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Media
Section 1 -
Media Education - Definitions, Context, Key Concepts
The following extract offers a definition of media education drawn from the
Grunwald Declaration, which was issued by the representatives of 19 nations at UNESCO’s 1982 International Symposium on Media Education at Grunwald, Germany. The extract comes from a UNESCO report on international media education (Buckingham, 2001). The extract can be presented to trainee teachers for discussion, perhaps with a focused task, such as: how would the English National Curriculum, as you understand it, need to be interpreted in practice to accommodate the model of media education presented here? Alternatively, if students have spent time working in schools, they could be asked to compare this ideal to practice they have observed or participated in.
In its definition of media education, the Grunwald Declaration reflects several key emphases that continue to be shared by the majority of media educators today:
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Media education is concerned with the full range of media, including moving image media (film, television, video), radio and recorded music, print media (particularly newspapers and magazines), and the new digital communication technologies. It aims to develop a broad-based ‘literacy’, not just in relation to print, but also in the symbolic systems of images and sounds.
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Media education is concerned with teaching and learning about the media. This should not be confused with teaching through the media — for example, the use of television or computers as a means of teaching science, or history. Media education is not about the instrumental use of media as ‘teaching aids’: it should not be confused with educational technology or educational media.
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Media education aims to develop both critical understanding and active participation. It enables young people to interpret and make informed judgments as consumers of media; but it also enables them to become producers of media in their own right, and thereby to become more powerful participants in society. Media education is about developing young people’s critical and creative abilities.
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The following second extract, from the same UNESCO report, points out four ways in which media, especially new media, is implicated in recent forms of social change. Students could discuss how these points apply to the UK specifically, and even to the particular area they are studying and working in. Perhaps they could work in groups, taking a topic each, and reporting back on it. The final paragraph, arguing for media education in the context of the rights of the child, could be kept back and debated by the whole group after the presentations.
- Technological developments. With the advent of multi-channel television, home video, computers and the internet — along with a range of other technologies — there has been a massive proliferation of electronic media. This has resulted in an appearance of greater choice for the consumer (although not necessarily in greater global diversity); and in the growing accessibility of opportunities for production, as the cost of technology has fallen.
- Economic developments. The media have been subjected to — and been a major agent in - the broader commercialisation of contemporary culture. In many countries, public service media have lost ground to commercial media; and forms of advertising, promotion and sponsorship have steadily permeated the public sphere of social and political debate. This has been the case even in countries where the media were formerly subject to strong state control and censorship.
- Social developments. Most social commentators agree that the contemporary world has been characterised by a growing sense of fragmentation and individualisation. Established traditions and ways of life are being eroded, and familiar hierarchies overthrown. New, more individuated forms of identity and lifestyle are being created and promoted via the media; and individuals have become more diverse — and to some extent more autonomous — in their uses and interpretations of cultural goods.
- Globalisation. The balance between the global and the local is changing in complex and uneven ways, both in cultural and in economic terms. Global media corporations — based in the wealthiest first world countries - dominate the marketplace; yet new technologies also permit more decentralised, localised communications, and the creation of ‘communities’ that transcend national boundaries. Meanwhile, the gap between rich and poor — both within and between nations — appears to be widening; and this is also manifested in terms of access to information and to media technologies.
Ultimately, therefore, media education needs to be recognised as a fundamental human right. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child offers some important indications here. Article 13, for example, asserts children’s right to freedom of expression; Article 17 proclaims their rights of access to a range of media and sources of information; while Article 31 identifies broader rights to leisure and to participation in cultural life. If children are to enjoy the rights proclaimed by this Convention — and hence to informed participation in the processes that govern their lives — media education must be seen as a fundamental entitlement for all.
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