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.