Buckingham says, “At best, media education is often seen as a motivational tool—as a means to lead students to conventional print literacy or as a covert means of introducing them to the literary canon.” Could there be a more accurate description of how I currently approach media in my classroom? I think not. It’s sad, but true.

Now, I know I’m not as bad as many other, more “old-school” teachers. I, at the very least, do value media as text, and I have made the conversion to the idea that perhaps the term “literature” needs to be a bit broader. (Maybe we should change Literature classes to Textual Analysis classes or something?) But, I still cling to the literary canon like it’s a small child that will get crushed by all of the quickly passing new ideas that keep coming our way. I don’t think English teachers will be able to let it go completely; after all, it’s usually the literature that motivates people to teach English in the first place.

It is for this reason that I appreciated what Buckingham expressed on several occasions throughout the reading—that media education should be seen as an element of all curricular subjects. Using media production as a “method of learning which can be applied in many situations” is the key to converting students and especially teachers, I think. Because students are so completely consumed with what’s already required, forcing them to take a separate media education course seems impractical. And teachers, as over-worked and under-paid as they often are, need practical, applicable options for adaptation into their existing curriculum if this thing is ever going to get off the ground. Is it the best way? Probably not; it would probably be better to start from scratch, integrating media education into the very structure of the curriculum, connecting it all to the core and making sure that you’re actually teaching media literacy rather than just creating fun “activities” for kids. But the fact of the matter is that no (“good”) teacher I know has the time to do all that at once. (And honestly, the “bad” ones wouldn’t care enough to bother.)

I don’t know. Do I believe that media education is worthwhile? Of course I do, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. And something that I really appreciated about this week’s reading was all of the possible applications and means of teaching various concepts. It’s just that it seems SO big. It feels as though the entire American educational paradigm would have to shift in order to have any permanent, positive effect, which would involve eliminating a lot of old, entrenched thought processes (often found within the teachers themselves). But then I think about the fact that, even if no one else is bothering, I can affect my students, and if even one of them benefits from this embracing of their media-saturated culture, it’s been a successful endeavor.

(After rereading this, I apologize for the fact that I’ve made it sound as though the world revolves around me.)

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While reading the Buckingham text, I was reminded of something that I have seen in the workplace is the evolving choices regarding identity. I work, and have worked, primarily with college age employees who are, for all intensive purposes, developing their identities. Most, recently leaving home and high school, find themselves seeking a newer sense of identity – a way to define who they are. As we discussed and read regarding media literacy education in Jenkins’ article, part of what media has done in its more participatory culture is the increased opportunity for self-expression. This expression, without hesitation, allows the individual to explore his or her internal roots and to find justification or reinvention based on collaborative efforts from readership, online communities, etc. What this means to me is that our current medias help in the evolution of the individual identity as a part of culture and multiple cultures. But they, by no means, are the determinant factor but merely a contributing factor where the individual then makes a choice to act within the context given and thus they are making choices in their media culture that lead them to evolving a sense of personal identity whereas young adults previously developed their identity merely through their choices of major or work; the outward world defined the individual. Media creates a new domain with which to exercise preferences and growth opportunities – thus influencing identity.

I have seen the formation of belief systems almost entirely based on the work that the individual does and those who surround them have a profound influence on their future business and work experience (despite what their major may be). But, more often than not, I have seen the individual categorizing their lives with work, home life, school, and another dimension that has given them some sense of liberation: the media. These individual belief systems, from a media education standpoint, are formed by those we interact with through the media (because media is not only a filmic, television, or literary experience, but an ongoing growing process of participation). The book puts it this way: “identity comes to be seen as a matter of individual choice, rather than birthright or destiny; and in the process, it is argued, individuals have also become more diverse – and to some extent more autonomous – in their uses and interpretations of cultural goods” (pg 16). This is a long way of saying: media has allowed for choices in identity.

The challenge in this context is that wider choices can be made than before but those choices are very much influenced within the communities that are participated in on an intercultural level. “Children are being ‘empowered’ and yet simultaneously denied the opportunity to exercise control” (pg. 22). The boundaries being let loose have created a dichotomy that is hard for individuals to grasp because there is a new vocabulary necessary to handle the new culture that they are involved in, and which is giving them some degree of power but is also pressing an intertextuality and interactivity that takes the individual across “landscapes” of media and increasingly are more connected with merchandising product upon product in a mass communication of consumerism which the individual is not always aware of because they do not have the means or know-how to deal with this paradigm. The individual has a new way of forming identity but that identity is controlled by businesses using media to help form the belief systems that compose the identity without the individual being entirely conscious of these effects. My question is, how do we effectively help children (and young adults) navigate through the consumer culture inherent in today's "trans-media intertextuality"?

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After dividing the history of media education into the categories of discrimination, demystification, and democratization (I appreciate the alliteration), the David Buckingham text has a section labeled, “Towards a new paradigm,” in which Buckingham outlines a shift in ideas about media. Many of the concepts were applicable to the discussion we had in class and to my personal experiences. One major point was that the younger educators today who grew up with more media access are less likely to be opposed to the media intake of the their students. This immediately made me think of video games. Sharon even jabbed Erika in the ribs a little bit last week for her admitted Wii usage. I have played video games all my life. Computer time in elementary school was typing for ten minutes and Oregon Trail [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GH0-hr1u_k] for 40 minutes, Super Techmo Bowl [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PBvOxicz-0] is what I remember most about spending time with my older brothers, and junior high was up all night with my friends and Golden Eye or WCW vs. NWO.


These games really marked big social moments in my life. I am the youngest of 6 and my oldest brothers were out of the house by the time I was 6 years old and it may seem a little ridiculous, but of the things they liked, Super Tecmo Bowl was one of the few things I could do with them. Although video games didn’t play as much of a role for me in high school and I don’t think anyone would consider me a gamer, I still have a sympathetic view of the positive role a game can play in development.
On this idea of an education more accepting of students’ experiences, Buckingham writes, “it adopts a more student-centered perspective, which begins from young people’s existing knowledge and experience of media, rather than from the instructional imperatives of the teacher. It does not aim to shield young people from the influence of the media, and thereby to lead them on to ‘better things’, but to enable them to make informed decisions on their own behalf.”
I remember my teachers not being interested in what I liked, but instead trying very hard to get me interested in what they liked. Which is fine, but perhaps because of that experience I can be more open to what the students have to bring to the table and they may be more open to what I have as well. This is a form of teaching that I am trying to become more comfortable with. At times, I would prefer to type out my lecture and present it to the class without interruption, but having them bring texts to present to the class and to share their ideas with everyone creates the environment that we want and it also ensure that I am more fluent with the material and able to enhance the discussion instead of stopping it so that I can get back to my PowerPoint.

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As I did this week’s reading, I was troubled by two issues that I see as being related and problematic when looking at the implementation of media literacy programs in today’s public school system.

First, like Jenkins, Buckingham placed a strong emphasis on the participatory nature of modern media culture and the need for media education to teach students to not only be critical consumers of media but also to be active participants in media culture through the manufacture of their own media, so how do I as an educator facilitate that process? How do I use media in my classroom so that students are participating in a dialogue and not merely passive observers or critics? It really does seem to require that media education be taught not as an independent subject but as an integrated element in every subject. The difficulty I foresee with this is that education seems to be particularly resistant to systemic changes and paradigm shifts. Even today when countless studies show that children learn in a variety of ways and when the idea of multiple intelligences is generally accepted, the most common form of assessment is still standardized testing and rote memorization. Additionally, when new technologies are brought into classrooms they are often only employed as substitutes for older tools, i.e. computers are used as typewriters while ignoring all of the other benefits they have for student use.

My second concern lies with the question of access, specifically if it is necessary for a media literate student to not only critique media but also create it, how do we ensure that all children have access to participate? I know we’ve discussed that media literacy can be taught via low tech but I still feel that those students who lack access to the more high tech end of modern media culture are going to be operating at a greater disadvantage than their more technologically wealthy peers. Again, I see this as a large hurdle to the systemic implementation of media education in this country. The academic achievement gap in this country is a significant one, so how can we ensure that media literacy does not become one more area in which learners from low-income socio-economic backgrounds are disadvantaged?

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Each year, I start my class with a unit on how to analyze and synthesize text. It’s a good place to start, because if you can’t closely examine literature and draw out universal concepts and applications, then there really is no point to a literature class.

During the course of this unit, as a class, we also address the issue of text, and what defines a text. Buckingham opens our reading by defining medium as “a substance or a channel through which effects or information can be transmitted” and the media texts as the “programmes, films, websites (and so on) that are carried by [modern communications media]” (3). This is exactly what I teach my kids. I absolutely love the idea that the text can be defined in a way that includes more than just novels, short stories, poetry, and articles of various sorts. In fact, we even do an assignment where we break down many different types of text, from art to film, none of which are actually written. It is through the analysis of these media texts that I am finally able to see various “light bulbs” start to flicker. Kids who have never been able to understand an actual written text are finally able to understand the analytical process by utilizing the same skill set on something with which they are familiar: the media. Not only is it a fun experience for students, but for me, this “[recognizing] and [building] upon…students’ everyday cultural experiences” has make a significant impact in my classroom, because once these skills are developed, the transfer of knowledge to literary text is actually quite simple (8). Based solely on their appeal to students, using media texts within a classroom is a smart idea, but when coupled with the idea that these texts can also make more “traditional” types of knowledge more accessible to students—I’m sold. The unfortunate thing is that often these texts are used improperly, thereby making all media a “lazy teacher’s crutch.” (For more of my feelings regarding this phenomenon, check out my response to Erika’s Aladdin anecdote.)

Another textual concept discussed that I found to be intriguing, especially within the English classroom is the idea of intertextuality. It used to be that the most connection you would get would be if authors used allusions within their work, and if you were familiar with the Bible or with Shakespeare’s writings, you had a pretty good chance of understanding underlying meanings and messages. In contemporary media, as pointed out by Buckingham, “texts are constantly referring to and drawing upon other texts,” assuming that their audiences will be aware of the other media being referenced, and not really bothering to make even important references blatantly obvious. In fact, seeing if you can “catch the references” has almost become a game within programs like The Simpsons and The Gilmore Girls, both of which are so much more entertaining if you are familiar with a myriad of movies, television shows, video games, and musical artists in addition to the more traditional authors and poets. (One of the most refreshing things about both of these programs is the fact that they do use “high culture” as well as “popular culture.” As a teacher of “the classics” I am even a bit grateful, because sometimes there is interest sparked in favor of a particular work of literature.) In connection with this idea, it would be interesting to me, as an English teacher, to teach two different classes on literary devices, one where I focused on the interconnectivity of “traditional” text through allusion, and another where I focused solely on this idea of intertextuality, using various genres of media text to study the same concepts. In the end, I’m sure the students in the second group would, at least initially, have less knowledge regarding “classic literature,” but that wouldn’t be the point. What I wonder is if the second group would have a better handle on the concepts and would then be able to connect their newfound knowledge to those same classic texts, eventually making up for “lost time” because they are able to comprehend more quickly. I have no idea how it would turn out, but I would venture that it’s worth a shot, at least.

Because I could go on about literacy forever and because I’m already waxing extremely long, I think I’ll save that discussion for class, and instead end with this: I am extremely intrigued by the idea of interactive media. The idea that the distinction between reader and writer is being eliminated is very interesting. As I read, I was reminded of the old Choose Your Own Adventure books. Could it really be that those who play video games are actually writing what amounts to the ultimate Choose Your Own Adventure? I absolutely loved those books, and so, if this is the case, I now have a schema for understanding the fascination with the video game. Hmmm…how can I incorporate this into my curriculum? Would it be that far of a stretch to imagine a Nintendo Wii game entitled Lord of the Flies or even The Crucible? And if they did exist, how many of my kids would become interested in the original novels? After all, there’s nothing like a “based on…” tag to inspire curiosity.

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Beginnings are hard for me. Here we go.

A few months ago, I was talking to my younger sister about media in schools and she mentioned that she had a few teachers who would probably drive me crazy. I asked for an example, and she said that after doing a unit on the Middle East her teacher had shown them Disney’s Aladdin as a reward. (She was right about my being annoyed; I hold this practice on par with giving the winner of a weight loss contest a lifetime supply of Twinkies.) This experience (and the many like it that I have in my own memory) demonstrates the vital need for media education in the classroom: simply bringing media into the classroom is not enough. In fact, using media in this way—as a treat rather than a text—engenders a culture of passivity for young people, as if media is something to engage with after the ‘real’ work is done rather than treating it as the large influence on modern culture that it actually is.

The Buckingham reading is simultaneously inspiring and frustrating for me. I'm in agreement about many issues that he presents, but I also find it a little frustrating how few actual answers Buckingham provides to some of his own questions. I fully acknowledge that the forthcoming chapters do provide some answers as to pedagogical strategies, but to this point in the reading the most common note I have written in the margins is, “How do we do this?” While this might just show that I need to work on writing more helpful notes to myself, it also points to the main point of Buckingham’s book thus far: Media Education is desperately needed in theory, and somewhat complicated in practice.

The initial difference that Buckingham sets up between democratization and defensiveness is quite helpful, especially when use them to find our own motivation for pursuing media education. On one end of the spectrum we have defensiveness, which seeks to protect or ‘inoculate’ youth from the perceived (and real) dangers of media. On the other we have democratization, which recognizes that students use media regularly, and that media should be incorporated into the classroom in order to make education relevant to the students’ out of school lives. One camp asserts that youth need to be sheltered from media influences, and the other asserts that they should be allowed to roam free within the media landscape.

If we hold that virtue is the midpoint between two vices, then the ideal pedagogical standpoint seeks to reconcile these two tendencies (as Buckingham points out). This sounds great on paper, but actually making this work in practice is much more difficult (perhaps it is only difficult for me). Even though I always try to remember that “MLE is not about revealing to students the ‘true’ or ‘correct’ or ‘hidden’ meaning of media messages, nor is it about identifying which media messages are ‘good’ and which ones are ‘bad,’” (CPMLE 6.3) when teaching media analyses (especially to younger students) it is always tempting to try to find the “hidden” meanings, to point out the ways that we are being led to believe what we believe about a text. It is also especially challenging to not try to find the “right” answer, as there tend not to be right or wrong arguments, only supported and unsupported arguments.

One overwhelming thing that I feel while reading Buckingham (and the Core Principles, and the Jenkins reading) is that media education is bigger than one subject; it is a teaching philosophy and practice that needs to be integrated into all aspects of the curriculum. Going back to my initial example, in the same amount of time that it took the teacher to allow the students to watch Aladdin, they could have instead had a discussion about American portrayal of Middle Eastern culture, replete with other examples, treating Aladdin as the text it is rather than a treat merely for consumption.

This reality—that media education is a pedagogical strategy rather than a specific subject— makes it slightly difficult for me to see clearly where I fit in the picture. I approach media education from a film background (as evidenced by Hands on a Camera’s focus on filmmaking), but media education encompasses multiple media forms and their various uses. Ideally in Hands on a Camera we will discuss other forms of media, but the process can only go so far if students do not then engage with that material within the context of other school subjects.