BEYOND MEDIA LITERACY: NEW PARADIGMS IN MEDIA EDUCATION

By

COLIN SCHEYEN

Integrated Studies Project

submitted to Dr. Robert Runte

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts – Integrated Studies

Athabasca, Alberta

November, 2013

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Abstract

This article provides a framework for educators, community workers and

activists to integrate multimedia projects into their work with young people. It

contends that our current media literacy practices do not adequately provide

young people with the tools to effectively engage with multimedia to challenge

many of the hegemonic narratives that are perpetuated by corporate and

governmental interests. Instead, this framework integrates creative

collaboration and critical pedagogical methods to encourage young people to

use multimedia projects to instigate positive change in their lives and their

communities. Most importantly, this framework encourages adults and young

people to explore their media literacy together to shift the group’s focus from

passive consumption of media content to active creation.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION   4  

WHY YOUTH? WHY MEDIA?   5  

YOUTH AND MEDIA   7  

MEDIA LITERACY TODAY   10  

THE CONSUMER/PRODUCER SPECTRUM   15  

CREATIVE COLLABORATION   18  

INTEGRATING MEDIA   26  CASE STUDY 1: I KNOW I CAN   27  CASE STUDY 2: IS IT WORTH IT?   29  

SUGGESTED PROJECTS   32  RESOURCES   36  

WORKS CITED   38  

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Introduction In 2012, I was invited to a special gala that was hosted by one of the most

prestigious media institutions in Canada. This event connected some of Toronto’s best

indie filmmakers, graphic artists, video game designers, and educators to create

innovative platforms to teach media literacy to young people. After some casual mingling

over catered food and expensive drinks I noticed that even though this project focused on

engaging youth with new digital platforms, not one adult other than myself had thought

that it was important to actually involve young people in the project. In fact, one of the

young men that I had brought with me felt so out of place with the group that he had to

ask the facilitator “are kids allowed to be here too?” The very fact that this young man

had to ask if he was allowed to be involved in a project that he probably understood

better than anyone else in the room demonstrated to me that something was clearly wrong

here. Perhaps this young man may not have had the same technical knowledge as some of

his adult peers, but he was able to bring a unique youth perspective to the table and

informed his teammates on current trends and gaps in media literacy. By simply giving

this young man the chance to work with the adults in the room, he eventually went on to

play an instrumental role in the creation of an innovative peer-based learning tool that

could be used in collaboration with current elementary and high school curriculums.

Stories like this are a common occurrence when talking about media literary and

young people. As adults and educators we often see ourselves as the keepers and

suppliers of knowledge and forget that young men and women often have just as much to

teach us. When we deny young people the right to partner with us to explore and navigate

the world we lose out on the opportunity to have meaningful and relevant discussions that

can result in important changes to our communities. Furthermore, when we impose our

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own vision of appropriate and inappropriate uses of multimedia on young people we too

lose out on the opportunity to be better educators, citizens, producers, and consumers of

media.

This handbook is for teachers, community workers, activists and anyone else

interested in breaking away from the antiquated models of media literacy that are often

promoted in curriculums across Canada and the United States. The traditional model of

media literacy marginalizes young people as merely consumers rather than producers of

media and encourages them to only consume the kind of content that adults and

corporations see as appropriate. As a result, our current understanding of media literacy

is no longer relevant to our increasingly connected world. Educators need to be

responsive to these changes to better equip ourselves and young people with the skills

needed to navigate new and emergent platforms. In short, we cannot tell young people

how to be media literate. I encourage students and teachers to explore their literacy

together to challenge one another to move beyond being merely passive consumers of

media. Instead, true media literacy requires adults and young people to be honest with

themselves and understand that all of us both consume and produce content at different

times. The key, however, is to shift our thinking away from our predominant culture of

media consumption and challenge ourselves to create content that expresses our unique

perspectives of the world around us.

Why Youth? Why Media? It is no secret that young men and women have a long history of successfully

adopting diverse mediums to suit their own unique circumstances. Whether it is film,

music, literature, or graphic arts, young people have created some of our most important

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cultural works that have communicated the ideas and values of many past generations. As

a youth I was always fascinated with how the Punk and Hip Hop sub-cultures were able

to accurately explore and express some of the serious challenges that inner-city youth

were facing at that time. Eventually these movements exploded into hundreds of creative

scenes around the world that allow youth to connect with one another and share ideas.

Both of these movements have taught me that young people do not need to be taught to

be media literate; they only need to be provided with an opportunity to explore, analyze,

break it down, rip it up and start again.

Most importantly, both of these movements embraced a do it yourself (DIY)

mentality that empowered young people to make do with the scarce resources around

them to produce something meaningful. B-Boys and B-girls, for example, used cardboard

boxes because they couldn’t afford floor mats; graffiti artists replaced canvas and brushes

with spray cans and city walls; punks turned everyday objects like safety pins and patches

into fashion accessories that communicated their unique perspectives. Neither movement

waited for government funding or school resources before they did this; they simply

created something out of nothing by interacting with the world around them. As teachers

and community workers we can learn a lot from young people by realizing that we do not

need expensive budgets to develop multimedia programs that will engage young people.

Instead, we only have to engage in meaningful activities where youth are given sufficient

freedom to examine, discuss and deconstruct the world around them.

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True Story: While working as a teacher in Queens, New York I came to know R, one of the most extraordinary rappers and freestylers I have ever met. R had all the talent in the world with no money to record at a studio. In the 12 months that I knew R, he was able to put together an entire mixtape of great songs he recorded by beatboxing into an old Nokia phone and then playing that back while he rapped into his Blackberry. It didn’t matter that the recording quality was terrible because his skill set was so obvious. By using the tools around him he was able to create his own private recording studio.

After listening to and learning from young men and women throughout my career

and education I have come to realize that the only rule of media literacy is that there are

no rules. There are no twelve-step programs that will effectively engage youth and teach

them to be better consumers or producers of media content. There is no failsafe formula

that will make young people more aware of hidden messages in advertising or able to

safely navigate social media in a responsible manner. Instead, this handbook will attempt

to outline a set of guiding principles that are deeply rooted in the philosophies of critical

pedagogy and youth engagement and are directly inspired by the ways in which I have

seen young men and women use various mediums to suit their own unique needs. While I

have found that these principles are most engaging for youth who belong to marginalized

communities, they could be very easily applied to any demographic, young or old, who

feel underrepresented by the majority of corporate media networks.

Youth and Media “All media exists to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.” Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media The most important thing to remember when using multimedia to engage young

people is to recognize that all of us are immersed within an ocean of media. These

messages have fundamentally structured the ways in which we see the world. Advertising

campaigns emphasize the importance of consumerism; government messages reinforce

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and validate political ideologies; film and television shows highlight specific lifestyles

and narrative structures; and commercial radio stations play songs that fit a narrowly

defined format of appropriate and inappropriate content and song structure. These

messages are inescapable in modern society and influence adults just as much as young

people. How can we break these messages down and navigate this vast ocean of

influence? How can we support young men and women to be aware of these influences

and work with them to develop their own voice? Is it even possible?

To do this we need to have a basic understanding of how competing stakeholders

such as governments and corporations control different aspects of media in our society. It

is important to note that all media does not operate within a vacuum, but rather is

contingent upon the economic, political and social factors of our society. The more

democratic and free a society is, the greater authority its citizens will have in influencing

and participating in the broadcasting and distribution of content. However, the more

hierarchical a society is, the more discriminatory and polarizing its media will be. Henry

Giroux explains that consumerism is the principle means of engagement for young

people. This influence, he contends, has drastically limited our

capacity for imagining… public spheres and democratic cultures that might offer the skills, knowledge, and values necessary to engage human suffering, define responsible public action as an enabling quality, and provide public forums, spaces, and events where the occupants of different residential areas [can] challenge one another, talk, quarrel, argue or agree, lifting their private problems to the level of public issues and make public issues into matters of private concerns. (64)

The majority of mainstream media networks do not aim to engage and challenge citizens

in critical dialogue and democratic participation, but rather attempts to turn complex

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issues into one-dimensional sound bites that will sell newspapers and increase viewership

rather than facilitate any democratic participation.

More importantly, these sound bites are not randomly generated by a machine or

even based upon hard facts, but rather are constructed out of highly hegemonic narratives

that have been used by the news media for decades and have proven to increase

viewership and sell advertising space. Many of these narratives are often based upon

racist, sexist, ageist, classist, and religious profiles that existed well before the news story

was ever broadcast and will continue to be found in the mainstream media until much

larger systemic changes are made.

This issue has serious implications for young men and women. When one turns on

a television, for example, one can find countless examples of how young men and

women’s bodies have been used to sell products and exploit gender stereotypes. Young

men are often portrayed as ambivalent, dangerous and hyper-maculated while young

women are fair skinned, submissive, and overtly feminine. If we hear any perspectives

from young men and women at all, they are rarely unique or relevant to lives of real

young people. Instead, they are nameless bodies that are seen and not heard and are used

to perpetuate stereotypes far more than break them.

Most tragically of all, when young men and women see these messages day in and

day out they begin to internalize them and accept these false consciousnesses as absolute

truth. Some accept lighter skin as the benchmark for beauty, some accept jingoistic

rhetoric that promotes hegemonic interests, and others construct worldviews based upon a

narrow and biased perspective of current events. Whatever the message, it is not enough

for young people to only learn how to read, understand and evaluate these messages.

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They need to engage with and deconstruct them so that they can begin to unveil their

hidden assumptions and then use this knowledge to begin to recognize their own position

in the world.

While these issues are relevant to the lives of all young people to some degree,

marginalized youth have a particularly unique position in the media. A recent study

concerning Canada’s major news networks found that over seventy percent of all articles

related to issues of youth justice focused on homicides that were committed by young

people in spite of the fact that they constituted merely 0.02 percent of all court cases

(McCormick 117). This clear discrepancy between what was reported and what actually

took place demonstrates that corporate media networks are selective with what they

choose to report. Furthermore, these narratives have played a significant role in

constructing the public’s false understandings of marginalized youth and marginalized

communities as a whole. Without sufficient opportunities to discuss, analyze, deconstruct

and respond to these oppressive narratives, many young men and women will continue to

submit to their roles as passive consumers. Therefore, it is imperative that we

consistently provide opportunities for young people to have meaningful engagements

with media content to answer back to these narratives and to construct new ones that are

based upon their real life experiences.

Media Literacy Today Media literacy is a loaded term. On the one hand most educators and community

workers agree that young men and women need to have a strong understanding of the

context of the messages that they encounter while playing videos game, MMORPGs,

watching TV, films, listening to music, reading eBooks, participating in social media

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websites, and the thousands of other activities that young people do with media on a daily

basis. However, problems arise once archaic models of media literacy are imposed upon

young people. Some adults, we shall call them the Protectors, see media literacy as a way

to shield young people from content that they believe to be inappropriate. In this sense,

young people are seen as potential victims from foul language, violence, and online

predators. People who subscribe to this vision see media literacy as a way to safeguard

young people from danger and see adults as having the skills, experience and expertise to

lead the way. While the intentions of this perspective may be in the right place, most of

these concerns are often rooted in the facilitator’s own ignorance or personal biases and

not within the youth’s current perspectives.

A second perspective of media literacy, which we will call the Critics, sees the

adult as the refined connoisseur who wants to bestow his or her own personal taste upon

young people. People who subscribe to the Critic vision of media literacy see content as

broken down into two distinct categories of high and low art and want to teach young

people to appreciate what they determine to be the best examples of their genres. Often

this entails listening to many of the teacher’s boring lectures on why these works are

important. By the end of this experience the students have not gained any skills or

expertise other than a better understanding of the personal biases of their teacher.

A third perspective of media literacy, which we shall call the Reader, sees content

as something that young people only consume. People who subscribe to this vision of

media literacy believe that content is something that is to be bought and viewed with a

critical eye. As a result they teach Media Literacy with a textbook approach by making

students memorize irrelevant and isolated facts that have very little to do with their own

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personal lives and interaction with multimedia. Students who are unfortunately taught by

Readers rarely get the opportunity to create anything because their facilitators have

become too attached to the idea that content is something that is only produced by media

networks for people to consume.

A fourth perspective of media literacy, which we shall call the generational gap,

presupposes that adults are too “out of touch” with current media trends to teach young

people how to use them. People who subscribe to this vision of media literacy do not

want to take the time to catch up on the latest technological trends and so stick to the

same technologies that they learned when they first became interested in multimedia.

More importantly, teachers who find themselves within the generational gap are often so

afraid of these new technologies and social media platforms that they deprive young

people the opportunity to teach these skills to them.

Finally, a fifth perspective of media literacy, which we shall call the tech guru,

stresses the importance of integrating the latest and greatest gadgets and devices into their

lessons. Even though there is nothing wrong with providing opportunities for young

people to test out and play with the latest technologies, people who subscribe to this

vision of media literacy often place too much emphasis on engaging with the device and

not enough importance on providing opportunities for the students to engage with one

another and their communities. By the end of the course, the youth may have learned how

to operate a wide variety of devices and software, but they have not learned more about

their communities, themselves, and their unique position in the world.

The reality is that when we were students and were learning how to be literate,

our teachers did not teach us only how to read. They taught us reading and writing at the

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same time to make us more proficient and versatile communicators. Media literacy

should be the same. We cannot teach young people only how to read content and expect

that is enough for them to succeed in our multimedia culture. Media literacy is the new

literacy of today and we must work with, rather than for, young people so that they are

sufficiently equipped to be literate consumers and producers in the twenty-first century.

Furthermore, true media literacy requires that we make peace with the fact that all of us,

young and old, consume and produce media at different times, but often our consumerist

culture encourages us to consume far more than we create. This is problematic because

mainstream media networks focus on profit margins and may not represent our

communities’ best interests.

Many of us have seen the Protectors, Critics, Readers, the Generational Gappers,

and the tech gurus imposed upon young people on countless occasions. Perhaps some of

you reading this even see parts of yourself in these perspectives. They are common

paradigms for adults to fit into because as teachers and youth workers we often take on

the responsibility of overseeing the lives and education of young people. The problem

with this, however, is that when we take on the role of the Protector, Critic, Reader,

Generational Gapper, or tech guru, we are often imposing our own vision of what young

people should be and how we believe they should interact and consume content. In fact,

we may actually be causing more harm than good by failing to empower young people

with the skills they need to effectively navigate the digital world around them.

As adults we need to come to terms with the fact that we just might be the

problem. Many of us may not be very technologically savvy or computer literate. Some

of us may not know what makes a good photograph or how to shoot and edit a film.

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Some of us may have never created a blog, vlog, webpage or even interacted on social

media websites before and feel that that makes us inadequate to teach these skills to

young people. Therefore, out of fear of failure we stick to what we know. We know how

to watch films, we know how to listen to music and we know how to read a webpage so

we teach those skills to young people. The problem is that this is not enough. We are

fooling ourselves and failing young people if we continue to impose these archaic models

of media literacy.

If we want to move forward we need to be bold and open to the idea of

exploration. If you are uncertain of what Twitter or Pinterest are, get the students to show

you and explore those platforms together. Do some research and find the closest 3D

printer or Google Glass in your area and expose young people to these exciting new

opportunities. Ask your students to do some research and find articles on the latest trends

and upcoming innovations. Talk about them and try to predict where these trends will

take us. Have fun with these new discoveries! Keep that spirit of exploration alive!

Unfortunately, by the time you read this handbook many of these trends will be

yesterday’s news, but I do encourage you to be open to these be technologies and

implement them in your daily life and your pedagogical practices as much as possible.

Keeping that spirit of discovery alive will be contagious to your students and will create a

learning environment to which everyone can contribute.

Most importantly, we need to understand that the old paradigms of media literacy

are about as effective as bringing a knife to a gunfight. They often do not explore and

examine many of the platforms that young people are already working with on a daily

basis. They do not provide the tools for young people to respond to the racist, sexist,

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classist and ageist messages that are perpetuated by many corporate media networks.

They do not recognize young people as capable of deconstructing these issues and reply

back with alternative perspectives that more accurately reflect their own beliefs and

aspirations. And finally, they do not recognize young men and women as the experts in

their own lives and communities. Instead, they reinforce the ignorant perspective that all

media content, whether it is on television, the Internet, the recording arts or any other

medium is merely a static object that is to passed down and evaluated through the

ideological and technological limitations that have been created by the teacher. Instead,

we need to foster an environment where young people can grow to understand that THEY

ARE THE MEDIA AND THE MEDIA IS THEM so that they can begin to construct

content that accurately reflects their perspectives rather than continuing to allow

corporate media networks with their own separate interests and agendas to do it for them.

"If you want to make a movie, make it. Don't wait for a grant, don't wait for the perfect circumstances, just make it."- Quentin Tarantino “You don’t have to get better, just get out there, you’re as good as you are. Don’t wait till you’re better, how are you ever gonna know? Just go out there and do it.”- Joey Ramone

The Consumer/Producer Spectrum It is important for educators and youth workers to jump into multimedia projects

in spite of any apprehensions they may have working with the digital arts. Multimedia

projects offer youth and adults an exciting opportunity to engage in dynamic and relevant

conversations about the world around them. It does not matter if the technical quality of

the projects do not compare to the films and television shows that we are accustomed to

watching. What does matter is the quality of the conversations that lead to these finished

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products. This is where the truly meaningful work will instigate the impetus for change in

young people's lives and the communities in which they live.

I am proposing a new perspective for media literacy that seeks to educate the

teacher as much as the student. This model of media literacy acknowledges that all of us,

young and old, produce and consume media to some degree and we need to understand

where we fit into the consumer/producer spectrum before we can assist others in doing

so. Some of us may produce content by simple things such as blog posts or Instagram

pictures, while other may have more experience with custom web design or Youtube

videos. Whatever one’s experience, a fundamental of media literacy requires adults and

youth to ask themselves questions such as:

• How much media content do I consume compared to how much I create?

• How do these messages affect me?

• Do I foster a culture of creation or consumption?

• Do I create content that allows me to respond to issues I feel are important?

• How original is the content that I create? Am I restricted by templates that are

provided for me? If so, how can I move beyond these restrictive barriers?

• Do I create or consume works that marginalize others?

• What are the key messages of the works that I create or consume?

• What messages are missing and is that a gap I could fill?

Many of these questions do not have simple answers and require us to take a hard look at

ourselves before we can even begin to support young people to do the same.

The following chart differentiates between typical media consumption, traditional

media literacy and the new media literacy for which I am advocating.

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Consumerism Old Media Literacy New Media Literacy Passive consumers: Media content is a commodity to be bought and sold.

Critical consumers: One uses their “spending power” to determine what to support.

Active creators: One uses the tools around them to voice their opinions and perspectives of the world.

Content is to be sold to advertisers and bought by the consumer.

Media content is consumed so we need to be critical consumers.

Media content can be bought, but it can also be created, remixed and shared with others for free.

Youth consume media content that may or may not expand their understanding of the world.

Youth should be trained to consume only media content that expands their understanding of the world.

Youth engage with the world and voice their perspectives.

Messages are accepted at face value.

Messages need to be evaluated and critiqued so that we know what we’re buying into.

Messages are analyzed, deconstructed, and reframed.

Communities are created based upon a common interest in commodities.

Youth find communities that suit their interests and values.

Youth create and contribute to communities that meet their needs.

Media networks frame messages.

Media networks frame messages.

Various media platforms are one of the essential tools in which individuals communicate with one another.

Autocratic in nature. Corporate and government owned media networks control media content.

Autocratic in nature. Corporate and government owned media networks control the media content, while educators, parents and elders attempt to control what young people. consume.

More democratic in nature. Educators partner with young people to create messages that reflect their perspectives.

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Understanding where you and your students fit into the consumer/producer

spectrum can be challenging and we must be careful to neither over-romanticize nor

downplay the work that young people are doing. For example, young people are currently

creating blogs and participating in social media sites twice as often as adults (Stern 97).

This is definitely an exciting opportunity to engage young people, but we also have to be

careful to not misconstrue activities such as these as purely acts of creation since many of

these web pages, blogs, and social media websites use preexisting templates and

functions that limit one’s ability to create original content. Furthermore, many of the

videos that young people create and upload to Youtube and other video web pages are

rarely original content and often mimic the films and television shows that they consume.

For this reason, we need to understand that media literacy is a journey, not a

destination and all of us can be both consumers and producers at different times. The

goal, however, is to not only understand what kinds of messages we are promoting in our

consumption, but to also use the Internet and contemporary technology to participate in

global, independent media networks that accurately reflect the hopes, aspirations, and

values of the people who created this diverse content, By failing to do so, we risk not

providing sufficient opportunities for young people to create a voice of their own that will

enable them to represent themselves and explore the world on their terms rather than

through the profit margins of corporate media networks.

Creative Collaboration Paulo Freire’s perspectives on critical pedagogy are the best tools to bring media

literacy into the classroom and make it relevant to the lives of young people. Freire’s

groundbreaking work, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, has become a essential read for

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anyone interested in breaking away from the oppressive assimilation imposed by school

curriculums and developing a framework that will enable students to make connections to

the world around them and build a common understanding that will empower them to

become advocates for their own lives and education.

Freire’s work begins by characterizing our current educational models as a system

of indoctrination in which the educator deposits knowledge into the students in the same

way that one would deposit money into a bank account. Freire explains that:

In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence… Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students…. This solution is not (nor can it be) found in the banking concept. On the contrary, banking education maintains and even stimulates the contradiction through the following attitudes and practices, which mirror oppressive society as a whole: a) the teacher teaches and the students are taught; b) the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing; c) the teacher thinks and the students are thought about; d) the teacher talks and the students listen -- meekly; e) the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined; f) the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply; g) the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher; h) the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it; i) the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or her own professional authority, which she and he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students;

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j) the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects. (Freire 53)

Freire reminds us that an effective educational model must acknowledge the student as

the expert in his or her own life and must foster a learning environment in which the

student can take responsibility for their own education by building upon an understanding

that reflects the world around them. With this in mind, educators must remember to

encourage young men and women to bring their experiences into the classroom and

engage in thoughtful and meaningful conversations with their peers.

Fundamentally, Freire encourages educators and community workers to start from

where young people are at, rather than where the teacher is. Often educators use pre-

determined “learner outcomes” as the benchmark for which to develop their lesson plans

and thus create lessons that are more relevant to the lives of those who created the

outcomes than to the young men and women who will have to sit through them. Instead,

Freire encourages educators to listen to students and engage in meaningful conversations

that bring the students’ past experiences into classroom discussions and activities rather

than imposing the singular perspectives of the curriculum. Once these conversations have

determined where the young people’s hopes and interests reside, then the educator and the

students can begin to brainstorm and implement projects that are inspired by and relevant

to these conversations. Perhaps the youth will want to explore issues of cultural identity?

Bullying? Setting personal goals? Whatever the issue, it is important that the process is

organic and directly led by the interests and needs of the students. Encourage the youth to

take control of the class and make it their own. Have them lead conversations, activities,

and allow them to bring their experiences and expertise into the classroom.

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How does one lead these conversations? How do we encourage young people to

contribute to and explore the world around them while sharing their experiences with one

another? The first step is creating a culture of honesty and mutual respect. As I stated

earlier, public debate in the mainstream media has not taught young people about the

importance of mutual inquiry and critical dialogue. Often young people have learned that

debate and dialogue means that one person must be declared the winner while the other

person is declared the loser. This argumentative culture ultimately teaches us that it is

more important to “win” a debate, rather than to learn to listen attentively, search for

commonalities and differences and attempt to resolve and rectify why those discrepancies

exist. As educators and community workers we need to foster a culture that moves

beyond the superficialities of the argumentative culture and encourage young people to

learn by listening to one another.

This may sound challenging, but I am always amazed at how well young men and

women pick up on this. Whenever I begin to work with a group of young people I always

get the youth to establish ground rules that will help foster meaningful and inclusive

conversations. Often these rules begin with simple things such as “only one person talks

at a time” or “don’t use foul language,” but with support and guidance, this activity always

goes much deeper until the youth begin to talk about avoiding judgments “until you truly

understand what the other person is saying” or “learn to separate the opinion from the

person.” Most importantly, remember that once these rules have been written it is

essential that you encourage the youth to exercise and impose them during discussions to

foster a culture of mutual inquiry and respect.

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Once a culture of mutual respect and understanding has been established young

people can begin to engage in a lively debate and dialogue about the world around them.

This usually begins with the facilitator calling on a specific topic for debate. Sometimes

this can be in the form of a questions or it can be a word that the group must come

together to define. Since my work is mainly in the area of violence prevention, I often

write questions like “what is violence?” on the board and have the groups come up with

their own responses. It is essential that the initial question that is posed to the group is

open in nature and fosters multiple perspectives. I encourage educators to avoid “yes and

no” questions because they aim to divide students into categories rather than exploring a

multitude of perspectives. Other examples could be “what is ideology?” “What are some

of the essential values for success in life?” “What is a community?” “What does a safe

space look like?” It is essential that young people also pose their own questions.

As an instructor it is important that I give the youth sufficient time to develop

their answers and to share them with the whole group. Once each group has spoken we

look for commonalities and differences in the answers and then try to understand and

rectify why these differences exist. Additionally, it is essential that I encourage young

people to call their own questions and facilitate the same type of discussions that we have

had in the past. While this rarely happens in the early stages of the group’s development,

eventually the youth will understand the process and the rules so well that they will

eventually learn to enforce them. Once the youth have begun to call their own questions

then your work as the facilitator is done. Step aside. Participate in the youth’s discussions,

but don’t control them. At this point you are merely a participant.

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Encouraging young people to make connections to the real world outside of the

classroom is empowering to students because it demonstrates to them that their

experiences matter and are relevant to any learning environment. Teachers often make

the false assumption that young people are merely empty vessels that are waiting for

information to be deposited into their brains. In my experience, however, I have seen that

most young people have a wealth of experience on which to draw and share with one

another. Most importantly, recognizing young people as capable of independent thought

and genuine reflection, rather than malleable Playdough to be molded by adults means

that you are putting faith in that individual as the expert in their own life. While it is true

that many young people still have much more to learn about world, engaging in an open

and honest dialogue about their experiences is inspiring to everyone involved. I have

witnessed countless examples of young men and women returning to class the next day

with bright smiles on their faces as they are eager to share their research on issues that

were unresolved during past discussions. Getting young people this inspired to take

ownership of their education is the kind of learning culture to which all teachers and

community workers should aspire.

Research is another important aspect of the Freirian model. All dialogue and

debate must be firmly rooted in the direct experiences of the learner. I always encourage

my program participants to become private investigators of the real world and share those

experiences with the rest of the group. This could be a question such as “count the

number of advertisements that you see on your way to school. How did those

advertisements made you feel?” or “identify the different kinds of violence that you see

happening on a daily basis.” Of course, one’s research does not need to stop with the

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outside world. Get the youth to take notes of their experiences on social media websites

or any other digital forum where they interact others. These virtual environments are just

as valid as any other physical environment that they encounter. I encourage young people

to write their answers into their phones, digital devices, or notebooks. By encouraging the

group to continue to record their observations of the world and share them with the rest of

the group, young people learn to make connections between the theory of the classroom

with their experiences in the outside world. It gives young people the opportunity to

isolate their experiences and bring them to group discussions with the intention of

elaborating on those ideas and developing them into theories that they can apply to their

everyday lives. It is also important that the youth take ownership of their research and

discussions. The instructor may pose some of the initial research questions, but it is

important that the students take the lead by doing their own research and pose questions

and research topics for their fellow students to investigate as well. Encourage the

students to continue to update the group on their outside research and support the group

to critique, debate and reexamine each student’s research from multiple angles.

Or course, all of this research and investigation means nothing without sufficient

opportunity for the group to elaborate and unpack many of these important observations.

Facilitating meaningful conversations that are based upon young people’s experiences are

essential for the group’s success. Educators and community workers need to drop the

desire to always be in control of the group and allow the group to engage in a

constructive and organic dialogue. For some adults this may be difficult because the

traditional method of educating young people is based upon control and authority.

Instead, Freire believes that adults, educators and community workers need to be a

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participant rather than controller of these discussions and engage in a conversation that

meets the young people at their level. Think of the topic(s) of discussion as a physical

object that is placed in the middle of the room between the participants. Freire

encourages us to “meet around it and through it for mutual inquiry” (99) in an attempt to

not only reach a mutual understanding of the object, but to share each participants unique

perspective of that object. Instead of the teacher telling the students what that object is

and how it can be understood, critical dialogue demands opening participants up to the

opportunity to reflect upon their current reality in an attempt to make and remake a

mutual understanding of that object. “Through dialogue, reflecting together on what we

know and don’t know, we can then act critically to transform reality.” (Freire & Shor 98-

99)

Another important aspect of critical dialogue is giving young people the

opportunity to call their own discussion questions and engage in conversations on their

own terms. Young people are constantly told what they can and cannot talk about and it

can be extremely liberating for them to choose topics that they sincerely want to talk

about. I call this tool a “critical consciousness café” because the participants get to choose

what topic(s) they want to talk about, where in the space they want to have that

conversation, and for how long they would like to talk about it. Students are given the

autonomy to attend any discussion that they would like and at any time can freely move

on to other discussion groups that are taking place in the classroom. The importance of

this activity is that the participants learn that all conversations are dynamic and organic

experiences that can begin and end once the group, not the instructor, is satisfied.

Additionally, enabling young people to cross-pollinate ideas that they have acquired in

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multiple conversations gives them the opportunity to hear diverse perspectives that they

might not hear in a singular group discussion. Furthermore, it allows the youth to take

what they have learned in one discussion and apply it to and share it with their peers.

They become both learners and teachers at the same time.

Ultimately, the creative collaboration stage is a time when young people can

investigate the world together and attempt to understand the similarities and differences

of their experiences. It is a time of relationship building that can provide the inspiration

for multimedia projects that challenge young men and women to see the world from

multiple perspectives and apply their own experiences to those projects.

Integrating Media What do conversational activities have to do with media literacy? Isn’t media

literacy about viewing, critiquing, evaluating and creating media? Although media

literacy is about all of those things, the purpose of the creative collaboration stage is to

facilitate meaningful and relevant conversations that will provide the inspiration for

upcoming multimedia projects. From my own experiences, there is nothing that a group

of young people cannot do once they are inspired and feel that they have something that

they can to contribute to a group project. Perhaps the most important thing that all

educators and youth workers need to remember when beginning to integrate media into

the classroom is not to force or rush into anything. Do not jump into lengthy media

projects because you feel pressured to do so. Allow the young people to get engaged,

build group dynamics, and develop a sense of trust with one another first. You may find it

necessary to do some small projects to develop technical skills and build group dynamics;

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this is fine. However, the early stages of media literacy projects are an exciting time to

explore and learn about the world together.

Here are two case studies that accurately reflect my experiences integrating

creative collaboration and multimedia projects together. The first case study focuses on

long-term engagement (six months) and demonstrates how to successfully facilitate

meaningful conversations that focused on the process of building group dynamics and

bringing the outside world into the classroom. The second case study focuses on short-

term engagement (eight sessions over one month) and demonstrates how to encourage

students to bring their past experiences into a project to make it more meaningful and

relevant to their lives.

Case Study 1: I Know I Can http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1_bPr5Nh5s

After a few weeks of working with a diverse group of youth between the ages of

15 to 22, the team observed that our conversations continually returned to issues of goal

setting and planning for the future. This was not an intended outcome, but a commonality

that existed within the group. Some youth spoke of frustration with mainstream media,

which they felt regularly, represented young people as apathetic toward the future and

uninterested in success. Other youth talked about the challenges that they are currently

facing as their High School careers come to an end and are unsure of what career paths to

take. Finally, others talked about some of the personal issues that they were currently

struggling with and the difficulties that they were facing to stay out of the judicial system.

All of these identified commonalities told me that the group was ready to move on to a

project about goal setting and planning for the future. In addition to this, many of our past

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conversations focused on issues in Hip Hop music, so we also knew that this would also

be a commonality that the group would enjoy.

It did not take long for us to decide to create a cover version of a song that talked

about goal setting and planning for the future. After a few minutes of brainstorming

different songs that discussed these issues, one of the participants identified “I Can” by

Nas as the perfect song for the group to communicate their perspectives. The team

quickly decided to established roles and even started to plan out a music video that would

accompany the song. After that, the group quickly got to work and the project began to

take on a life of its own.

Since the song is divided up into three verses, three different rappers from the

group decided to take a verse and communicate their own unique perspectives of goal

setting and planning for the future. Issues in these verses included staying true to one’s

self, using faith as a guiding tool, healthy living, financial challenges, avoiding

materialistic values, knowledge of self, and staying out of the judicial system. Even

though each of the three rappers had different stories and perspectives on success, they

were able to communicate exciting poetry that effectively summarized many of the

discussions that the group had had over the course of the previous few weeks. When the

project was finished, the group had a party to celebrate their accomplishment and to

launch the video on YouTube.

By talking about issues that were relevant to the youth in the community, the song

became a hit in the Scarborough area and was viewed over five thousand times by people

who had heard about the project. While five thousand views is pretty small when

compared to many of the viral hits that take place on YouTube, the video itself was a

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great example of the power of localized media that can be created to make positive

changes in communities.

All of these realizations were never forced or imposed by myself or anyone else in

the group. They were realizations that we arrived at together by staying true to Freire’s

dialogical method. As the group facilitator I could have told the group what media project

we were going to do and how we were going to do it. However, if I had done that the

experience would not have been nearly as honest or as meaningful for the young people

who participated in its creation.

Case Study 2: Is It Worth It?     In November, 2012, I provided a series of multimedia workshops to an expelled

students program in Toronto. The program aimed to provide an opportunity for expelled

or suspended students to continue to pursue their academic credits outside of the

mainstream schools. As one of the teachers explained to me, “this is their last

opportunity to demonstrate that they can participate in a regular school or else they will

be completely removed from all programs." While most of the students in the program

were insightful, intelligent young men and women, many had a long history of violence

that had affected their ability to succeed in their respective schools. Of the twelve

students who worked with me on this project, eleven were in the program due to a violent

history at school and in their communities.

Since many of my workshops focus on engaging youth to talk about violence,

this program seemed like the most logical place to begin. The students were very excited

to start the project because it meant that they would get time away from their traditional

and highly structured classroom. The workshop began with a series of videos that I

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thought would stimulate a conversation to get the students thinking about what their

project would look like. After watching a series of Public Service Announcements and

music videos that all discussed and depicted violence, one of the youth suggested that we

watch the Amanda Todd video that had gone viral the month before the workshop.

Amanda Todd was a grade ten student from Port Coquitlam, British Columbia who had

committed suicide after experiencing relentless bullying at her school and through social

media. While watching the video I could see that the majority of the students were moved

by the video and could relate to its contents. I initially found this to be rather ironic since

many of the students were placed into this program because they had bullied or at least

participated in the bullying of other students. After watching the video the youth clearly

demonstrated that the Amanda Todd video would be the inspiration for their video

project and the group quickly began to brainstorm other kinds of violence that they would

like to address in their film.

After a lively debate, the students identified the three main types of violence that

they all experienced on a daily basis in their schools and in their communities. These

included the selling and use of illegal drugs; street violence, the temptation that many

youth have faced to align themselves with gangs to gain a reputation in their

communities; and bullying, which they identified as the common thread of violence that

affected most of their lives. Once these themes were identified the group was able to

quickly create a rough sketch and script that identified many of the common links

between each kind of violence. The thrust of the film focused on a nameless protagonist

who experiences each kind of violence on a daily basis and eventually faces the decision

to continue to perpetuate violence or to rise above. The students wanted the film to be

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“raw” and not look like the after school specials that they determined to be “phoney,” and

irrelevant to their daily experiences. Instead, they wanted to create something that would

make people think about violence and the choices that they were making. In the end, all

of the youth agreed that “Is It Worth It?” would be the perfect title to get their point

across.

One Student, J., was exceptionally impacted by the project and wanted to play an

important role in its creation. As the only Caucasian student in the class, J. clearly

identified as an outsider to the group. Throughout multiple workshops, I observed that

many of his fellow students made insulting offhand remarks toward him and treated him

like an outsider. J. Insisted that he play the role of the victim in this video project and

took his role seriously by always arriving early and taking the time to get into character to

ensure that his acting was “real.” From this perspective, I observed J.’s acting to be a

complex negotiation of his experiences as a perpetrator and victim of bullying that was

similar to the character in the film. On one level, J. was placed in the Caring and Safe

Schools program because of his repeated history of bullying other students and engaging

in what the school board defines as “high risk behaviour.” Yet on another level, J.

experienced bullying on a daily basis from his fellow classmates and demonstrated a

firsthand understanding of what it means to be victimized and demoralized by others.

When I pointed out this contradiction to J. after the filming and editing had been

completed, he explained to me that the entire process helped him to see violence from a

whole new perspective that he had not considered before.

To me, violence is more than just beating someone up or punching someone in the face. Everyday we are faced with power struggles with different people and we have to make a choice on how we want these

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power struggles to affect us and make us feel about ourselves. I now understand that I’m not totally innocent or guilty because I’ve seen violence from both sides.

J.’s newly found understanding of the complex nature of violence and power dynamics

was achieved by taking a step back in the brainstorming process and applying the

concepts of our discussion to his own personal struggles. Additionally, his remarkably

“real” performance was the result of bringing his own experiences to the film and

challenging himself as an actor by drawing parallels between his own experiences and

those of the main character.

In the end, the Students felt that they had succeeded in creating a gritty but

realistic portrayal of school-based violence. Every student explained that the project had

been a positive experience for them and helped them to understand that while one cannot

always control their environment, one can control how they allow their environments to

impact them. In spite of the fact that the production quality of the film may not be up to a

professional standard, the experiences and lessons that each student acquired while

engaging with one another allowed them to confront some of their biggest challenges.

Collaborating on a project of this scale empowered them to see themselves as active

agents of change rather than victims of their own histories.

Suggested Projects Once the group has developed both a technical competency with the equipment

and feel comfortable working with one another, I encourage you to move on to a bigger

project that will allow them to go even deeper. Feel free to consider any of one the

suggested projects below, or come up with your own project idea that is relevant to your

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group discussions. Either way, always remember to keep this process organic. Resist the

urge to take the lead. Let the group develop group roles and challenge one another.

Digital Storytelling

Digital Stories are a great activity to get young people reflecting on their pasts and

to integrate media in the process. Get the youth to write a story about their pasts and ask

them take photos or dig through old ones to bring that story to life. Use the photos to

illustrate the recording of their stories. Below are a few examples of digital stories that I

have done with youth in the past:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pZFCbiApug

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXSc7hMf7bg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKCPmKHxGm4

Photo Diaries

Photo Diaries are a great way for youth to think about their mental health on a

daily basis. Ask the youth to take three photographs a day (it can be on a smartphone or

any other photography device) that reflects their mood at that time and get them to bring

their photos into the group. Have a discussion about what inspired the photos and how

they were feeling at that time. After a few months, the youth will have a large catalogue

of work that reflects their feelings over that time period. They may even want to create

weekly or monthly photo calendars or blogs that document their emotions over that time.

Mini-Documentary

Group discussions always lead into fascinating topics that the youth might want to

explore on a more in-depth basis. Documentaries are a great opportunity for youth to

examine issues and communicate their own unique perspectives.

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Team Blogs/Vlogs

Through your discussions with young people, you may find that some youth are

drawn to certain topics more than others. Team blogs or vlogs are a great opportunity for

youth to work in groups to create blogs that suite their interests. The groups can have

weekly presentations on their latest postings and talk about what they would like to do

with their blogs in the future.

Perhaps the greatest challenge with blogs and vlogs is the fact that there are

already so many of them on the Internet and it can be a challenge to create something that

will get noticed. In this case, I always encourage youth who want to take on this kind of

project to centre their blog/vlog around a very narrow and specific topic. Ask the teams to

think about their expertise and what makes them unique from other people. Maybe they

all live in the same neighborhood? Share a similar hobby? Or feel passionate about a

particular issue? By narrowing the focus of their blog/vlog they will be able to connect

with similar minded people and will typically find more success than by creating one that

is generalized and non-specific.

Music Videos

Earlier in this handbook I described the process that the young people went

through from talking about goal setting to writing a song and making a video about that

topic. Music videos are fun and relatively easy to make. They are also very adaptable to

discussion topics. In the past we have also created songs and music videos that satirize

political and social issues while also criticizing the commercialized values that are often

promoted in the typical pop song videos. These have always been very positive project

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and I encourage you and your group to not shy away from controversy. Powerful music

videos always seem to get people talking.

Remix Project

Media representation is a common topic among the youth that I work with. What

better way to talk about this issue than to remix and subvert content that the youth find

objectionable. Download a news report video off the web and mash it up with something

else to give it a new message. Activities such as this are a great way to introduce and

explore topics such as culture jamming and satire.

Short Films

Youth are always eager to create short films. Videos are great opportunities to

learn essential collaborative and communication skills while simultaneously discussing

important topics. Just make sure that the films are inspired by the discussion topic that

you have had with the youth. Here are a few short films that some of the youth that I have

created:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnze-d6adVc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsO___Xf9q0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YK7lEmwFis

Create a Social Media Campaign

From your discussions with the youth you may find that your group shares a

common passion for a particular political or social issue. Perhaps your group might want

to create a social media campaign that will raise awareness or promote that issue? You

could integrate videos, photos, podcasts, articles, or any other web content that will help

to spread the word of your campaign. Try to use as many social media platforms

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(Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) as possible so that you can target a wide demographic and

make as big an impact as possible.

EPals

Many of us had pen pals growing up; someone on the other side of the world with

which we could communicate and share our experiences. EPals are a great opportunity to

do so much more by connecting with another group somewhere else in the world. Get the

youth to send their EPals photos, videos, messages or anything else that communicates

their perspectives to their new friends. Best of all, EPals is 100% free. In the past, my

group and I have been able to develop meaningful relationships with groups on the other

side of the world that explore cultural differences and commonalities, global citizenship,

and language lessons. We even had a photo exhibit of our Epals’ work in our space while

they did the same in theirs. Whatever you decide to do, I always find that Epals projects

break down many misconceptions that young people have about youth from other

cultures and ultimately results in fostering global citizenship and multiculutralism.

www.Epals.com.

Resources Photoshop, Final Cut, or any professional software can be expensive. Fortunately, there

are many free resources that one can use to integrate multimedia into one’s programming.

The following is a list of free resources that I would recommend. This software is easy to

use and comparable to their professional counterparts.

Gimp- Great replacement for Photoshop. Can be downloaded for free at

http://www.gimp.org/

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Lightworks- Lightworks is the best free video editing software that I have come across.

Great interface and professional design. Highly recommended. Can be downloaded for

free at http://www.lwks.com/

Wordpress/Blogger- Both Wordpress and Blogger are free blogging pages. Youth can

customize their blogs without knowing code. Video and audio and be easily intregrated

into the blogs as well.

http://wordpress.com/

http://blogger.com

Hackasaurus- Hackasaurus is a powerful plug-in from Firefox. Youth can download an

entire webpage and remix it. Don’t worry though, the “hacked” webpage is never affected

since the plug-in only downloads the pages. Check out their website at:

http://www.hackasaurus.org

Weebly/Wix- Weebly and Wix allows youth to create custom web pages for free. While

both Weebly and Wix operate under a template format, which has limited options, the

pages are very visually appealing and easy for youth to use.

http://www.weebly.com/

http://www.wix.com/

Soundcloud/Mixcloud- Soundcloud and Mixcloud allow artists to post their audio tracks

online and integrate them with webpages and blogs. While Soundcloud allows for a free

hour of audio to be uploaded, Mixcloud allows for an unlimited amount for free.

http://soundcloud.com

http://www.mixcloud.com/

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Works Cited Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2000. Print.

Giroux, Henry. “Mis/Education and Zero Tolerance: Disposable Youth and

the Politics of Domestic Militarization.” Boundary 2 28.3 (2001): 61-94.

McCormick, Chris. “Youth Deviance and the Media.” Youth at risk and youth justice : a

Canadian overview. Eds. Smandych, Russell C., and John Winterdyk. . Don

Mills, Ont: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.

Shor, Ira, and Paulo Freire. A Pedagogy for Liberation : Dialogues on

Transforming Education. South Hadley, Mass: Bergin & Garvey

Publishers, 1987. Print.

Stern, Susannah. “Producing Sites, Exploring Identities: Youth Online

Authorship.” Ed. David Buckingham. Youth, Identity, and Digital Media.

Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2008. Print.