LITERACY IN A MEDIA AGE ITHACA COLLEGE ITHACA.

LITERACY IN A MEDIA AGE

ITHACA COLLEGE

ITHACA, recent YORK

OCTOBER 14-15 2005

2005 conversation ON MEDIA LITERACY

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

OCTOBER 22 2005

Media literacy is taking its place in an emerging pedagogy, and sum of two units recent conferences sponsored by leading nonprofit media literacy organizations propounded valuable insights into this burgeoning field as well as practical tools for classroom use. "Literacy in a Media Age," the secondary annual conference sponsored by contrive Look Sharp (PLS), was held at Ithaca society Home, Inc., hosted a gathering of media literacy researchers, scholars, and practitioners at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

"Literacy in a Media Age" was an intimate marked occurrence focused on providing practical applications for media literacy in the classroom. The two-day parley began with a keynote address by means of Faith Rogow, noted media educator, consultant, and founding president of the Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA). In "Reading Media: The recently made known Literacy," Rogow presented a general overview of the field, stating that because it focuses onward fostering critical thinking skills, media literacy is an "ideal tool" for educational use. Commenting upon the increasing use of media literacy in place of educations Rogow pointed out that the issue is not whether these tools will be used in the classroom, unless of media literacy successfully becoming a field of its own--that it is now a matter of training teachers and getting others involved. She mentioned the various times being used to define the field, including "critical literacy," "cultural literacy," "technology literacy," and "information literacy," pointing abroad that no matter how the field is defined, it is essentially the same touchs that are being addressed and the same tools that are being used. Rogow told the teachers in the audience, "You are the leading border of a field that will profoundly change American education."

The secondary plenary, "Introduction to Media Literacy Integration in K-12 Education," was not awayed by Cyndy Scheibe and Chris Sperry Scheibe, executive director of PL and Sperry director of curriculum and staff unfolding began by providing various statistical rationale behind their push for enhanced media literacy education in the classroom. For example, according to a subject of attention conducted by researcher Morris Berman in 2001 60 percent of American adults have not read a work of any kind since leaving instruct A 2005 Kaiser Family Foundation consideration found that television remains the chiefly prevalent source of media for fifteen- to eighteen-year-olds, who watch an average of two-and-one-half hours of television programming by day, much of it created by means of the six media conglomerates who popularly produce the bulk of the world's media (Bertelsmann, Disney, General Electric, stranges Corp., Time Warner, and Viacom). As Scheibe and Sperry noted, the goal of media literacy education is to shift bookish mans from seeing media as barely entertainment to being able to analyze it. They giveed educators such suggestions as finding documents that address their goals and using varied sources, and perioded the session with Thomas Jefferson's statement that "An enlightened citizenry is indispensable."

After this initial theoretical preface, the remaining breakout sessions focused upon integrating specific media literacy tools in the classroom. pair to three choices were put forwarded in each of five after workshop sessions over two days. Rogow in a session entitled "Visual Literacy," not absented an outline of how to "read" visual language. As she explained, a basic formula for this kind of language has been established: image + satisfaction = message. Enough context for shared meaning is also necessary in times of the cultivation of usual cultural experience. Rogow explained that we learn what to pay attention to and what to dismiss, and that our brains are pre-wired to pay attention to things that are recently made known and in motion. In addition, visuals are more powerful than words and are recalled more readily. "Impact factors" for media include for what cause much, what, who, and on what account paired with repetition (television has the most numerous capacity for repetition of any media), contented and context. For example, although youth oftentimes claim that they recognize that the violent acts they behold in video games and forward television are not real, the actual issue is the normalization of violence. There is also a make uneasy for what is known as "displacement theory": if common is watching a screen, single in kind is not doing something otherwise that may provide more intellectual stimulation or physical benefit.

Scheibe, a psychologist at Ithaca society home of PLS, presented a psychological perspective onward "Debunking Media Myths: Subliminal Messages & Other Stories." Scheibe l participants between the sides of three main categories of media myths: erroneous beliefs and misconceptions that eventuate from specific media examples; urban fables which are widespread erroneous beliefs reinforced and perpetuated from the media (along with other sources); and erroneous beliefs and misconceptions about the media that we may accept without questioning or critique because they fit what we want to believe. She debunk the idea of subliminal messages, explaining and providing examples of to what degree subliminal messages--which are, by definition, "below the outset (of conscious perception or interpretation)"--do not exist.