The representation of women in magazines

The Women's Forum Australia has recently conducted research into the portrayal of women and teenage girls in women's magazines, finding that females are disproportionately sexualised in magazines, compared to men. The findings can be read online, and the forum has produced a number of resources for those interested in studying this topic further, as part of the "Faking it" campaign - which would be extremely useful for media classrooms.

The forum has the following objectives:

1. To promote the advancement, well-being and freedom of all women;
2. To conduct and sponsor research about social, cultural, health and economic issues relevant to women;
3. To provide education to women and men about social, cultural, health and economic issues relevant to women;
4. To promote the equal participation and contribution of women and men in the work place and public life;
5. To promote a positive balance for women and men between family commitment and participation in the work force;
6. To mentor women in their contribution to public life;
7. To promote initiatives that work for improvements in the lives of all women, in particular women from disadvantaged and marginalised backgrounds including women with physical and intellectual disabilities, women with mental illness, refugee and migrant women and indigenous women; and
8. To empower women in their contribution to media and public debate and the formation of social policy.

Some of the work coming out of the WFA, particularly about women and media, has a protectionist agenda that perhaps fails to take account of the complex relationships young women have with the media. However, they also convincingly demonstrate that media often provide a significant proportion of the template young women have for imagining how they can "be" in the world.

Representing media literacy online - wiki entries on media literacy

Media literacy now has entries in both Wikipedia and the Wikiveristy, and the definitions and descriptions are worthy of analysis as media texts in their own right. The Wikipedia entry has evolved over the past eighteen months or so from being very much defined by the American media literacy movement, with a focus on protectionism. Over time the entry has been renovated by individuals from several countries to include international and historical information to place the American experience in a broader context.

It would be fair to describe the Wikiversity entry as still being quite American-centric, with little attention given to cultural studies approaches to media education.

MEAC - Media Education Across the Curriculum

MEAC is an initiative of a group of media educators from several European countries and based in Berlin. The website includes a range of resources that introduce uninitiated educators to media education. This includes introductory material such as ideas for using video cameras in the classroom, issues papers and information about professional development.

There is an associated blog that canvasses a range of issues and resources related to media education.

New Zealand Media Education

New Zealand has been an international leader in media education for at least two decades. Media Studies is widely taught there at both senior and junior secondary levels. A range of resources supporting New Zealand Media ed can be found on the Media Studies website, including an email discussion list.

The National Association of Media Educators of New Zealand also supports teachers through a range of resources, events and professional development opportunities. "Script" is a regular publication produced by NAME, outlining resources, news and opportunities for NZ media educators and past copies can be downloaded from the site.

Australian Media Education State by State

Media education is supported by a number of curriculum policy statements across Australia. There are no national statements supporting media education as a curriculum priority. Download documents at the following sites:

Queensland:

Media is one of the five strands of the Queensland Studies Authority Arts Years 1-10 syllabus. Education Queensland requires all students to meet media outcomes in this syllabus up to the end of year 7. In years 8-10 it is not mandatory, however many schools choose to implements media outcomes at these levels.

Senior Film, Television and New Media is a QSA elective subject offered in years 11 and 12 and taught in approximately 110 schools across the State.

Media and popular culture are also mandatory areas of study in both the QSA Years 1-10 English and Senior English syllabus documents.

Victoria:

Media is one of five strands of the Arts in the Victorian Essential Learnings for Years 1-10 (VELS).

VCE Media includes four Media units that can be studied by students at the senior level as electives.


South Australia:

In primary, middle years and senior, media is one of the five strands of the Arts in the SACSA Framework. Standards for media are outlined at each level.


New South Wales:

Media is the only one of the five Arts forms not represented by a stand alone syllabus in years 7-10, or at the Senior level in NSW.

However, Film and media are studied as part of the English syllabus in years 7-10, and as elective options within the HSC Senior English course.


Western Australia:

In years 1-10 Media is one of the five strands of the Arts.

At the Senior level, Media Studies can be selected as an elective within the Arts.


ACT:

At all levels of schooling - from early years to senior - Media outcomes exist as part of the Arts Key Learning Area.

Northern Territory:

The Northern Territory Curriculum Framework includes media as one of the five strands of the Arts Key Learning Area for years 1-10.

Senior secondary students in the Territory undertake subjects developed and accredited by the Senior Secondary Assessment Board of South Australia (SSABSA) - see South Australia.

The Story of Movies

The Story of Movies is a teaching resource developed by the Film Foundation, which preserves films (over 450 so far). The foundation was set up by some of the United States' most successful film makers including Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Woody Allen.

The resource is aimed at middle years students and provides a range of activities, with a traditional film analysis approach. The focus is on analysis of narrative, film language and themes. There is little exploration of production process, distribution or reception. the area of representations is only marginally dealt with. In other words, this is a conventional film appreciation approach, rather than a media studies approach.

However, teachers with little experience in this field will find it a useful resource.

Why theory matters to media education

Cultural theory matters to media education because it aims to describe the relationship between people and the world around them, and of course media and popular culture form a significant aspect of people's world experience.

Cultural theory aims to provide a model to explain how society works, and places emphasis on aspects relating to identity formation and the exercise of power. These are both crucial areas of interest for media educators who go beyond a focus on media skills and aesthetics to include a focus on the role of media in society - socially, economically and politically.

Since its inception in the 1930s, media education has been closely associated with cultural theory. In fact, many argue that F.R. Leavis' book "Culture and Environment", which employed a "cultural heritage" theory of culture, was the first media education text.

Theories of discrimination associated with Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall were highly influential on media education in the 1950s and 60s. In the 1970s and 1980s Marxist and structuralist theories, especially those associated with Louis Althusser and Roland Barthes help to shape media education, particularly via the work of Len Masterman.

The most recent theories - post modernism and post-structuralism - should inform media education because they provide convincing explanations of contemporary society - more convincing than those used by media educators up to this day (particularly structuralist notions of the one - directional dominance of media over individuals).

What can post-structuralist theory offer media education?

An explanation as to why young people are both vulnerable and powerful in relation to media simultaneously.

Theories for understanding young people's complex identity construction and use of media as a symbolic resource for identity construction.

An explanation of the evolving relationship between new media technologies and young people.

And much more...

Why does any of this matter? Because education should seem authentic to students and if they can't recognise themselves in scenarios that model particular educational claims, they will tune out. Young people know they are not victims of media, but they don't know how to participate most effectively in media culture, or how to think about media in such complex times. Media education can scaffold this learning.

I'm not suggesting that young people start learning post-structuralist theory. I am suggesting that teachers and media education theorists should find ways to develop curriculum that takes account of post-structuralism.

Here are some initial suggestions:

Place students at the center of their own learning experiences so that they can build on their existing media skills and knowledges though practical participation.

Recognise the limitations of "teacher expertise". Draw on the knowledge and skills of all members of the class.

Provide a diversity of experiences. Media classrooms should be spaces in which to experience genuine difference, innovation, and creativity. Promote acceptance and diversity.

Avoid absolute answers. Always look for opportunities to explore concepts, debate, question, challenge, interrogate and present alternatives. Aim to keep conversations going rather than close them down. Respond to controversies and ideas creatively rather than seek to have a final position.

Media students as media researchers

I believe one of the most under-utilized, and yet powerful, media literacy strategies to use in secondary media classrooms is media research. In particular, students can gain great insight into media audiences and institutions via well constructed research activities.

Students interviewing other students, their parents and grand parents, siblings and others about their media tastes and habits, motivations for using those media , how their media use has changed over the years and so on can provide powerful insights. Of course this might be part of a production project such as a documentary rather than a formal written paper.

Conducting primary research of historical media can also be extremely rewarding when combined with critical research questions. For example, students researching media in the 1960s might source local newspapers from that period to identify the number of movie theatres and drive-ins that existed, what the television programs of the day were and what advertisements reveal about entertainment and popular culture of the time.

Research also helps to broaden out the scope of media education which has traditionally focused on textual analysis, when concerned with theory. While student can gain a great deal from close analysis of a range of media, they can also learn a lot about processes of production and consumption by aiming to answer a range of critical questions through research.

Here are three ideas for classroom research projects:

1. Students videotape an interview with a classmate about their favourite film, television program or game, asking a range of questions that really get to the heart of their fandom.

2. Student use primary sources to research the media that was popular in the year they were born. They should look at newspapers, magazines, if available, television programs, popular music and so on.

3. Students undertake a case study of a media event - for example, the release of a new blockbuster film. As a class they use a range of sources to find out as much information as possible about the production process, target audience, use of special effects, financial matters, marketing, etc for the film. The aim is to place it in its broader social and economic context.

Media education and discourse

Previously I have mentioned that I believe media education needs to engage with post structuralist theory. The evidence is all around us that young people engage with media in post modern ways that are far better accounted for by post structuralist theory than older structuralist theories that seek to identify things like hidden ideology within texts. Young people are not the subjects of dominant ideologies that position them and offer limited life choices. They negotiate their way through multiple available subject positions that are as varied as and fluid the contexts they find themselves in. That's not to say they have complete autonomy in their choices, just that their relationship with media is complex and evolving.

Here are a couple of ideas I am negotiating myself at the moment:

Judith Baxter suggests that all individuals operate within networks of power relations and may be powerful, powerless, somewhere in between or a combination of these at any one time. Consider a typical classroom. In very simplistic terms one might ask - who has the power here? The teacher who sets the curriculum agenda? The students who can refuse to learn if they wish? The male students, supported via hegemonic masculinity, the female students supported via resistant femininity? The academic students who will be rewarded by broader social and cultural discourses or the rebels who have the power to disrupt learning? Obviously it is a combination of these. Depending on the task at hand and the interactions occurring there will be varying power relations at work. Young people's interactions with media are certainly no less complex than that.

Judith Butler argues that our identities are performative. We enact and define who we are at one and the same time and we draw on hegemonic and variational discourses to do this. We have no essential or core identity. This should be both troubling and liberating for media educators. Troubling because it suggests we have no essential sense of self except from within discourse and power relations. However, liberating because it means there is the ongoing potential (actually necessity) for there to be variation to hegemony. In other words, we all play a role in constructing what counts as hegemonic and this means we can potentially change it and continually do so.

Both these theorists demonstrate the necessity of thinking about media education as a process of local micro level interventions. That is, it is unlikely that a media education student will ever be truly "empowered" as a result of being in a media classroom, at least in a significantly life-changing way. However, students can be involved in media related activities that directly draw attention to social inequities and inaccuracies in their lives and those others. They can be encouraged to participate in discussions about issues related to themselves and their communities. They can experience classroom activities that require them to think differently about other people, ideas and places and the classroom can become a space which is open to, and supportive of, a diversity of ideas and positions about issues.

Social Media Literacy

Social media are changing the media landscape and therefore, media education will need to change alongside it. The likes of YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and Flickr offer individuals the opportunity to participate in media culture in unprecedented ways as producers of media, not just consumers.

While some media educators have resisted a new media in the past, on the basis that it was either the realm of technology educators or the province of geeks, there is no doubt that social media is a mainstream phenomenon and media teachers need to keep pace with developments.

Social media also brings attention to all the old issues and debates that media educators have been responding to for decades, first in relation to popular fiction, comic books and the cinema, then television, and later video games - that these media are corrupting, dangerous and anti intellectual. Of course, there is a need to be mindful of online crime, but media educators also need to fight for the right to educate about these media.

Currently, Education Queensland blocks student access to Myspace and YouTube in Queensland state schools. I believe this is a retrograde step that is akin to the proverbial ostrich sticking its head in the sand. If students aren't able to learn how to be ethical, safe and critical in relation to these spaces at school, where is this likely to occur?

In the meantime, teachers need to find alternatives to these online spaces so that students can learn about the unique nature of social media, and learn to ask critical questions about it.

AMLA Research Summit and Conference

This Friday in St Louis the Alliance for a Media Literate America kicks off its inaugural Research Summit to coincide with its biannual conference. Wish I was going... Research based media literacy conferences are rare, so it is an exciting opportunity to draw attention to what is still very much an under-researched field. Hopefully conference proceedings, or some other form of publication, will result.

Recently the AMLA also released its "Core Principles" for media literacy education. These suggest that media literacy education should be underpinned by a respect for young people's media and popular culture; that both theory and practice should feature, in an interrelated sense, in any media literacy curriculum; that media are diverse and varied and that judging some media as inferior places unnecessary limits on education about media; and that media education aims to help young people to participate in media culture. Within this there is also the adoption of the familiar key concepts of media education, with variations on the media languages, institutions, audiences, representations and technologies concepts used in several countries around the world.

Social values analysis

Social values analysis is often used in media education classrooms to get students to contemplate the ways in which media reflects the beliefs and values in society. This often includes the use of historical texts like films in which students are required to identify evidence of the social values of the period in which they were made. For example, a film like To Kill a Mockingbird might be analysed to identify evidence of the beliefs of the civil rights movements in the 1960s. This approach tends to be text centred, and structuralist in the sense that it suggests the text will have been directly effected by its production context. There is little sense that meaning is negotiated, or that films will be read differently in different contexts. One argument that has been put to me is that it would be too challenging (for students) to utlise discourse theory to help students gain a more complex understanding of the relationship between texts and social and cultural meanings. It is suggested that social values analysis is more easily understood by students and teachers alike.

However, I don’t think media education has ended its evolution. I believe we can continue to improve our approach, and part of this should be to assess new social and cultural theories to see if they have something to offer media education. I believe that social values theory is problematic because I have often taught it in the past. I used to teach a unit called Sitcoms and Social values in senior English that aimed to show students that since the 1950s social values have evolved, and that this could be identified within the texts themselves. However, I was stopped in my tracks by some of my students who couldn’t see why Lucy was supposedly a stereotypical 50s house wife when she was so independently outspoken, and by most of my students who were confused over whether or not the Simpson’s characters were stereotypes (on a variety of levels), because the evidence pointed in contradictory directions. Is Apu as racist stereotype of an Indian shopkeeper or a satire of the stereotype…etc. Of course it depends on who is reading the text – I ended up telling my students. I’m not saying everyone uses the text centric approach to social values, but when I read essays at state assessment review meetings here in Queensland, it is clear many do.

To me, our situation is similar to that which confronted media teachers in the 1970s and ‘80s when confronted by semiotics. Up until then it was easy to rely on the old sender>medium>receiver communications model. It was confronting to read Barthes, and many teacherswondered how students would ever “get” semiotics. And yet media educators have very successfully adapted semiotics for the secondary school level, as we all know. Barrie McMahon and Robyn Quin’s seminal “Reading Images” presented a model that was usable by media teachers and students, and has been internationally influential. It is common place in today’s media classrooms to hear students discussing denotative and connotative meanings and identifying technical and symbolic codes. I don’t see why we shouldn’t try to do the same with discourse theory.

I’m not suggesting that we make media studies heavily theoretical – of course we shouldn’t be discussing post structuralist theorists with them. I’m simply asking why we retain a theory that has passed its use by date (at least in terms of how it is often applied), and I don’t agree a new approach will necessarily be more difficult for students. I’m not even saying we should use the term discourse (just that we should draw more on discourse theory). Maybe we should simply talk about competing ‘social understandings’ or competing ‘social readings’ or something like that. The key thing for me is that we have an obligation to help our students understand that texts are sites of (culturally and socially invested) contested meanings, because that most accurately describes what they are. I’m not convinced that the “social values” approach, particularly when applied to historical texts, really achieves that. I think some people tend to rely on “settled” meanings of both values and texts and that’s problematic.

Film Australia's Digital Learning site - popular culture and media

Film Australia's new Digital Learning site gives teachers direct access to some excellent resources from the Film Australia archives. There are hundreds of clips relevant to a whole range of topics that might be used in the media education classroom. A search for something like 'popular culture' brings up a host of clips that have interviews with media theorists and practitioners about different aspects of popular culture.

However, just as interesting are the clips that might not seem immediately relevant to media ed that will make great resources topics as varied as gender representations, youth culture, sport and media, Australian identity and so on.

The clips are mostly of a very good length to be useful as discussion starters, or short pieces for analysis. All in all, the site should be a central resources for all Australian media educators.

U.K. Media Education Association conference 2007

In May the U.K's Media Education Association held a conference featuring Britain's leading media educators. Via the conference page, you can listen to MP3 recordings of presentations by internationally respected media education theorist, David Buckingham; former head of education at the British Film Institute and long term media education advocate, Cary Bazalgette; and media educator James Durran.

Interestingly, the U.K. Media Education Association was only established in 2006. The U.K. has never had the equivalent of Australia's Australian Teachers of Media, or Canada's Association for Media Literacy. This has most likely been due to the strong advocacy role played by the British Film Institute over the years.

If you want to know what's happening with media education in the U.K., visit the website to download the latest newsletters.

Analysis Vs Production in media education

Media education has experienced an ongoing tension between critical written analysis and media production, as evidenced by the following:

- In Australia at least, contemporary media education has descended from 1950s and '60s film appreciation which was usually conducted in English classes and film making which took place in Art classrooms. As media studies became more formalised, there was often a distinction between the "academic" approach of analysis and the vocational and practical approach of production. Often these were studied by quite distinctive groups of students, with some schools opting for one approach or the other.

- During the 1980s the legtimisation of media studies through the application of cultural studies theories marginalised student media production which was seen to reinforce dominant ideology, and anti-intellectual.

- Students often choose media studies because they want to learn how to make media, not because they want to become media analysists. This is sometimes reflected in courses where media theory is much less emphasised than production.

- Very little media analysis work seems to be based around students reflecting on, or being critical about, their own work.

It is this last point that I think is important - because this is where the potential lies for students to better understand the media ed key concepts. The media KCs should be fundamental to media education. Unless students are involved in activities that help them to make the media key concepts explicit, they are experiencing technology or multimedia education rather than media education.

Media education is education about media, and therefore production work should serve the purpose of helping students to learn about media languages, audiences, institutions, representations and technologies. They should be able to explicitly reflect on how these concepts relate to their own and others' productions.

Foucault and media education

I believe that media education can learn a lot from Michel Foucault's theories about the relationship between young people and the media and the manner in which media education should aim to intervene in that relationship.

Foucault's theories would suggest that rather than being the victims of a power hierarchy, young people actively produce power that contributes to discourses circulating in society. This has a number of consequences:

- their actions and decisions contribute to existing power relations in society, of all types, including those utilised to exploit and control others.

- although young people "produce" power, the system of power relations cannot be "escaped" - it is culture as it exists and young people cannot learn to step outside that system to challenge it.

- however, because they activity produce power, they can also be involved in challenging unethical power relations from within the system of relations.

Media education might have the following roles to play:

- to help young people to recognise when power is being used to exploit or control through techniques which aim to "discipline" individuals in relation to their performative identities. For example, the media can be used as an instrument of "discipline" that aims to make certain behaviours and actions hegemonic. For example, advertising is part of a system of discourses that aims to make consumption hegemonic.

- to provide young people with opportunities to experiment with their performative identities in an environment which is as free from regulation as possible. Students should feel safe in such an environment and diversity and creativity should be celebrated.

- to provide alternatives and variation to young people so they can experience examples of media, and think about media in new and provocative ways.

The great challenge with all these approaches is to design curriculum that doesn't simply reinforce existing power relations. Genuine, imaginative learning experiences must be designed.

Online soaps and media education

Prom Queen is a new soap being produced for distribution primarily via MySpace. It is a short form soap (each episode is only about 1 minute long) that will screen for 80 episodes. Of course, its presence on MySpace allows for a significant amount of online fan culture and social networking around the show.

This show presents media educators with a unique opportunity to explore the key concepts of media technologies, institutions and audiences through the unique case study of an emerging form. This is a new type of "television" that is using an old format to help develop new audiences. The benefits for the media institutions responsible for developing and distributing the show are potentially enormous, given the global reach, and relatively low cost, of distribution via MySpace.
A number of critical questions could be explored in relation to Prom Queen:

• How does the internet, particularly online video, change the nature of what television might be, who can access it, and how they will experience it?
• What are the implications for traditional television? Will there come a time when all television is viewed via the internet? (Check out Apple TV - which sends video downloaded from the web to your television). What will this mean in terms of distribution? Will local television companies become obsolete as consumers download shows directly from overseas?
• How will audiences change if television is viewed online rather than via broadcast? Will they become hugely fragmented as small niche audiences seek out specialised shows, or will some shows remain broadly popular. What are the implications for advertising?
• Will anyone be able to make a show, distribute online, and have it become a hit? Or will the big companies continue to dominate?

All these questions, and the myriad of others that could be asked, demonstrate that we are living through a media revolution that will continue for some time yet, and that this presents numerous opportunities to to learn about media in meaningful and provocative ways.

Micro Movies

Tomorrow I will be conducting a workshop for a group of teachers that will focus on ways to use digital still cameras and simple editing software like Windows Movie Maker to make micro movies about specific ideas or topics.

In this case we will focus on advertising. The teachers will use the digital cameras to "deconstruct" advertising in their local communities. They will load them into Movie Maker and record voice over commentaries about the advertisements. It's a fun and hands-on way to analyse advertisements.

The great thing about micro movies is that you get results fast, and that's very motivating for students, especially in primary and middle years. It's hard work to keep students motivated to make a short film or doco over ten to twelve weeks. It is much more satisfying to have them produce something quickly about something that matters to them. It doesn't matter if some (or many) aspects of the production are un-polished. The aim is not to build expert technical skills, but to positively engage students in the processes of using media to challenge media.

Media "Essential Learnings"

The Queensland Studies Authority recently released the second draft of the " Essential Learnings" for years 3, 5, 7 and 9. These have been produced by the QCAR team (Queensland Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting). This project was partly established to address a perceived concern that parents believed the reporting framework associated with the Years 1-10 Key Learning Area (KLA), outcomes based syllabuses was too complex and didn't provide clear and plain information about their children's achievement levels. It also responded to the claim that teachers found it difficult to plan with the outcomes because there were too many listed across the eight key learning areas.

The response has been the development of "Essential Learnings" (ELs) that are to be gained by all students and measured with an A-E rating at years 3, 5 , 7, and 9. The "ELs" for media read as follows:

Ways of Working

Students are able to:
• develop, analyse and evaluate ideas for arts works by considering style, function and purpose of arts works and exploring arts elements
• create arts works by adapting and modifying arts elements and using genre-specific techniques to shape and communicate meaning
• perform, present and/or display arts works using genre-specific techniques to communicate meaning to a range of audiences
• reflect on and critically examine arts elements, how meanings of arts works can change and the use of representations in own and others’ arts works.

Knowledge and Understanding

Students understand that elements of Dance, Drama, Media, Music and/or Visual Arts and their conventions are manipulated and shaped by artists to create arts works and communicate meaning.

• in Media, techniques specific to genres (e.g. news reports, advertisements) and special effects are used to create media texts

Students understand that The Arts is a way of thinking and expressing artistic ideas, and that arts practice involves traditional and contemporary practices, skills and procedures.

• Media involves using contemporary technologies and adopting production roles to capture, edit and mix elements to create media texts

Within these ELs the statements from lower levels are also assumed to be embedded, so the ELs should not be read in isolation from the ELs at lower levels.

The main concern I have about the draft for media is the lack of thought given to new forms of media. The reference to "special effects" seems especially out of place, when a reference to new media techniques would seem much more reflective of contemporary culture. Also, it is clear that to be effective, teachers will need to dive back into the 1-10 syllabus document and support materials to find resources to address these ELs.

In addition, these statements do little to highlight the key concepts of audiences, representations or institutions. While these three areas can be read into the statements, they are essential enough to what we do in media education that they should be clearly visible.

The other issue is that the ELs seem to have been made non-mandatory in the most recent draft, with an and/or between each of the Arts forms. It raises the question of when an "essential learning" is not essential!

Virginia Tech / V-Tech Game and media education

The Melbourne Age reported today that a 21 year old Australian man has produced a 2-D video game based on the shootings at Virginia Tech and uploaded it to the web. Ryan Lambourn uses an image of the Virginia Tech campus and the names of the shooter and some of the victims in the game. He has offered to take the game down if he is paid US$2000.

This kind of response to such an horrific event is the type of thing that many might use as the motivation and justification for media education. They would argue that young people need to learn how to use media ethically and sensitively. Of course it is also the sort of thing that is likely to have many people arguing that video games cause violence and that young people's minds are being polluted by media and popular culture.

It's the sort of event that raises many questions about youth, media and education:

• In this new media environment, where it is so easy for individuals to produce and distribute unregulated and uncensored products, how do we help young people develop an ethical approach to production and consumption?
• Should we simply read this sort of response as aberrant, and not typical of the vast majority of young people?
  
• Should we react less vigorously to these types of incidents? Could it be argued that the game is a legitimate form of expression and that the author was simply aiming to work through his response to the Virginia Tech shooting, in a way that is meaningful to him?
• Or should it be regarded as a cynical attempt to profit from the misery of others? If the latter, should we distinguish it from other media outlets that have run numerous stories about the event?
• If this type of game was produced in a media education classroom, by one of our students, how should we react? Would it be productive to simply ban this sort of production?

Nearly all these questions could be vigorously debated and this shows the complexity of what media educators are trying to achieve.

We are working with young people who have an unprecedented ability to represent themselves and their work to the world. The ethical implications are striking. I think part of the answer is that the media education classroom should be a "safe" environment where young people are able to experiment and debate the consequences of their choices.

Of course, boundaries need to be established, but if those boundaries are too restrictive it is likely that we will miss many important opportunities to help young people learn to act ethically.

4 things wrong with the "critical" part of critical media literacy

The most significant claim made in the name of media education is that it helps young people to become "critical" users of media - which is questionable on several levels. That's not to say media educators should abandon this worthwhile objective, just that some thought needs to go into what a "critical" response to media might look like.

1. Using critical language doesn't mean you're critical.

The ability to use the sophisticated language of media analysis does not mean that you are necessarily "critical". David Buckingham argues in Teaching Popular Culture that all it proves is that students are able to use a meta language, and potentially nothing more. However, media education assessment often requires students to "prove" their critical ability through written analytical response which primarily involves using such language as evidence of understanding. Using terms like 'gender bias' doesn't mean you have an understanding of gender theory or that you will be less gender biased in your daily experiences.

2. Critical in whose opinion?

When is a critical response emancipatory and when is it simply evidence of being incorporated into a particular ideological position? This depends of whose opinion you listen to. For example, are you critical if you read a Michael Moore documentary as a fair representation of an issue, or if you argue that Moore has distorted facts to suit his cause, or only if you can see both sides of the argument?

3. Critical or elitist?

Some forms of criticism make judgements on the basis of cultural value. That is, specific examples of culture are assumed to be superior to others. It has become less common for media education to be based on these sorts of judgements in recent years, but it is sometimes still evident. This is often reinforced through the choice of texts students are required to study. For example 'The Simpsons' is more likely to be chosen than Family Guy because it is popularly judged to be more satirical, funny and worthwhile. Texts might also be derided for their lack of production values or because they don't represent Australian 'cultural values' - for example, Big Brother.

4. Aren't we already all "critical"?

Cultural studies theorists suggest that we are all active participant in media culture and therefore already 'critical' to some extent. Becoming more 'media educated' becomes a matter of learning the correct terminology to describe what you already know. Therefore, media education should focus on helping students to participate more fully in media culture by helping them gain the means of media production and through helping them critically reflect on their experiences, and to make their understandings and knowledge explicit.

My podcasting experience

This semester I introduced podcasting into one of my undergraduate units in two ways. I delivered the unit content via podcast lectures and I designed the first student assessment to be the creation of a podcast about media education or new media.

I created the podcast lectures using Garageband on my Macintosh Powerbook. This was an extremely simple process. I simply opened a new project in Garageband, and then pressed record and started speaking. There were a few little tricks I learnt along the way to improve the process (like turning off the "metronome" feature to remove that sound from the backgroud). I also learnt that using an external microphone and recording in a very quiet room significantly improved the quality of the sound. I purposely kept the recording to about 30 minutes to avoid file sizes being too big, and because I suspected that my students' attention span wouldn't hold out for much longer than that.

Once I was satisfied with the recording and I wanted to export the file, I simply used Garageband's "Share" function and sent it to iTunes. In iTunes I set the preferences to the MP3 encoder and to quite a low quality to create a compressed file of the podcast that was small enough for the students to comfortably download. This generally ended up being about 8mb. Once the file was created, I uploaded it to the university's Online teaching site. From there the students were free to download it and listen to it at their leisure. I made this part of the students' reading for the week. They were still required to come along to three hours of "lecture and tutorials". However, the time was significantly freed up to allow some much more student centred workshops and production tasks.

For the student assignment, the students learnt how to use Audacity for their sound recording and mixing. I chose this program rather than Garageband as it is a free download for both PC and Macs. I intended that the students would be able to download it at home and complete their mixing on their home machines. For their field interviews, the students used portable digital audio recorders. In most cases this worked well. A few students were unable to successfully download the program, and needed access to machines at the university to complete the task. Furthermore, the digital audio recorders recorded very "tinny" sound which didn't really match the sound of the voice overs recorded directly into audacity via the computer. Next semester I will have Audacity installed in one of the computer labs for students to use at their leisure. I will also investigate the cost of purchasing better quality portable digital audio recorders.

However, the main issue with the podcasts was not so much technical as creative. Although we spent time in class learning about structure, podcast conventions and so on, some of the students did not put enough time into planning the productions or reserching their topics. So this is where we will focus much more attention next time around.

Overall I was very pleased with the success of introducing this new media form into the unit. A number of the students expressed their enjoyment of the assignment task, commenting that it was a pleasant break from writing research papers, and that it made sense to make media in a media education unit.

The CamcorderInfo Blog

In an earlier post I introduced the DV Guru Blog, saying it was a great resource for media teachers, but that it had shut down. Well, the good news is that several of the guys who blogged on DV Guru are now with the Camcorder Info Blog (thanks Randall).

This blog is an excellent source of all the latest information about new camcorder products, competitions, industry development and so on. There are also often links to resources for video production and tips and hints for use of production software.

All media teachers involved in digital video production would be well advised to check the blog regularly.

Media Education podcasts and video interviews

I am using del.icio.us to collect a number of podcast and video interviews and presentations relating to media education, youth media and new media.

http://del.icio.us/Zed31/Podcast

So far I have some excellent presentations by high profile researchers such as David Buckingham, Danah Boyd, Henry Jenkins, and James Gee - just to name a few. I am slowly working through them, and it's quite an amazing experience to be able to create your own online mini-conference in this way.

It also really raises questions about traditional ideas of how academic knowledge is controlled and distributed. If you can create your own "Media Ed Radio or TV" online, you can certainly circumvent the traditional processes as either a presenter or audience member.

Machinima in the Media classroom

On Friday I took part in a Machinima workshop held at Education Queensland's ICT Learning Innovation Centre. This was part of a special project being trialled in several schools by media teachers in Queensland.

In simple terms, machinima involves making animation using an exisiting video games engine. The most famous example is Rooster Teeth's Red Vs Blue machinima series made using the Halo game. It has exciting potential for media education classrooms for two reasons. Firstly, it allows the production of great looking animation without the need for high end animation skills, or the need to create an animation frame by frame. That means it's a much faster and cheaper method of production than traditional digital animation - which is ideal for the school situation.

Secondly, it allows students to use their high end video game playing skills for a purpose other than game play - to be creative, and to perhaps subvert the video game form - or at least to use the form in a creative and unexpected way.

Of course, their is still much skill required to make good machinima, and we should not expect it to be a given that successful game players will inherently make good machinima. Of course, much of the success of any machinima will come down the development of a good script. Furthermore, to manipulate games' characters in a convincing manner, to make them come alive as charatcers with attributes not intended by the original game, is also a huge challenge.

We explored several potential processes for making machinima. The first was within virtual worlds like the Sims and Second Life. In this situation, the virtual environment is used like a virtual film studio - whole worlds and charatcers are purpose designed and built and then manipulated to "act out" scenes. This is then recorded using software like Fraps. The second was within the game "The Movies", which allows players to script and produce their own movies using a set number of settings and charatcer actions. This option appeared t be most suitable for use with lower secondary or middle years students. The third option involved networking three X-Box game consoles, with one hooked up to a computer to capter the on-screen action. Two players interact on screen, while the thrird acts as a "camera" - the charatcer's point of view becomes the camera and this is what is captured on the computer. It can then be editing, sound dubbed and so on. This is the method used to create Red Vs blue.

We had some lively discussion about the educational purpose of machinma and issues related to assessment of student work. For example, as with most production in media ed courses, there is a significant debate to be had about skills development Vs the exploration of issues and ideas. As media educators (for example, as opposed to technology educators), what would we want student to learn from making machinma, what attributes would we value in relation to student produced machinma and how would we identify these to assess them?

Machinima.com is a great place to start exploring different types and examples of machinma.

Online media lessons

Recently I have found a couple of new online banks of media lessons. One is at the Adobe website - the Adobe Digital Kids Club. This site provides a number of lesson ideas for practical video production. One of the things I like about it is that it focuses on practical video production projects that can be achieved directly in the school environment in relatively short periods of time.

Another is the Open Educational Resources site, which provides examples of lesson plans covered by a Creative Commons licence. This is a site with a number of tools for searching for and sharing educational resources across the curriculum. A search for "media literacy" or "film", for example, presents many lessons related to these topics.

Post structuralist Media Education?

One of the key ideas I have been grappling with for my PhD is the question of what underpins media education on a theoretical level. This relates to the theory I believe underpins the relationship between young people and media and how education might productively intervene in that relationship.

Structuralist thought has been seriously challenged as a convincing theory because it assumes that society is inherently structured through relationships of domination. For example, the media dominates the beliefs and values of young people, and the role of media education is to somehow release individuals from that domination. However, numerous theorists have demonstrated that the relationship is not nearly so neat. For example, during the 1970s cultural studies theorists used French post structuralist theories to argue that individuals negotiated meaning with media texts in an active and constructive manner. While ideology and social regulation played a role in how individuals participated with media, they also had agency and helped to define the meaning of media texts.

My research aims to identify whether or not particular post structuralist theories might convincingly describe the relationship between young people and media. In particular, I am using Judith Butler's theory of perfomativity to identify how students perform their identities in relation to new media forms such as video games.

Media in English Curriculum

In Queensland, media education is part of the English curriculum in years 1-12 as well as being a separately recognised curriculum area in its own right, within the Arts.

The review of the Senior phase of learning in Queensland raises some questions about the form media should take if it continues to be part of the English curriculum. As part of the English field, media studies is always going to have a focus on textual analysis, because that’s how English is defined. The focus is on languages, representations and sometimes audiences. There is no focus on critical responses to institutions or technologies. There is no articulation between production and critical response. Therefore, it cannot be assumed that students who wish to specialise in Film/Media in senior can cover the “theory” component in English - as it has sometimes been suggested.

Given political pressures to go back to basics in English, the media element within English may also be at the mercy of the political preferences of the day. It is possible that it might simply disappear from English curriculum at some stage. Another concern/possibility is that so-called “non-academic” students may be streamed into the media electives, and the “academic” students encouraged to select the literature electives. This would demonstrate a significant misunderstanding of contemporary media education.

Any move to have students study media across different curriculum areas to make up a kind of "Media" major will be flawed if it does not recognise the need to closely intergrate the production and critical response / reflection aspects of media education.

The European Charter for Media Literacy

The European Charter for Media Literacy aims to outline a broad consensus about how media literacy should be defined and asks for a commitment from individuals to support its implementation throughout Europe.

While this had the potential to be restictive, had media literacy been defined in narrow and prescriptive ways, in fact it offers much room for flexibility. Broadly speaking it defines media literacy in ways that are familiar to media educators in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries with well established histories in this area.

The focus is on:
- critical conceptual understanding
- creative and reflective particiaption
- skills development with new technologies
- citizenship
- broad experience of diverse media


Website: The Charter for Media Literacy states:

1) We make a commitment to:

Raise public understanding and awareness of media literacy, in relation to the media of communication, information and expression;

Advocate the importance of media literacy in the development of educational, cultural, political, social and economic policy;

Support the principle that every European citizen of any age should have opportunities, in both formal and informal education, to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to increase their enjoyment, understanding and exploration of the media.

2) We believe that media literate people should be able to:

• Use media technologies effectively to access, store, retrieve and share content to meet their individual and community needs and interests;
• Gain access to, and make informed choices about, a wide range of media forms and content from different cultural and institutional sources;
• Understand how and why media content is produced;
• Analyse critically the techniques, languages and conventions used by the media, and the messages they convey;
• Use media creatively to express and communicate ideas, information and opinions;
• Identify, and avoid or challenge, media content and services that may be unsolicited, offensive or harmful;
• Make effective use of media in the exercise of their democratic rights and civic responsibilities.

3) We will contribute to the development of a media literate European population by offering, or enabling others to offer, opportunities for people to:

• Broaden their experience of different kinds of media form and content;
• Develop critical skills in analysing and assessing the media;
• Develop creative skills in using media for expression and communication, and participation in public debate.

4) We pledge to support or participate in research that will identify and develop:

• Better understanding of what it is to be media literate;
• Effective and sustainable pedagogy for media literacy;
• Transferable evaluative methods and assessment criteria for media literacy.

5) We agree to undertake, or enable others to undertake, the following:

• Build links with other signatories and contribute to the growth of a European network for media literacy;
• Identify and share evidence of the outcomes of media literacy initiatives which we undertake or are associated with;
• Work to make content legally available to be used for media education purposes.

6) We wish to be listed on www.euromedialiteracy.eu as:

• A Supporter of the European Charter for Media Literacy*
• A Sponsor of the European Charter for Media Literacy*
• A Provider under the terms of the European Charter for Media Literacy*

As a provider, we commit to developing a timed and costed organisational Action Plan for Media Literacy, which will implement the Charter commitments we have made. We will publish our Action Plan on www.euromedialiteracy.eu.

Media and Technology education

The review of the senior curriculum in Queensland seems to have placed media alongside English education, Design education and Production and Performance (see previous post). However, it does not make a link to Technology education. This is interesting because media has often been associated with Technology education - for example the National curriculum review in the early 1990s associated media with English, the Arts and Technology.

I think media's most natural home is within the Arts, but I also think there are significant ties to the English and Technology learning areas. I would be concerned about a senior curriculum based on "fields" of learning that did not make the connection between media and technology education for two reasons:

The first is that media education has a lot to offer technology education. Increasingly, aspects of technology education include design and productions processes - for example in the case of multimedia production. However, students are rarely required to critically reflect on the social & cultural aspects of the products they are developing. Media educators are experts in these processes, and could collaborate with technology educators to make technology education more authetic and critically reflective - to offer electives within the Technology field that do this.

Secondly, I believe the technology knowledge and skills gained within media education courses like Film, Television and New Media are often undervalued and unrecognised. Obviously, the main goal of media education is to help students become critically reflective participants in media culture as both producers and users of media. However, along the way, they develop quite sophisticated technology skills and knowledge. For example, media educators have been producing digital videos for many years, something Technology educators are now treating as cutting edge and innovative.

I would think that a technology education "field" would therefore benefit from some focus on production from a media education perspective. Also that media education classes would be given more recognition as places where ICTs are engaged with and technological literacy developed.

Of course this creates a significant dilemma - the more areas of the curriculum media is identified with, the more potential there is for it to become less developmental in a cohesive way.

Where does media fit in the curriculum?

Here in Queensland we currently undergoing a review of senior curriculum offerings. The preferred new model will see the number of individual subject offerings reduced, to be replaced with "fields" of learning. This has significant ramifications for the senior subject "Film, Television and New Media" which was first introduced as "Film and Television" in 1981.

No one knows quite what the new fields will be, but the QSA will soon begin consultation with teachers and interested groups, and has invited people to specific meetings which seem to suggest a possible structure for the "fields". FTVnm teachers have been invited to attend three different meetings - the "Production and Performance" group, the "English" group and the "Design" group. This contrasts with music teachers who have been invited to just one group - Music.

This seems to suggest the Queensland Studies Authority has little sense of where FTVnm belongs in the curriculum. There is a real danger that it will be come a series of semester based electives - competing with other electives under the "fields". It is possible / likely that students will no longer study 4 semesters of FTVnm across two years. This will mean less depth of understanding, less skills development and (mostly crucially) fewer opportunities to make connections between conceptual understanding and practical production work.

This has some way to run, and is likely to become the main battlefront for passionate media educators in Queensland over the next year, as we are yet again forced to justify our existence.

The DV guru blog

Recently I came across the DV guru blog, an extraordinarily comprehensive blog about everything to do with digital video production, and therefore an excellent resource for media teachers. The archives are rich with information about all aspects of video production from tips and advice, equipment reviews, news about competitions, pointers to other resources etc.

It even has entries collated under 'beginner', 'intermediate' and 'pro' sections so you can go to the appropriate level of information - and the beginner section has some fantastic links to information for teachers and students.

Some things I learnt from a quick scan of recent posts: YouTube has its own "video toolbox" section with a range of excellent tips for making better videos; there is an excellent short video here about how to shoot better video footage; and there is an excellent resource about editing podcasts.

The downside is that this blog is no longer live (the last post was on January 31, 2007). However, there are enough gems in the vast archives to make it a brilliant resource for some time to come.

Henry Jenkins - Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture

Late in 2006 Henry Jenkins published a white paper for the MacArthur Foundation's "Digital Media and Learning" Project.

He argues media literacy is required in schools due to:

- the need for participation in media culture
- the opacity of media languages and motivations
- the need for ethical participation

He also argues for a new set of skills students will require to participate successfully: play, performance, simulation, appropriation, multitasking, distributed cognition, collective intelligence, judgement, transmedia navigation, networking, negotiation. Each is these is outlined in some detail, with practical examples (although not all of these are strictly media literacy activities).

He suggests that there is already a new media culture that young people are actively participating in and that education needs to respond appropriately. He also argues that the focus should be on participatory cultures rather than interactive technologies - because technologies are used in cultural contexts. He suggests that literacy is ultimately not about personal expression, but community involvement.

Jenkins' approach differs to traditional media education because it focuses on the social uses of media. In the past media literacy has tended to focus on the providing individuals with skills and knowledge (eg Masterman's "critical autonomy" approach). The "participation" approach suggests that communities can learn to work more effectively together for the benefit of the whole community and that this can occur in media contexts as much as anywhere.

The focus on ethics has traditionally reflected journalism discourses and education rather than media literacy per se. For example, Ethics education has not been a focus of video production, even when the purpose has been to challenge dominant forms.

The paper perhaps reflects a more traditional media ed discourse in terms of its focus on the "opacity" of media and the need to identify the media’s “hidden” motivations and methods (which perhaps reflects the “demystification” approach). For example, the report borders on being protectionist in its description of the difficulty young people have in identifying online adverts.

However, this is a highly provocative white paper that challenges media literacy educators to re-think the field, particularly in relation to young people's participation with new media. It is essential reading for anyone working in the field.

You can download the document here.

UNESCO Media Education Kit

UNESCO recently published an excellent media education kit which is an essential guide for anyone working in this field.

It includes "Handbooks" for Teachers, Students and Parents and an outline of essential media education resources. It also includes a proposal for a "modular curriculum" which is a great prototype for anyone wanting a framework for the implentation of media education at secondary school level.

It also includes information about media education in different countries and provides contact details and resources. It also outlines where media education sits in the curriculum alongside other learning areas.

The approach to media education in the kit is heavily influenced by the British "key concepts" approach to media education, which has been influential in many countries throughout the world.

Download it from:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001492/149278E.pdf

5th World Summit on Media for Children

The 5th World Summit on Media for Children recently took place in South Africa.

Check out the Media Snackers video podcasts of their involvement in the event here (where several young people are interviewed) and here (where a number of professionals and advocates for youth media are interviewed).

While this event tends to focus on media made by professioanls for young people, there is also an inherent connnection to media education and media literacy initiatives.

Everything Bad is Good for You - Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson’s book “Everything Bad is Good for You” presents a unique hypothesis about media and popular culture. He argues that rather than culture being “dumbed down”, many media experiences are becoming increasingly sophisticated and therefore more cognitively challenging.

He presents a convincing argument that media forms such as video games and television have become more complex over that past two decades and that this has lead to audiences demanding more from media. This provides a fresh alternative to those who suggest our culture is in a downward spiral. He makes many insightful observations about the structures of games and television shows to suggest that they require a great deal of cognitive ability to be used and enjoyed.

Johnson argues that his method is more scientific than cultural, and follows theories puts forward by psychologists and mathematicians rather than sociologists. He is a technological determinist in the sense that he argues that more sophisticated media will produce more sophisticated users.

This is where his hypothesis becomes seriously problematic. For example, he completely ignores the role audience members play in the formation of meaning. There is no account of how different people will respond differently to the same media product. Therefore, there is no account of cultural studies or cultural theory (which Johnson believes is a strength) which leads to some serious flaws in logic.

For example, one of his conclusions is that we should encourage children and young adults to watch shows like “24” in preference to shows like “Law and Order” because the former has a more complex narrative structure and will therefore be more cognitively stimulating. Apart from completely ignoring the sophistication of narrative development in L&O, such a conclusion reveals little sense of how people might actually use each of these shows in a multiplicity of ways, involving a myriad of levels and variations of cognitive involvement. This is a high / low culture argument within popular culture, not dissimilar to the discrimination model proposed by Stuart Hall and Paddy Whannel in “The Popular Arts” - a text long since debunked on a theoretical level (most comprehensively by Hall himself).

The book is provocative, and a welcome change from the media bashing of many writers on popular culture, media and young people. It is just a pity Johnson doesn’t take his own advice and draw on other perspectives more thoroughly, particularly some sociology and cultural studies. Johnson accuses cultural theorists of ignoring the hard sciences in relation to media analysis. Ironically, in ignoring the diversity of audience responses to popular culture, Johnson misses an opportunity to add more depth to his argument.

Digital Youth Media - Kids informal learning with digital media

This blog is associated with a project funded by the MacArthur Foundation. It features posts by members of the research team and is well worth checking out. The "publications" link provides a bibliography of very good publications related to the research.

http://digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/

Website: “'Kids' Informal Learning with Digital Media: An Ethnographic Investigation of Innovative Knowledge Cultures' is a three year collaborative project funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.”

UK Children Go Online

http://www.children-go-online.net/

This project was undertaken to investigate what young people in the UK are doing online. The primary researcher was Prof Sonia Livingstone from the London School of Economics. It was supported by several organisations including the UK Office of Communication (Ofcom),

The report outlines a range of findings that aim to provide a snapshot of which young people are participating online and what they are doing there.

This is very useful data, some of which contradicts commonly held assumptions, and hype, about the “digital generation”.

Henry Jenkins’ Blog

Check out Henry Jenkins’ Blog:

Henry Jenkins is one of the most prolific and important theorists focusing on participatory media culture. His book “Textual Poachers” is a classic study of fan culture. Jenkins is Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT and his blog is essential reading for anyone interested in media culture and media literacy.

http://www.henryjenkins.org/

Also see Henry Jenkins speaking at an NMC event:
http://64.142.96.242/videos/2005/jenkins.wmv

Australia Council New Media Arts Scoping Study

This study has made a number of recommendations about the media as an aspect of the Arts in Australia society. Of particular interest for media educators is one of its key recommendations:

Importance of media literacy as part of the Australia Council’s Arts and Education Strategy:

Media literacy and the Arts & Education Strategy

1.8. That media literacy is promoted as a key element of the Australia Council’s
Arts & Education Strategy, and that the Australia Council initiate partnerships
with other key stakeholder agencies to further research the development of a
proposal for a national review of media literacy education in schools that
establishes the status and quality of teaching in this area. Further research
would build upon the findings of the National Review of Education in Visual
Arts, Crafts, Design and Visual Communication.

It will be very interesting to see if this translates into some sort of recommendation or strategy to support, or at least legitimise, media education especially in schools. Of course there is a long history of recommendations being made in favour of media literacy, only for them to gather dust on book shelves.

It would be nice to see this acknowledgment backed up with some action.

http://www.ozco.gov.au/news_and_hot_topics/news/new_media_scopstudy_report/

James Gee Presentation

James Gee is one of the leading researchers focusing on the relationship between video games and learning. It is interesting to note that Gee does not say video games WILL educate young people. He argues that the approach taken by video games, and why they are so engaging, offers a possible model for education generally. He aims to identify how games require players to be good learners.

The following speech was presented at Education Queensland in Brisbane in 2006.
http://mediasite.eq.edu.au/mediasite/viewer/?peid=564ac4fe-67aa-4278-b583-d794eef31dd1

[Website]: “What Video Games have to teach us about Learning and Literacy. Good computer and video games are learning machines. Despite being long and complex, they get themselves learned and learned well, not just in tutorials, but as part and parcel of playing the game to the end. Thus, designers face and largely solve an intriguing educational dilemma, one also faced by schools and workplaces, as well: how to get people to learn and master something that is long and challenging - and enjoy it.

Schools, workplaces, families, and academic researchers have a lot to learn about learning from good computer and video games. In this talk I will explicate the learning principles that are built into good video games and discuss their implications for learning in and out of schools for a global, high-tech, and risky world.”

Project - New Media Literacies (NML)

Another interesting research project:

http://www.projectnml.org

The New Media Literacies Project is based at MIT’s comparative media studies department. It is funded by the MacArthur Foundation and aims to develop a theoretical framework and curriculum for k-12 students, based around the integration of new media tools into education.

The project is still under way. The website has some examples of project work and some interesting blog entries and articles, particularly by Henry Jenkins - the project’s leader.

The project’s partners include several very interesting media / youth / education projects, based at high profile universities and institutions - the site has links to these projects.

There are also the beginnings of a showcase of student work - although this is still in development.

It will be interesting to see how this project unfolds, to see the extent to which traditional frameworks for media education (eg key concepts) are applied to new media.

Current TV

Current TV is Fascinating case study for teachers of media. It is a satellite / cable television station based in the U.S. that invites direct participation from audience members through the production of content. There is a specific attempt to democratise television production, giving anyone with the ability to make a video the opportunity to broadcast. Short video clips made by viewers are called “pods”.

The station has a liberal / progressive political slant, and was partly the vision of former U.S. Vice President, Al Gore. Much of the programming is about current political issues.

Current TV also has a strong Web presence, including some high standard advice and instruction about amateur video production that would be quite useful for media teachers and students.

http://www.current.tv/

Digital Creatives at “South By South West”

The huge “South by South West” conference happened last week in Austin, Texas. The yearly festival has music, film and “interactive” sections. The “Interactive” component is a large conference in its own right bringing together “Digital Creatives” and those interested in online media, games and mobile media.

I like the term “Digital Creative”. It describes a well established segment of media culture that media educators have not yet really acknowledged. Web design, games production and the like are still considered to be part of the Technology Education part of the curriculum in many schools. But increasingly, media students are wanting to work in areas beyond digital video production - bread and butter for media teachers.

Media educators are slowly embracing blogging, podcasting, web design and production, video games and mobile media, but there’s a whole lot more we could be doing to apply a media education framework to the study of these media through reflective participation.

Events like SXSW demonstrate the momentum that this aspect of media culture has gained in recent years. Check it out at: http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/

Many of the panel presentations will be podcast, so it is possible to get a little taste of SXSW, even if we couldn't be there in person.

Also check out the archived podcasts from 2006:
http://2006.sxsw.com/coverage/podcasts/