Integrating Media Literacy into the Curriculum

Abstract Media literacy education is required by most state curricular in this country. It is still not taught systematically in our schools. Teachers are worried about adding a new subject to their already crowded curriculum. This article addresses this problem by showing teachers that by nature media literacy encourages an interdisciplinary approach to education. Teachers can make connections across content areas by teaching with media and about media. This article demonstrates how media literacy education can be integrated into every subject we teach through classroom examples. ********** As our global village continues to be wired up electronically, and as we move our daily lives online, mass media play a tremendous part in our society, providing information as well as entertainment (Clay, 2003). Young people today live media saturated lives, spending an average of nearly 6.5 hours a day with media (Kaiser Family Foundation Study, 2005). Virtually all that we know about the world beyond our immediate experience comes to us through mass media, TV, Radio, Internet, etc. There would be little problem with this if the media simply reflected reality. But each medium shapes reality in different ways and we can no longer consider any message in any medium to be neutral or value free. All the messages that we come in contact with contain information about values, beliefs, and behaviors and are shaped by economic factors (Ontario Ministry of Education, 1989). Tyner (2003) suggests that new digital media departs from traditional media insofar as it facilitates non-linear browsing, privileges interactivity, allows for the manipulation of sound, text, stills, and moving images, and can perform these task at rapid speeds. If students are to use new media to their own greatest advantage, they too must learn to creatively and critically browse, research, organize, select, and produce communication forms that use the full spectrum of literacy tools available to them (Tyner, 2003, p. 374). Thus, traditional literacy (reading and writing)_alone is far from enough for our students to be successful in the 21st century. Becoming literate in the new century means that students also need to understand the influence of media on our society, develop strategies to critically analyze media and become independent from the influence of media. Media literacy refers to the understanding of media and the use of it as a source of information, entertainment, enrichment, growth, empowerment and communication. Equally important to understand the media is to use IT (information technology) rather than allowing IT to use you. According to Thoman (1995) critical media literacy incorporates three stages that lead to the empowerment of citizens of all ages: (a) Becoming aware of the importance of making choices and managing the amount of time spent with television, videos, electronic games, films and various print media forms; (b) Learning specific skills of critical viewing and surfing--learning to analyze and question what is in the frame/on the screen, how it is constructed, and what may have been left out; (c) Exploring deeper issues of who produces the media we experience and for what purposes. In other words: Who profits? Who loses? And who decides? A review of related studies and documents shows that calls for teaching media literacy in our schools are everywhere. Kubey and Baker (1999) argues that for four decades, both young people and adults in our society have spent the majority of their leisure time in contact with the electronic media. But all too many schools still operate as if the only forms of expression worthy of study are the poem, the short story, and the novel. FCC Commissioner, Michael Copps (2006), calls for a sustained K-12 media literacy program to teach kids not only how to use the media but how the media uses them. He states that in a culture where media is pervasive and invasive, kids need to think critically about what they see, hear and read. …