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Individual Empowerment through Media Literacy: True
Enough and the 5A’s
Gillmor – Principles of Consumption
1. Be skeptical of absolutely everything.
2. Although skepticism is essential, don’t be equally skeptical of everything.
3. Go Outside your personal comfort zone
4. Ask More Questions
5. Understand and Learn Media Techniques
Gillmor – Principles of Creation
1. Do your homework, and then do some more.
2. Get it right every time
3. Be Fair to Everyone
4. Think independently, especially of your own biases
5. Practice and Demand Transparency
“How can so many people who live in the same place see the
world so differently?” (Manjoo,7)
“Here is the paradox of living in a world that’s constantly watched. It turns out that when you add more cameras, more tape recorders, and better systems to broadcast these documents—when you make it easier for people to capture and to disseminate documentary information…you don’t necessarily bolster agreement about what’s actually happening around us” (66).
“Scholars call this force “media fragmentation”… the way that information—broadly, everything you know about the world—was once disseminated by handful of organizations but has lately been cracking up. Today, people can get the news from all directions” (14).
How Social Media Can Change History….
China, Twitter, Obama, Change, Social…Coming Together?
“The Swift Boat controversy over whether Kerry truly did earn his medals, then, can be seen as a fight over two competing versions of Reality. In essence, the ads were asking us to look at history—the histroy of Kerry’s time in Vietnam—and to decide which reality actually occurred” (21).
What are the effects of this type of media (don’t be cynical…)?
What are the responses by the public to this media?
Is this ethical? Is it Right?
“No longer are we merely holding opinions different from one another; we’re also holding different facts. Increasingly, our arguments aren’t over what we should be doing…but instead, over what is happening” (2).
True Enough theories
• Selective Exposure
• Selective Perception
• Central & Peripheral Processing
• Biased Assimilation
• Hostile Media Phenomenon
• Naïve Realism
• PARALLEL REALITIES…
MEDIA LITERACY = CONNECTIONS
• CONNECTING Skills to Citizenship• CONNECTING Analysis to Production• CONNECTING Culture to Creation• CONNECTING Responsibility to Empowerment• CONNECTING communities, media, and citizenship
– Good Consumers – by teaching how to understand, analyze, evaluate, and produce media messages, and;
– Good Citizens – by highlighting the role of media in civil society, the importance of being a responsible, aware, and active participant in local, national, and global communities.
Good Media Education focuses on Connections…
… which are vital to the future of our civic democracy
Moving Beyond Cynicism
We ask• What do media do? • How can they do it better?• Why are media essential?• How can YOU be responsible too?
understanding
action
awareness
ACCESS to media
AWARENESS of media’s power
ASSESSMENT of how media portray events and issues
APPRECIATION for the role media play in creating civil societies
ACTION to encourage better communication across cultural, social and political divides.
Access
• Who has access to this information?
• Are there any barriers to entry?• Are there Hi-Fi/Lo-Fi versions of the information?
• Participation Gap/Digital Divide
Access: Digital Divide
“The term digital divide refers to the gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology, and those without access to it. It includes the imbalances in physical access to technology, as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen.” (wikipedia, 2007)
New Media TechnologiesNew Media Technologies
ICT InfrastructureICT Infrastructure
The The
Digital Digital
DivideDivide
increasedincreased decreaseddecreased
•RuralRural
•IsolatedIsolated
•Lack of Lack of opportunityopportunity
•Lack of fundingLack of funding
•Lack of Lack of infrastructureinfrastructure
•Lack of e-Lack of e-knowledgeknowledge
•connectedconnected
•Cultural Cultural involvementinvolvement
•economic economic opportunityopportunity
•E-life E-life infrastructureinfrastructure
•Virtual Virtual communitycommunity
•Access to Access to local/global local/global informationinformation
Access: Participation GapDigital immigrants vs. Digital Natives
Like many of you, I’m a digital immigrant. I wasn’t weaned on the web, nor coddled on a computer. Instead, I grew up in a highly centralized world where news and information were tightly controlled by a few proprietors, who deemed to tell us what we could and should know. My two young daughters, on the other hand, will be digital natives….
We need to realize that the next generation of people accessing news and information, whether from newspapers or any other source, have a different set of expectations about the kind of news they will get, including when and how they will get it, where they will get it from, and who they will get it from.
Rupert Murdoch, 2005
Awareness
• What is the meaning of this information in larger social & civic contexts?
• What are the main issues in the information presented?
• What are the underlying assertions?
• How are the stories being told? And by whom?
Cultural Values through Media
“For cultural studies, media culture provides the materials for constructing views of the world, behavior, and even identities. Those who uncritically follow the dictates of media culture tend to "mainstream" themselves, conforming to the dominant fashion, values, and behavior….
Cultural Norms
Cultural Imperialism
• Cultural imperialism is the practice of promoting, distinguishing, separating, or artificially injecting the culture of one society into another. It is usually the case that the former belongs to a large, economically or militarily powerful nation and the latter belongs to a smaller, less important one.
Arabs & Aladdin…
Lines from the film’s opening song (pre-alteration):
Oh, I come from a land, From a faraway place, Where the caravan camels roam, Where they cut off your ear, If they don’t like your face, It’s Barbaric, but hey, it’s home.
What the…
Assessment
• Who is the intended audience?• What’s are symbols?• What are hidden messages?• From what angle is the story being told?
• What’s the emotional appeal?• Who is speaking, delivering the message?
• What is omitted from the message?
Agenda Setting - “The press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about” (Cohen, 1963)
Assessment: Newsworthiness
The Inverted Pyramid
How does the media determine what is newsworthy?
• Timeliness• Prominence
• Proximity• Significance
• Currency• Controversy• Uniqueness
• Emotional Appeal
Appreciation
• In what ways are media beneficial avenues for civil society?
• What are the civic implications of the information?
• How does a greater understanding of this information allow for a greater understanding of its purpose?
• How diverse and independent is the information?
Cultivation Theory - As a person watches more of some sort of TV, he/she becomes cultivated into the television program view of social reality… this theory shows that such change is gradual and slow in evolving in individuals.
Appreciation: Diversity
A different kind, form, character, etc.; unlike: a wide range of diverse opinions.
Of various kinds or forms; multiform.http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/diverse
Do the Media Reflect US Diversity?
Not very well…
Take Primetime TV:
Today 40 percent of American youth ages 19 and under are children of color, yet very few of the youth on television reflect that diversity.
Similarly, although there are more women in the US than men, primetime TV presents a universe that is overwhelmingly male.
TV Stats…
Every year Children Now conducts a study on primetime TV. In 2004 they found:Racial diversity of total primetime characters:White 73 %African-American 16%Latino 6.5%Asian/Pacific Islander 3%Arab/Middle Eastern 0.5%Indian/Pakistani 0.4%Other 0.7%
They manipulate…
Then we manipulate their manipulation…
Action
• How is this information produced? • What does this form of media production do for the scope, content, and shape of the information?
• What new opportunities does this production allow for? What restrictions?
• How participatory is the information? Is there room for dialogue?
Social Media Activism
“When we change the way we communicate, we change society. The tools that a society uses to create and maintain itself are as central to human life as a hive is to bee life” (Shirky, 17)
Action: The Civic Voice
• Seeking diverse, credible, and independent information
• Learning how play with power, to cover issues, and to participate in democracy
• Media Literacy can enable citizens to ask questions and evaluate how far they will go to protect choice
Goal: Engaged Citizenship in global information societies
1. People understanding the value of critical thinking about media and their mastering of critical analytical skills.
2. People understanding the vital importance of media in building and supporting civil society and their creating and supporting media as an essential exercise of global citizenship.
Media Literacy for Information Societies
