Teaching Critical Media Literacy in the Age of Neoliberal Education - FINAL

Teaching Critical Media Literacy in the

Neoliberal Age of US Education

Shane Willson

In this essay I will discuss the need for critical media literacy in US higher education,

show how critical media literacy fosters a democratic citizenry, briefly define critical media

literacy, and explain some tactics for integrating critical media literacy into the college

classroom.

In part one of the essay, I argue that neoliberalism has created an educational system in

America that purposefully undermines critical thought in its students and that the lacking critical

perspectives in students can be remedied by teaching critical media literacy. After briefly

analyzing the ubiquity of media in modern society, I move on to describing some of the ways

that the neoliberalization of the US education system has undermined the ability of teachers to

teach critical thinking to students. I then contend that becoming media literate through gaining a

critical perspective and multiple forms of technoliteracy is imperative for citizens living in a

democratic society. While the US is currently a formal democracy, if its citizens gain a

thoroughly critical perspective on media, they may foster the opportunity to create a substantive

and participatory democratic society that better corresponds to broader ideals and objective needs

– in other words, critical media literacy may help to make facts and norms in modern society

coincide more fully.

In the second part of the essay, I describe critical media literacy and show how teaching

critical media literacy can ameliorate many of the problems mentioned in part one. Critical

media literacy is a necessary part of the undergraduate curriculum and is useful in teaching new

undergraduates core concepts from a number of disciplines and theoretical perspectives.

In the third part of the essay, I show how critical media literacy modules can be

integrated into many college courses and argue that these modules can be useful for teaching a

number of concepts integral to thinking critically about the modern world. Insights gained will

be helpful for teachers in numerous disciplines and could be integrated into many courses, for

critical media studies and critical media literacy defy scholarly boundaries, crossing over the

disciplines of sociology, psychology, philosophy, art studies, advertising, graphic design,

communication studies, film studies, technology studies, musicology, pedagogy, feminist

studies, critical theory, and more.

Part One: The Necessity of Critical Media Literacy Though it is somewhat trite to say that media are ubiquitous in modern society, this fact

has implications that are hardly recognized by many, including teachers, politicians, and, most

importantly, the US citizenry. However, there is a rich history of great thinkers attempting to

understand the influences of media on contemporary society (Adorno [1972] 2001; Beller 2006;

Baudrillard 1995; Chomsky 2002; Debord [1967] 2000; Kellner 1995; Lakoff 2009; McLuhan

1967; and others). Noam Chomsky (2002) has shown that media representations “manufacture

consent” for increasing inequality in democratic publics and war-making. Theodor Adorno

([1972] 2001) analyzed the nefarious culture industry that extended the capitalist mode of

production and market mentality past the economic sphere into many aspects of our cultural

lives. Guy Debord ([1967] 2000) initiated the study of spectacle in society, while Douglas

Kellner (1995:1) relates to us that: “A media culture has emerged in which images, sounds, and

spectacles help produce the fabric of everyday life, dominating leisure time, shaping political ties

and social behavior, and providing the materials out of which people forge their very identities.”

Jonathan Beller (2006:1) integrates much of this work for the 21st century, arguing that “cinema

and its succeeding...formations, particularly television, video, computers, and the internet, are

deterritorialized factories in which spectators work, that is, in which we perform value-

productive labor” for capital. Today, technology does not only change quickly, the rate of the

acceleration of technological change is growing as well. One would be remiss not to cite Jean

Baudrillard’s ([1981] 1995) work Simulacra and Simulation, in which he argues “that dramatic

changes in the technology of reproduction have led to the implosion of representation and reality.

Increasingly, the former becomes dominant as "simulacra" are substituted for a reality that has no

foundation in experience” (Gamson et al. 1992:374).

Media are so ubiquitous today that it is quite easy to treat them uncritically as normal,

benign entities or to hardly think about them at all. Mediated reality has become common sense

or commonplace. But treating media as benign has dire political implications: media viewed

uncritically promote ideology and the hegemony of the status quo. By naturalizing the status quo,

media become a tool through which those in power hold onto that power. As Morpheus says in

The Matrix, “[Media] is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the

truth.”

Take alienated labor as an example and analogy. The first generation of workers to shift

from agricultural labor for themselves to working for capitalists in the mines did so within a

single lifetime and thus experienced alienation from their labor as a distinct and obvious change

from the norm. The subsequent generation that never worked for themselves as producers

experienced alienation of a second order; they either never or only tangentially knew the less

alienated labor of producing for themselves rather than for capitalists.1 As the generations moved

on through time capitalism became ubiquitous and alienation became further compounded and

normalized (Dahms 2011). Generations down the line hardly recognize that a great shift in social

relations has taken place – their normal and objective social relations are now alienated,

capitalistic social relations. Today, we know nothing else.

1 Here I have somewhat idealized agricultural work and feudalism and seem to treat them as an unalienated

utopia of the past. I do not wish to make this highly problematic statement, for I do not believe in a totally unalienated past. However, the idea used here as a heuristic is helpful and germane to the argument.

The same case can be made regarding the kinds and influence of media in the world.

Those born closer to the beginning of the 20th century probably remember very distinctly the

introduction of radio and television into their homes and their lives. They may have also noticed

the increasing proportion of time that commercials took up within these media. Now, people

born in the US in the 1990s have never known life without television or internet or cell phones or

commercials. These are their norm. Media saturation and high levels of technology are the new

normal; they are mediated reality of a second order, a reality that exists as an objective social fact

so all-encompassing that it can go mostly unnoticed, fostering intensely ideological views of the

world. One could follow Gamson and his colleagues (1992) and transpose Berger and

Luckmann’s (1966) thesis on the social construction of reality onto our current situation, positing

that it is not only actually existing social actors in real time and space that help to forge what we

experience as real, but that mediated representations of people and social reality now

increasingly form and inform the social structure that people perceive and act within.

There can be no doubt, an almost total media saturation is the norm in the contemporary

US (Ott and Mack 2009). Technology in the US, one of the most advanced capitalist societies, is

one of the most integral pieces of daily life. But, even in a country where media and technology

usage is so high, few in the general populace receive training in how to understand that media.

They may be trained to use media for some ends, but not to understand it in a more philosophical

sense. America is exceptional in this regard: while the US is highly saturated in media, relative to

other advanced capitalist nations it does not have an infrastructure or curriculum in place that

teaches its citizenry how media really affect their lives (Torrent 2011). In fact, the US

educational system is set up in such a way that it pressures teachers and students to not learn

about media.

Media are some of the most determining factors in people's understanding of the world.

Put bluntly, media create social reality and numerous forms of media colonize our entire waking

lives; they socialize us and help to create the perspectives and beliefs that guide us. There is a

wealth of thought and research on the ways that media affect the modern mind and, while

everyone does not need to delve deeply into the sometimes dense works of these thinkers,

democratic citizens – especially those earning degrees at institutions of higher education – must

gain a more thorough understanding of how media affect the world and their perceptions of it.

Put differently, an educated democratic citizenry cannot leave such omnipresent pieces of reality

out of popular discourse, or, out of school curricula.

CML is Necessary for Democracy

In contemporary society, virtually all public representations of politics to the general

populace come from the media, and, the ways politics are mediated to people have great effects

on voting decisions and the ability to understand political-economic processes in the US (Lakoff

2008; 2009). Media and their many forms are a fundamental building block of participatory

social action, for they help to create citizens’ perceptions about the social, political, and

economic world. These perceptions affect the way citizens see social reality, help to form shared

national narratives, and thus affect the entire political process. Any citizenry whose ideas are

based so heavily on media representations must understand how and why those representations

come to them, how to digest and act upon them, and how to put them into their specific

sociohistorical contexts. In a society purporting to be democratic, critical media literacy is a

character trait and skill that must be actively and aggressively fostered in the citizenship. A

deeper understanding of media is necessary for a truly democratic citizenry and teaching critical

media literacy is one of the best ways to promote such an understanding. Without critical media

literacy, democracy decays into idiocracy.2 Even though many have pushed for such an

education (Kellner and Share 2005), the US lags behind many other nations in its

implementation of media literacy oriented curricula (Torrent 2011). This is due in great part to

the neoliberalization of the US education system.

Before moving on to describing critical media literacy and how to promote it in the

college classroom, it is necessary to elaborate some of the ways that the US education system

currently fails to prepare citizens for substantive, participatory democratic action and to

interrogate reasons why that may be the case. By understanding some of the inadequacies of the

US education system, we will be in a better position to grasp the dire necessity of teaching

critical media literacy and formulate effective pedagogical strategies that focus on teaching those

critical skills that the education system has almost purposefully removed from our classrooms.

The Neoliberalization of the US Education System Throughout the first half of 20th century, many peoples from all over the world rebelled

against their European or American colonizers, promoting shifts in power and a lessening of

Western white male hegemony. The 60s and 70s in the US saw the rise of the civil rights

movement, the women’s movement, anti-war movements, and many other progressive political

groups that tried to reformulate America into the diverse country it has always purported to be.

However, in the late 70s a concerted conservative effort took shape with the explicit goal of

reclaiming or recovering a more traditional America. Conversely, the implicit goal was the

reclamation of power by those who held it traditionally: wealthy, white, conservative men.

Through a barrage of political, economic, and cultural tactics, this conservative groundswell

bastardized and reinterpreted core American values in ways that justified their reassertion of

2 The movie Idiocracy(2006) is a satirical science fiction comedy that makes a number of points similar to

those argued in this essay.

power in increasingly nefarious ways. This is the historical context in which we must view the

neoliberalization of education. Anything else would be “ideological mystification” (Kincheloe

2009:21).

Since at least the early 1990s, many scholars, particularly in the Marxist tradition, have

used the term “neoliberalism” to describe the political and economic state of affairs in the US

(e.g. Duménil and Lévy 2004; George 1999; Harvey 2007; McCarthy and Prudham 2004; and

others). More recently, some scholars (Groenke 2009; McLaren 2005; Saunders 2007; and

others) have begun to apply the concept of neoliberalism to the educational system in the US,

though work in this area is still in its formative stages. It comes as no surprise that these analyses

bear frightening fruit, especially when taken in the context of the necessity of an educated public

in a democratic society. Applying the concept of neoliberalism to US education can give us a

window into why critical media literacy is not part of the US curriculum and why critical media

literacy is, now more than ever, so imperative for fostering substantive US democracy.

The neoliberalization of US education refers to the increasing application of market

logics to the education system. Neoliberalism is characterized by the privatization of public

goods, a strong emphasis and naturalization of “free” markets as pathways to individual freedom,

and the legal, cultural, and discursive frameworks that promote those ends. At its core,

neoliberalism supports capital and profit as ends in themselves. It is a complex matrix of

contradictory but mutually reinforcing ideologies, practices, policies, and discourses that

legitimate drastic and arguably negative changes in the US and the world.3

3 Neoliberalism has been exported to most of the modern world through US world hegemony and the

Washington Consensus. While many note the concurrent growth of neoliberalism in both the US and Western European countries (Harvey 2007) and its export to other nations, I argue that neoliberalism proper, as a matrix of ideology and practice is at its core an inherently American thing. Neoliberal economic practices are instituted by other nations (take, for example, China), but in these instances they must be molded to the specific political structures and ideologies of those nations. The origination of neoliberalism taken as a whole, though, is something based very explicitly on formative core American values like liberty, rugged individualism, and freedom. Put

Karl Polanyi, in his 1944 book The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic

Origins of Our Time, elaborates laws and practices in the 18th and 19th centuries that put labor,

land, and money under the logic of the market, leading to their being treated as “fictitious

commodities” ([1944] 2001). One of Polanyi’s most fundamental arguments – that society has

increasingly become embedded in the market – holds particular salience in the context of US

education, for what was previously treated as a general societal good (an educated, intelligent

public) has now been thrust under the uncaring laws of the market; education is now treated as a

commodity, though many would argue that it is much more than something to be traded for

profit.

Recent changes to laws and practices in the US education system – particularly the

institution of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act – mirror the fallacious commodification of

social life that Polanyi so abhorred. Commonly held social goods are increasingly given up to

privatization, competition, and the profit motive. Rather than serving society, they now bow to

the gods of the market. Education is one of the few social goods that all agree should be

promoted, though there is great contention regarding how it should be executed in practice. As

we will see, the current educational system is administered in such a way that it promotes a one-

dimensional society (Marcuse 1964) that favors traditional, white forms of knowledge creation

and transmission, and therefore favors traditional power holders: white men, particularly wealthy

ones. As Kincheloe (2009) warns, “the politics, cultural wars, and educational and psychological

debates, policies, and practices of the last 3 decades cannot be understood outside of... efforts to

“recover” white supremacy, patriarchy, class privilege, heterosexual “normality,” Christian

dominance, and the European intellectual canon” (21).

differently, with regard to neoliberalism, America is exceptional, in that it has utilized its world hegemonic power to bend other nations toward its will, rather than the other way around. See Willson 2011 for further explanation of the complex relationships between neoliberalism, globalization, and world hegemony.

To move our study of the neoliberalization of the education system forward, the process

and effects of the marketization of US schooling must be further delineated. While it is my aim

here to argue that teaching critical media literacy to undergraduate students is necessary and to

present some effective ways of doing so, students spend their formative years in the K-12 system

and that system has great effects on their abilities and expectations within the college classroom.

Thus, we must interrogate the effects of K-12 school policies on the minds of our students and

then follow them into their college years.

No Child Left Out of the Totally Administered World

In January of 2002 the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was signed into law.

According to Menken, “Due to the accountability requirements, NCLB is the most invasive

federal education policy ever in US history” (2009:50, emphasis mine). NCLB is the cornerstone

of the neoliberalization of US education, for it attempts to put the public education system under

the rule of the market.

One of the main stated goals of NCLB is to ensure that teachers are proficient in their

subjects. Though the explicit goal of NCLB policies regarding teachers is to ensure that they are

capable, the opposite has been the case. Anti-public education groups formed in the 80s and 90s

and had little success, but with the election of G. W. Bush they gained great financial support

and created the American Board for the Certification of Teacher Education that “promote(s) a

simplistic form of teacher certification characterized by few requirements” (Kincheloe 2009:20).

Sleeter notes three deleterious effects of neoliberalism that move teacher education “(1)

away from explicit equity-oriented teacher preparation, and toward preparing teachers as

technicians; (2) away from defining teacher quality in terms of professional knowledge, and

toward defining it terms testable content knowledge; and (3) toward shortening university-based

teacher education or by-passing it altogether” (2008:1947). Additionally, Zeichner illuminates

other areas in teacher education that have been negatively affected by neoliberalism, namely “the

commodification of teacher education, hyperrationality and increased accountability, and attacks

on multicultural education” (2010:1544). All of these changes embody the universalizing

versions of knowledge and knowledge creation espoused by positivistic, neoliberal notions of

what education and science should be, even if these ideas contradict research on those subjects.

By asserting the objectivity and universality of specific forms of knowledge, the policies of

NCLB depoliticize both knowledge and teaching. Treating what is political as non-political

implicitly, and therefore effectively, justifies the norm, at the same time stifling any opposition

to the status quo. These changes also reflect the shift away from focusing on diversity and

inclusion, ideas promoted by practitioners of critical pedagogy (Groenke 2009), toward a

monolithic form of teaching that is held to national standards, rather than deeper understanding

of the actual needs of students.

Another primary goal of NCLB is to hold schools and teachers accountable for their

students’ progress, though progress is defined here as passing scores on high-stakes tests

(Menken 2009). Here, I will discuss the effects of high-stakes testing on students and teachers,

the effects of these tests on the newly created “school market,” and exhibit how these changes

contradict the efforts of teachers working under the domain of critical pedagogy.

Emphasis on standardized test scores has now become the crux of US education and its

implementation has many deleterious effects on the quality of that education. First, being

accountable for student scores on high stakes tests forces teachers to “teach to the test.” This

kind of teaching does not take into account differences in the ways students learn and pushes all

toward a monolithic view of knowledge in which facts are simply objective things to be

remembered and regurgitated, not critically analyzed or questioned. Also, increased

accountability might be an understandable goal, but making teachers accountable for student

scores on federally mandated high-stakes tests takes away the individual freedom of teachers to

create their own curricula. Additionally, standardized accountability denies the fact that schools

have different levels of funding and that students from impoverished areas tend not to perform as

well on standardized tests as students from wealthier areas. Though NCLB was proposed as way

to lessen inequality, these forms of accountability actually promote increases in inequality.

Menken (2009:52) describes more issues involved with high-stakes testing, stating that it

has been shown to be associated with:

• Increased dropout rates, decreased graduation rates, and higher rates of younger individuals taking the Graduate Equivalency Diploma exams to avoid required graduation tests

• Low-performing students being retained in grade before pivotal testing years to ensure their preparedness, as well as suspension and expulsion of low-performing students before testing days

• Decreased focus on subjects that are not tested such as art, music, and science, and

• “Teaching to the test,” where instruction is limited to only those things that are sure to be tested, and rote memorization, drills, and test-taking strategies are emphasized (Amrein & Berliner, 2002, pp. 2–3, cited in Menken 2009:52)

In Figure 1 below, we see four levels of literacy that Brabazon (2011) reformulates from

Macken-Horarik’s (1998) work. Under the new educational goals, only everyday and applied

literacies are tested, for the higher levels of literacy are difficult to assess on standardized tests

and also help to create a populace that could criticize the status quo. These lower levels of

literacy promote a technical ability to consume and regurgitate knowledge; they do not foster the

thinking skills that allow students to gain specialized disciplinary understandings or synthesize

and apply what they have learned to other arenas, as the higher levels do.

Figure 1: Four Levels of Literacy Source: Brabazon 2011, p. 211

These changes amount to, in essence, a shift away from quality toward quantity, a

mainstay of neoliberal/capitalist knowledge creation and a tactic in the creation of a “totally

administered society” (Marcuse 1964). The actual qualities of student education, such as

thoughtfulness, an appreciation of knowledge for knowledge’s sake, a critical perspective, and

written and oral communication skills have all been relegated to secondary status. All that

matters now is the quantified representation of knowledge: test scores. The deeper qualities and

intricacies that substantive learning would promote are pushed out of the curriculum. High-

stakes tests also implicitly commit one to the idea that students are passive containers waiting to

be filled with knowledge from their authoritative teacher, another denial of critical pedagogy

research.

Moreover, “teaching to the test” implicitly promotes a positivistic view of reality: data

exist outside of us and are not affected by the theories or mentalities that the mind may impose

on them. If the subject who attempts to acquire knowledge about the outside world and leaves

some kind of imprint on the data, this is viewed as a distortion of the “truth,” a distortion of

objectivity. Though it has been shown that facts are certainly theory-laden (Gross 1990), that

interpretations and values affect scientific observation (Harding 1998), and that even the most

universal of sciences, like physics, undergo periodic paradigm shifts (Kuhn [1962] 1996), such

deep thoughts about how the world works are lost on students who learn only how to take a test.

Positivistic knowledge formations like this foster the monolithic epistemology of

capitalism and socialize the next generation of workers to not think critically about their

surroundings. Things are to be taken as they appear on the surface; they are not to be interrogated

and students are presented no way to create alternative or contradictory perspectives relative to

the norm. Students’ actual experiences and abilities are de-emphasized and their roles in the

classroom are taken away, as are those of their teachers. Teaching and learning are thus

depoliticized through the teaching and implicit promotion of positivistic epistemologies. The

subject is removed from the object of study and, at the same time, is treated not as the subject of

history, but as its passive object.

To counteract such travesties, during the 1980s Henry Giroux wrote Theory and

Resistance in Education ([1983] 2001), in which he attempted to:

reassert the fundamental political nature of teaching, the importance of linking pedagogy to social change, connect[] critical learning to the experiences and histories that students brought to the classroom, and engag[e] the space of schooling as a site of contestation, resistance, and possibility. Right-wing versions of schooling at the time were heavily indebted either to teaching curricula that mirrored the assumptions of corporate America in which schools were viewed as simply adjuncts of the workplace, or to imposing forms of technocratic rationality upon schools that turned them into testing and sorting models of assessment that reproduced the wide range of inequalities that characterized a larger social order. (2003:6)

Giroux’s calls for educational change and reform must have fallen on deaf ears in the

Bush administration. Years after the publication of that book, Giroux (2003:8) laments:

Within the prevailing discourse of neo-liberalism that has taken hold of the public imagination, there is no vocabulary for political or social transformation, no collective vision, no social agency to challenge the privatization and commercialization of schooling, the ruthless downsizing of jobs, the ongoing liquidation of job security, or spaces from which to struggle against the elimination of benefits for people now hired on a strictly part-time basis. In the midst of this concerted attack on the public, the market-driven consumer juggernaut continues to mobilize desires in the interest of producing market identities and market relationships that ultimately appear, as Theodor Adorno once put it, nothing less than ‘a prohibition on thinking itself ’ (Adorno, 1993, p. 290).

“Teaching to the test” is not the only form of marketization that NCLB has pushed forth.

This act has also put schools themselves on the market by allowing students at failing institutions

to choose to move to different schools.

In this way, NCLB also promotes the neoliberal (or neoclassical) idea that rational actors

making rational choices in “free” markets will create the greatest good. Though this idea has

been a mainstay of the economics profession for centuries, NCLB moves this irrationally rational

logic to the school sector, treating students and their parents as rational actors who can choose to

change schools if their current institution scores poorly on the standardized tests. Pounds (2009)

quotes a fifth-grader on his decision to change schools:

“This is one of the biggest decisions I’ve ever made, because my friends are staying here,” said rising fifth grader and county spelling bee runnerup Alec Bissell, who has decided to ask for a transfer to West Valley Elementary School because, after looking at test scores, he thinks that West Valley is a better school. “If they (Bearden Middle School) have trouble meeting the ridiculously low standards that the state sets, that doesn’t say very good things about the capabilities.” (Pounds 2009)

While one can appreciate that this student was a runner up in the recent spelling bee, it is

preposterous to think he has the capacity to make such choices about his education. We should

note that Bearden Middle School is in a fairly affluent, white part of Knoxville, Tennessee. As

this reporter later tells us, “For some schools, like Austin-East Performing Arts and Science

Magnet High School or Fulton High School, these letters are nothing new.” Austin-East and

Fulton are both schools in less affluent, traditionally black areas of town. Treating a fifth-grader

as a rational actor and consumer of education in this way would make a hilarious comedy skit,

but since this quote is from an actual news report and not a Saturday Night Live sketch, much of

the comedy is lost on those without the darkest sense of humor.

We see now that scores on high-stakes tests determine the fate of a vast number of

people, a stark example of the quantification of social reality so prevalent in neoliberal

knowledge production. According to Menken, “In order to meet the demand for accountability

under NCLB, student performance on a single test is used to evaluate a teacher, school, school

district, and state” (2005:51). Schools now face the possibility of reduced federal funding or

closure if their students do not perform well enough on these tests. Student education, rather than

being treated as intrinsically good, has increasingly come to be treated as a commodity that

should be bought or sold on the market. Schools are now treated as if they were businesses trying

to get more customers. While one may grudgingly abide the closure of a company that fails to

compete with its peers, it is hard to imagine closing a local school because its neighbor fared

better in testing. Even on the surface, reducing the funding of a struggling school does not seem

to be a proactive way to raise the quality of education for students. Moving to a deeper level and

noting that schools are funded dissimilarly in the first place makes this policy even more

egregious. Funding for many schools is based on the surrounding property taxes, a fact that –

especially when mixed with NCLB mandates – would obviously promote the degradation of

schools in predominantly poor areas and increase intra-urban inequality.

By treating this fifth-grader, Alec Bissel, as a rational actor making choices to promote

his own self interest in the educational marketplace, we forget that he is part of a local

community. We are also invited to forget about Alec’s friends who must still attend Bearden

Middle School. What would happen if all of them transferred to a different school? Would

Bearden simply become an empty husk? An old community project thrust aside as a failure? It

seems that by taking a more community-oriented view, we might be able to help, not just Alec,

but all of his 9 year old friends who are still stuck in a faltering school.

By placing these changes in the context of neoliberalism, we come to the deeper and far

more disturbing (even almost conspiratorial) notion that the goal of NCLB is not to help these

schools. Instead, the point may be to demolish one of the few public goods the US has left

(public schools) and put newer, shinier, more expensive, and, most importantly, more profitable

private schools in their place. It is, of course, one thing for a corporation to ruthlessly

outcompete another and watch the opposition’s doors close. It takes a frightening new level of

social disdain to do so in the context of our children’s schools and our children’s education. But

let us not forget that the business of education can be very profitable, especially if one knows the

right people.4

Now, we have seen how the neoliberalization of education has affected the environment

of high school students. It is obvious that K-12 education in the US is not focused on creating the

critical mindset that would be necessary for a substantive democracy. But those students who are

privileged enough to go on to higher education must face very different circumstances. Right?

Colleges and universities in the US must be forcing students to learn to be critical, thoughtful

individuals. Or are they?

To be blunt, college graduates in the US are not acquiring the critical thinking and critical

communication skills necessary to consciously make their way through the (post)modern world.

We can see the effects of recent K-12 educational practices expressed in US undergraduate

4 See Kencheloe 2009 for a discussion of the intergenerational relationships between the Bushes and the

McGraws. Also, through a brief history of NCLB, Joe Kincheloe (2009) documents a nefarious agenda that blends positivism and profit into a recipe for the commodification of US education.

students through the recent work of Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa (2011). While the previous

pages chronicled many of the changes to K-12 education that have led to an uncritical public,

Arum and Roksa’s longitudinal study of those attending US colleges and universities shows that

college graduates do not fare much better. In their recent longitudinal study of undergraduate

students at various kinds of higher learning institutions,5 they find that students who complete a

bachelor’s degree tend to not increase their scores on critical thinking tests, and if they do, they

do so only marginally. We should not put blame squarely on the shoulders of teachers though,

for there are a number of institutional factors that affect teachers’ abilities to promote a critical

perspective.

In great part, it is the job of an academic to disagree with others. Many professors,

especially at universities that highly value faculty research, spend much of their time creating

publications that are “contributions” to the literature. Much of the time these contributions are

critiques of that existing literature. However, these professional dissidents all agree on one thing:

teaching students to think critically is one of the foremost goals within colleges and universities

(Bok 2006, cited in Arum and Roksa 2011). Institutional mission statements also promote

teaching critical thinking (Arum and Roksa 2011). Sadly, attitudes and mission statements do not

directly translate into practice. There are many institutional factors that affect the abilities of

teachers to promote critical thinking in their students.

The aforementioned focus on faculty publications is one of these factors. It is no great

news that in most universities, faculty research matters more than faculty teaching. Boyer (1986,

5 From Arum and Roska’s (2011) Methodological Appendix: “This sample included 2,362 students across

twenty-four four-year institutions. The analytic sample used in this report includes 2,322 students who had valid demographic information (race / ethnicity and gender) and test scores for both survey years. Institutions participating in this project include schools of varying sizes, selectivity, and missions. The sample includes private residential liberal arts colleges and large research institutions as well as a number of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HSBUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs)” (Kindle Location 2898).

cited in Arum and Roksa 2011) found that tenure decisions are perceived by professors to be

based substantially on the amount and frequency of faculty publications. Moreover, the most

integral teaching-related factor perceived to affect tenure decisions is good performance on

student evaluations. According to Arum and Roksa (2011),

To the extent that teaching mattered in tenure decisions at all, student satisfaction with courses was the primary measure that faculty considered relevant: a measure that partially encourages individual faculty to game the system by replacing rigorous and demanding classroom instruction with entertaining classroom activities, lower academic standards, and a generous distribution of high course marks. (Chapter One, Kindle Location 219)

The changing nature of students and their relationship to education also affect their

proclivity for becoming critical thinkers. Many students treat their education as if it is only a

means to an end: getting a job. The marketization of K-12 education taken along with other more

general neoliberalizing cultural and ideological factors push students to treat their college

education, not as an intrinsically good thing in itself, but as a credential acquired only to further

their career goals. This kind of focus on education does not promote critical thought. It does, on

the other hand, promote students to search for easier classes that will take up less of their time.

This quest for easy courses is facilitated by new online evaluations existing outside the

institutions, such as Ratemyprofessor.com. Rate My Professor allows students to post

information about professors and classes they have taken on the web for others to see. The

categories listed are “overall quality,” “helpfulness,” “clarity,” “easiness,” and “hottness.” Notice

that “amount learned” or “knowledge gained” are not areas for evaluation. Much research also

suggests that the amount of time college students spend on their coursework has also gone down

over the years (Arum and Roksa 2011), presumably adding to students’ desires for easy courses.

In a cultural milieu that values rational actors acting in their own individual self-interest,

attempting to maximize profits, or in this case, minimize work, such websites give students the

ability to find the easiest teachers their schools have to offer. With students searching for easy

courses and professors focusing on gaining tenure through numerous publications and high

student evaluations, it is easy to see that the US college curriculum does not promote critical

thinking in general, let alone critical media literacy.

Contrary to the vast amount of research on the importance of media in contemporary

society, teaching students to critically analyze media has hardly been integrated into the curricula

of US schools (Brabazon 2011; Saunders 2007) and such ideas have certainly not been

inculcated into the consciousness of most of the US public (Flanagan and Metzger 2010; Hedges

2010; Torrent 2011; Zengotita 2006). It is therefore my goal in the remainder of this essay to

point toward some ways that higher education professionals can help to ameliorate the problems

that the neoliberalization of the US education system has created.

Douglas Kellner and Jeff Share address many of these issues succinctly and point to new

tactics that teachers can use to ameliorate such entrenched problems:

...despite the ubiquity of media culture in contemporary society and everyday life, and the recognition that the media themselves are a form of pedagogy, and despite criticisms of the distorted values, ideals, and representations of the world in popular culture, media education in K-12 schooling in the US has never really been established and developed. The current technological revolution, however, brings to the fore, more than ever, the role of media like television, popular music, film, and advertising, as the Internet rapidly absorbs these cultural forms and creates ever-evolving cyberspaces and forms of culture and pedagogy. It is highly irresponsible in the face of saturation by Internet and media culture to ignore these forms of socialization and education; consequently a critical reconstruction of education should produce pedagogies that provide media literacy and enable students, teachers, and citizens to discern the nature and effects of media culture. From this perspective, media culture is a form of pedagogy that teaches proper and improper behavior, gender roles, values, and knowledge of the world (Kellner, 1995a, 2003). Individuals are often not aware that they are being educated and constructed by media culture, as its pedagogy is frequently invisible and unconscious. This situation calls for critical approaches that make us aware of how media construct meanings, influence and educate audiences, and impose their messages and values.

In the next part of this essay I will elaborate critical media literacy and distinguish it from

other literacy paradigms. Then, I will discuss some tested and effective ways to integrate critical

media literacy into the college classroom and show how these tactics promote the critical

perspectives of students, even in the face of the neoliberalization of the US educational system.

Part Two: What is Critical Media Literacy? The Internet

Recent technological change, the internet specifically, has opened up new arenas for

discourse and representation. This revolutionary digital space has few boundaries and even fewer

editors. Users can post anything they please with virtually no filtering process involved. This is

both a blessing and a curse. Voices that may not normally be heard are given a virtual

microphone, but these voices also help to create the cacophony that is technologically mediated

contemporary social life. In such a vast new space where the possibility of information overload

grows each day, it is incumbent on any democratic culture to give its citizens the ability to filter

representations and understand where they come from, how they are made, and why they were

made and distributed for them to see. As I argue in part one, critical thinking is hardly promoted

in the US school system and critical media literacy, a promising potential avenue for promoting

critical thought, is not given enough priority in school curricula, particularly higher education.

But what is critical media literacy? How is it different from other forms of literacy? How can it

help to overcome the aforementioned problems?

Critical media literacy is a holistic view of literacy that involves expanding notions of

literacy to the new levels necessary for a 21st century democratic citizen. The commonsense

definition of literacy includes only the idea of a person’s ability to read and write. It assumes a

discursive and pedagogical world made up only of the written word. Children are taught to read

and write in grade school and once they reach a certain level of competency in those limited

areas, they are deemed literate. The education system stops its focus on how knowledge is

mediated, assuming a stance that implies a finality in people’s abilities to read and write. It leads

students to think that, once they can put a few words together into a sentence or paragraph, they

have achieved literacy. Such a vast amount of new information and, more importantly, such

novel and radical ways of mediating that information lead to the seemingly obvious need for

expanding the concept of literacy. Though much popular discourse and practice have failed to

fulfill this need, some social theorists and teachers have put forth new ways of thinking about

literacy that could fill the gaps between old conceptions of literacy and the imperatives that the

technological age brings, if only they can be integrated into the existing educational structures.

Different Approaches to Literacy

Critical media literacy grew out of and builds upon three particular approaches to the

study of media literacy: the protectionist approach, the media arts approach, and the traditional

US media literacy movement (Kellner and Share 2007a; Kellner and Share 2007b; Kellner and

Share 2005). In addition to those approaches that deal with media specifically, many ideas and

practices from critical pedagogy, Frankfurt School critical theory, feminist theory, postmodern

theory, and symbolic interactionism, among others, inform the robust version of critical media

literacy discussed here.

Perhaps the most influential and rigorous treatment of critical media literacy comes from

Douglas Keller. His book Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity and Politics Between the

Modern and the Postmodern (1995) is one of the first representations of modern (or postmodern)

critical media literacy. It outlines some formative tenets of the subject and manages the difficult

task of, first, integrating a number of seemingly disparate theoretical traditions into a cohesive

framework, and, secondly, applying them to concrete examples. In the new century, Kellner

moved toward a slightly less academic approach and, along with Jeff Share, began to solidify the

substance of critical media literacy and promote its teaching in the everyday classroom. In a

recent book chapter, Kellner and Share (2007b) describe different approaches to media

education, the critiques and constructions of which make up the foundations for critical media

literacy.

Protectionist Approach

The protectionist approach “aims to protect or inoculate people against the dangers of

media manipulation and addiction” and attempts to make individuals cognizant that their culture,

ideas, and lifestyles may be manipulated through the media (Kellner and Share 2007b:6).

According to this approach, audiences are passive victims that consume media unthinkingly and

are prone to regurgitating the values of the media rather than creating their own.6

While critical media literacy acknowledges the manipulative aspects of media and the

fact that media are a form of the social creation of reality, it also integrates other approaches that

focus on the agency of audiences. Critical media literacy notes the ability of viewers/consumers

to decode media in unique and (possibly) critical ways by forming their own personal

interpretations that may not conform to the intent of the creators of manipulative media. Later,

we will see how a diagram can help students to understand this part of the mediation process.

Furthermore, Critical media literacy focuses on and attempts to foster the abilities of people to

create media that challenge or reject dominant belief systems. Critical media literacy thus puts

great emphasis on the role of audiences as active participants in the process of mediation through

their ability to decode and encode media.

6 See for example, Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985).

Media Arts Approach

The media arts approach to literacy focuses on the abilities of people to appreciate the

aesthetic qualities of media and even to express themselves through it (Kellner and Share

2007b). The fact that students probably have some favorite book, film, or artist gives critical

media literacy teachers an opportunity to engage students by applying concepts to material they

enjoy already. This also helps to show students that these ideas are applicable to their own lives.

This approach also shows students avenues for expressing their own voices. However, this

approach is normally not critical enough of the political economy of media and how the culture

industry feeds into the creation of media. Without a focus on and understanding of oppressive

structures, expression may not translate directly into a truly critical form of literacy.

US Media Literacy Movement

A relatively small movement toward media literacy has grown in the US over the past

few years (Kellner and Share 2005). This movement touches on one fundamental piece of critical

media literacy: expanding the notion of literacy to include other technological forms of

mediation. This movement does have some general popular appeal, but this appeal is a double-

edged sword. By watering down the critical aspects of literacy, such a movement is able to

become more mainstream and would be easier to integrate into schools. Contrary to the missions

of critical media literacy though, a non-critical approach tends toward the neoliberal agenda that

depoliticizes knowledge and hides the power structures at play in knowledge creation. As

Kellner and Share (2007b:8) state, “The media literacy movement has done excellent work in

promoting important concepts of semiotics and intertextuality, as well as bringing media culture

into public education. However, without cultural studies, transformative pedagogy, and a project

of radical democracy, media literacy risks becoming another cookbook of conventional ideas that

only improve the social reproductive function of education.”

The Five Core Concepts of Critical Media Literacy In a 2005 essay, Kellner and Share codify their constructive critiques of other media

literacy approaches and set out five core concepts of critical media literacy. In this section of the

paper, I will reproduce these concepts by drawing heavily on Kellner and Share’s work, before

moving on to elaborate the teaching tactics I use to get these concepts across to students. Few

changes will be made to their core concepts because having a shared basis for critical media

literacy is necessary to promote its being taught in the US.

Core Concept One: The Principle of Non-Transparency

Media messages are constructed and have hidden meanings. There are unstated values in

all media messages and these are created, not only by authors and much of the time even without

the author’s intent or understanding, but also by the systems of shared meanings and signs in our

society. This core concept is heavily informed by semiotics, or the science of signs. Semiotics

challenges the ideas espoused by the NCLB act and the depoliticization of knowledge and

representations in US schools by politicizing and historicizing media messages, putting emphasis

on the “what-goes-without-saying” (Barthes 1998:11, quoted in Kellner and Share 2005:5).

According to Masterman, the principle of non-transparency is the foundation of media education,

for “the media do not present reality, they represent it” (Masterman 1994:33, quoted in Kellner

and Share 2005:5, emphases added). This core concept holds the germ of the other four core

concepts within it. Students who realize this point have taken the first step toward critical media

literacy and having a critical perspective on the world they live in.

Core Concept Two: Codes and Conventions

“Media messages are constructed using a creative language with its own rules” (Kellner

and Share 2005:5). This core concept hinges on the distinction between the signifier and the

signified, or, the sense perceptions that a piece of media creates and the conceptualization that an

individual applies to the media. The signifier is that “object” that is the piece of media and is

relatively stable; the way that piece of media is mentally decoded by the observer makes up the

signified. One can view this in terms of the objective reality of the piece of media, something

relatively static, and the subjective interpretation of that piece of media, which changes from

observer to observer. This core concept is further fleshed out by the third core concept of critical

media literacy.

Core Concept Three: Audience Decoding

This concept challenges the previous widely held belief that audiences are passive

receptacles for messages that are thrust upon them by a piece of media. Relying on the critique of

the protectionist approach to media education, this concept posits that audiences are not passive

“decoders” of media meanings; instead, “Textual meanings do not reside in the texts themselves:

a certain text can come to mean different things depending on the interdiscursive context in

which viewers interpret it” (Ang 2002:180, quoted in Kellner and Share 2005:6). That being

said, bell hooks warns that, “While audiences are clearly not passive and are able to pick and

choose, it is simultaneously true that there are certain ‘received’ messages that are rarely

mediated by the will of the audience” (hooks 1996:3, quoted in Kellner and Share 2005:6). By

combining these two seemingly contradictory ideas, one can introduce a more nuanced

conception of social reality to students, one that conflicts with the reductionist thought most of

them are all too familiar with: the idea that social reality tends to be better represented by talking

about it in terms of fluid both/and statements, as opposed to the rigid dichotomy of a black and

white, either/or mentality. Moving students away from the norm of dichotomous reasoning – the

kind of reasoning espoused by our neoliberalized education system – is one of the main aims of

teaching critical media literacy and critical thinking skills, though this deeply entrenched

bivariate logic is not an easy wall to break down.

Core Concept Four: Content and Message

This concept pushes students to interrogate the actual content of messages. It posits that

“media have embedded messages and points of view,” (Kellner and Share 2005:6). Pointing to

the ways that people are represented in media messages pushes students to deconstruct the

ideological facets of these representations and their relation to hegemonic and/or anti-hegemonic

discourses, as well as to the structures of society. Realizing this concept helps to politicize all

forms of media, even some that students have relied on for years like textbooks. Put bluntly, we

see that facts are theory laden and interpreted by subjective individuals, never from a god’s eye

view (Haraway 1988).

Core Concept Five: Motivation

This concept focuses on the political economy of media production with much regard for

the fact that:

“Five global-dimension firms, operating with many of the characteristics of a cartel, own most of the newspapers, magazines, book publishers, motion picture studios, and radio and television stations in the United States … These five conglomerates are Time Warner, by 2003 the largest media firm in the world; The Walt Disney Company; Murdoch's News Corporation, based in Australia; Viacom; and Bertelsmann, based in Germany.”

The US lacks a strong industry of publicly owned media outlets. Thus, the vast majority

of media in the country functions under the market system and their representations are

“organized to gain profit and/or power” (Kellner and Share 2005:7). The recent US decision

allowing “corporations (to) enjoy the same rights as individuals to contribute to campaigns”

(Associated Press 2011) adds even more power to the abilities of these corporations to bend the

US political system to their will. The distorted reality presented by commercials comes under

deep scrutiny and also opens up discourses that talk about how pieces of media that seem to be

for entertainment purposes also work under the market mentality, regardless of their actual

entertainment value.

These five core concepts come together to create a cohesive agenda that can help to

remedy the problems mentioned in part one of this essay. The rapidly changing technologies of

post-industrial capitalist society require an active, thoughtful public that can critically analyze

the world around them, a world increasingly populated by signs re-presented a hundred times

over, a world increasingly filled with simulacra. In a knowledge-based economy threatened by

information overload, teaching US students to be critically media literate helps them to navigate

their everyday lives. In a purportedly democratic society where money decides the outcomes of

political campaigns and almost all representations of political leaders are filtered through a few

media conglomerates, creating critically media literate citizens must be a top priority for

institutions of higher education. But how can we integrate critical media literacy into the

university classroom?

Part Three: Tactics for Teaching Critical Media Literacy The NCLB act puts great pressure on the K-12 system to teach to the test. By using test

scores as the only standard of evaluation, this act treats schools like companies and puts

education under the rule of the market. When schools’ funding and people’s jobs count on

student test scores, curricula increasingly express the marketization of education and leads even

the best of educators to teach reductionist, non-critical thought to students. The costs of not

doing so are simply too high.

Higher education is not as deeply affected by the NCLB act and has more freedom to

integrate critical media literacy into curricula. However, university educators have other

pressures such as a focus on research and student evaluations for tenure that push them to

simplify their classes. Moreover, entering students are now products of the neoliberalized K-12

system. Furthermore, adding new courses to college curricula takes time and effort. Luckily,

critical media literacy can be integrated into numerous courses in higher education as modules

that last for only one or a few lectures. Existing courses in their entirety can be framed through a

critical media literacy lens to engage students and teach existing topics in new ways. Or, since

critical media literacy crosses and blurs so many disciplinary boundaries, it can easily become a

part of and enhance courses like sociology, women’s studies, psychology, advertising,

philosophy, social theory, art studies, graphic design, communication studies, film studies,

technology studies, musicology, pedagogy, feminist studies, aesthetic theory, and more.

I have so far argued that (1) the US education system, from kindergarten to college, fails

to promote critical thinking skills in students, (2) media and mediated representations of reality

become bigger parts of our lives each day, and (3) teaching critical media literacy is necessary in

a democratic society. Now that I have elucidated the core concepts of critical media literacy, I

will draw on my experiences teaching critical media literacy to undergraduate students and

elaborate some tactics for bringing critical media literacy into the college classroom.

Pedagogy and Critical Media Literacy

First, we should note that teaching critical media literacy lends itself well to, and almost

requires, the use of critical or feminist pedagogical styles, especially those espoused by people

like Henry Giroux (1997), bell hooks (1996), and Paulo Freire (1968). Critical and feminist

pedagogies are innovative forms of teaching that promote radical democracy, multicultural

understandings, and critical thinking in students. It is not my aim here to elaborate on these

pedagogies thoroughly, but a few points about them are salient to teaching critical media literacy.

First, the relationship between teacher and student must change to a certain degree.

Teachers are not singular, objective authorities on the subject matter. This corresponds to the

idea that all facts are theory laden and that knowledge is socially constructed and socially

mediated. Additionally, though teachers should of course have expertise in their field, there is an

impetus here to treat students as active creators of their own knowledge, as experts in their own

experiences. By speaking in less authoritative language and promoting critical responses and

interpretations from students, barriers between experts and layfolk or teachers and students as

knowledge creators become blurred. This empowers students to take more control over

knowledge and gives them a more robust role in the classroom, both of which are fundamental

tenets of feminist pedagogy and critical media literacy.

Teaching with a feminist pedagogical style is both rewarding and frightening. A

successful feminist pedagogy pushes students to engage subject material deeply and bring their

own knowledge to the classroom, enriching the experience for all involved. At the same time,

feminist pedagogy can be frightening, for in addition to the instructor’s efforts, students must

participate in discussions and help to create an environment in which teacher/student boundaries

become blurred. Sometimes students do not fulfill their end of this bargain.7 There are certain

tactics that one can use to create an environment in which student participation and a feminist

pedagogical style can flourish. One set of tactics deals specifically with the space of the

classroom and how the instructor occupies it. Another set gives instructors tools that are dynamic

enough to move with the ebb and flow of a truly participatory environment.

Student participation is necessary for feminist pedagogy to work in the classroom and

instructors should promote an open environment that lets students feel comfortable and

7 One can hardly blame students, for they are normally socialized through traditional, one-way pedagogical models.

empowered enough to voice their opinions and thoughts. By seating students in a circle – rather

than in traditional rows with students facing the front of the room – and sitting in that circle with

the students, the instructor creates a peer-oriented, non-hierarchical space that literally puts

everyone on the same plane. This facilitates face-to-face communication and helps break down

the student/instructor divide.8

In addition to creating a literal space that fosters communication, there are a number of

other tactics that are helpful in fostering student participation that include creating a fluid arena

that allows students to change the direction of class topics. In a class based on collaborative

knowledge sharing, unidirectional teaching tools such as rigid lectures or powerpoint

presentations do not have the dynamism required for feminist pedagogy, for student participation

forces one to change the order of “lectures” based on the ideas and examples that students bring

to the table. By creating lectures made up of interchangeable modules, the instructor can build

upon students’ examples while still relating necessary course material. To set the tone,

instructors should start each session on a conversational line by asking a question about the

readings or topic of the day, picking the most relevant module and extemporaneously relating

that set of ideas to specific student examples. This can be one of the most frightening aspects of

feminist pedagogy and requires quick thought on the part of the instructor, as well as a

relinquishment of power. However, when the tactic works, students are immediately engaged in

the teaching process and see that their efforts at participation have direct effects on the subject

matter discussed, further fostering participation.

Now, I will elaborate some assignments that are useful in teaching critical media literacy.

The Diagram

8 This can be more or less difficult depending on the layout and size of the classroom. With large classes, one can break students into smaller groups to create spaces for feminist pedagogy.

The five core concepts of critical media literacy can be rather overwhelming, especially if

introduced together at the same time. I have created a diagram that helps break these complex

ideas down into pieces that are comprehensible, even for new students. When new subjects are

introduced, it helps to refer students back to this diagram and ask what portions of the diagram

the current discussion touches on.

This diagram is the most useful tool I have found for visualizing and simplifying the

main concepts of critical media literacy. Regarding the first concept – that all media messages

are constructed and non-transparent – we can look to the bottom right of the diagram and focus

on the creator of the media in question. It shows that the creator of a piece of media performs an

encoding process. Moreover, we can view the centerpiece, the media object, that need not be

physical, as the signifier. It is some piece of reality that is “out there” and can be found and

interpreted in many ways. It is that piece of reality that, although encoded by the creator and

decoded by the viewer, exists in a relatively objective space.

Focusing on the audience circle, we can elucidate the third concept of critical media

literacy by emphasizing that the audience actively decodes media messages.

Focusing on the creator circle corresponds to the second concept of media literacy by

emphasizing the structure of language and the role of the author in creating media.

Taken together, the lower half of the diagram represents the process of (1) ideas being

created by authors, (2) those ideas moving through the authorial encoding process to become a

relatively objective media object, and (3) the active decoding of that media object by the

observer. Putting emphases on the arrows between the circles elucidates that an active process

happens when any ideas move from a creator to an observer. Elaborating the nuances of

encoding and decoding to students are simplified and broken down by focusing on different parts

of the diagram and dealing with the intricacies of each part.

Adding the structure bubble to the diagram gives a new layer to all of the other issues

previously discussed.

It corresponds most strongly with concept five (that media are organized to gain profit or

power), but is also applicable to the author and audience bubbles. This new layer helps to

historicize ideas already presented. It shows that the encoding and decoding processes happen

within an already existing environment and that the way that environment is structured has great

effects on what media is created, why it is created, how it is created, and how it is interpreted. As

the structure changes, so do all other pieces of the model. Authors are informed by their

environment as they encode, just as audiences are informed by their environment in the decoding

process. Different micro-, meso-, and macro-level characteristics of the individual and their

environment form and structure the processes used to understand media.

Many students find the whole diagram overwhelming to start. It should be overwhelming.

Using that initial confusion, though, can help instructors to inform students that media and

mediation are not a simple process. Understanding something like this takes time and effort. The

mediation of knowledge is intricate, worthy of notice, and requires thoughtful analysis. As Harry

Dahms shows through much of his work, modern society is “complex, contingent and

contradictory,” as well as highly dynamic (Dahms 2008; 2011; Dahms and Hazelrigg 2010). This

diagram shows students some of the complexities and contingencies of social reality. It gives

them a sense that we are not talking about simple things. Most importantly though, it provides

avenues for breaking social reality down in to manageable pieces that can be understood.

Referring back to this diagram throughout the semester is a good way to link highly

abstract theories to a concrete structure. Putting different pieces of media in the middle of the

diagram can serve to assist students in parsing out assignments that require them to critically

analyze media.

In addition to this diagram, there is a specific assignment that helps students to become

more critically media literate, especially with regard to the research process and the process of

creating academic knowledge. Students writing and research skills are not what they should be.

As Brabazon (2011) relates, even one of his doctoral students did not know how to differentiate

between primary and secondary sources in their dissertation! The students bibliography was

“dominated by three types of sources: on and offline newspaper articles, blogs, and textbooks”

(Brabazon 2011:209). If a doctoral student has that trouble, what does that mean for

undergraduates?

To remedy this situation, Brabazon creates a wonderful assignment for graduate student

researchers. I have adapted this assignment so that it is applicable for first-year students all the

way up to the graduate level. The assignment is, in total, a research paper on a topic of the

student’s choice that relates to course material. However, by breaking the assignment down into

three separate parts, students learn a great deal about (1) differences between types of media and

their perceived legitimacy in academic research, (2) the writing process (a writing process that is

not made up of an all-night, singular writing session), and (3) how the research and writing

processes come together. The assignment sheet is reproduced on the following pages.

Assignment 1: List of Sources ***Due 1-2 weeks after a lecture on scientific knowledge creation

You should make a list of at least 10 references in MLA format, with a few caveats. Each citation should be in MLA (or the respective disciplinary) format, but should be categorized as described below. The goal of this assignment is for you to understand the differences between types of sources used in scholarly work and how they should be used when writing a research paper. At least 5 references respected in the scholarly world. These should be used for the main support of your argument and can come from:

• Scholarly books • Peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles • Scholarly lectures from YouTube or podcasts • Official websites from professional organizations • Government reports

At least 2 references from the “everyday” world. These should be used for secondary support of your argument or support for arguments made about events too current for scholarly literature to be available. They can come from:

• News articles from a generally respected organization • Podcasts • Blogs

At least 3 references from culture. These will make up the “data” or object of your analysis and can come from:

• Documentaries • Songs or albums • Advertisements • Item of material culture • Television programs • Photographs from online sites • Films

Websites such as facebook or youtube

Assignment 2: Rough Draft ***Due 1-2 weeks after assignment 1

The rough draft of your paper should be at least four pages long. It should be in MLA format. Protip: Treat this like it is the final. Then, prior to finals week you can take a little time

to tighten up your arguments, write a strong conclusion, and check for grammar and spelling errors. That way, when you have five or six other finals during finals week you can worry about them and not this class.

Assignment 3: Final Paper ***Due 1-2 weeks after assignment 2

We all know that procrastination is a huge problem for students (and everyone else,

really). So, to help you along with your final paper for this class I have broken the research

process down into three separate assignments.

Your final assignment is a 5-6 page research paper formatted in MLA style. The topic is

up to you, but your paper should show that you understand the relevant material that has been

presented throughout the course (lectures, discussions, and course readings). Be brief with

summaries and long on critical analysis.

Some ideas you may want to pursue:

1. Critically analyze a piece of media. You might want to analyze a film, a song, or a piece of literature. You could analyze one of your favorites or something that says a lot about society in general.

o You could ask: Who is the audience? What do you think the author’s goals are? What does this piece of media say about the society in which it was produced? What does it say about society now? How can I use ideas and concepts from this course to analyze a piece of media?

2. Critically analyze a block of television

o You might want to pick a 30 minute or hour long block of television and analyze it in its entirety.

o Break the block down into the program itself and the advertisements that go along with it.

o Answer questions like: What is the television show about? Who is the target audience for the show? How do the commercials for the show relate to the show itself? Why are these commercials on this show? Do the target audiences seem to be the same? What channel is it on? Why do you think it is on this channel?

Remember, these are only suggestions. You could decide to do part of one of these

suggestions in more depth or come up with your own idea entirely. Be creative and be thorough.

If you have a question about your assignment, email me.

The first part of this essay shows how the US school system is failing to teach students

critical thinking. That section also argues that in an advanced capitalist society like ours, media

is ubiquitous and has intense effects on how we perceive the world. Thus, to promote democracy,

students need to be critically media literate. The second part of the essay outlines the five core

concepts of critical media literacy as laid out by Kellner and Share (2005). The third part shows

how these concepts can be taught in the undergraduate classroom. It presents a diagram that

elucidates the core concepts of critical media literacy. This diagram can be useful, first, to show

students the complexities of social reality, and second, to show students how to break the social

world down into manageable, understandable pieces.

To conclude, I have shown how the structure of US education fails to prepare students to

critically analyze the world they live in. I have also shown how critical media literacy can be

integrated into many college courses and serves to enhance those that already exist and given

examples of proven methods for teaching critical media literacy.

Teaching critical media literacy is necessary to create thoughtful, critical citizens. Critical

media literacy helps to empower people and gives them the tools they need to navigate our

quickly changing world. I hope that professors from many disciplines heed my call for teaching

critical media literacy and benefit from the suggestions outlined above.

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