A Manifesto for Media Education
A great potential source of inspiration for your Teaching Philosophy assignment. Let's begin by looking at a few examples of media educators articulating their philosophies of education:
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Critical Pedagogy
Here's a link to our "Teaching Methods" Google Doc...
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jrwU_7Q6EafVbw7LjHjkRxVXEVewCodPOw-laQUWsJ8/edit?usp=sharing
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Extra Credit: Jonathan McIntosh talk
"Building a Critical Culture with Remix Video" by Jonathan McIntosh
Right Wing Radio Duck Activity
Now let's discuss this political remix in relation to some principles of media literacy:
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Remixing: A Primer
Adding - take something, and add something else to it
Cutting - take something, and then cut some things out of it...
...and then maybe, reassemble those things into something new...
Manipulating - take something and change its form, but not its content...
...for example, slow it down...
...or...(actually, I don't even know how to describe this...)
Covering - take something and re-make it...
...maybe in a different medium...
...or a different style...
...or maybe in a different genre...
...or take the style of one thing and combine it with the genre of another...
...which leads us to...
Mashing - take something and combine it with another thing
Revising - take something and change its content...
...for example, swapping the genders of the main characters...
Expanding - take something and add more to its content...
De-centering - look at something from another perspective from within that something
Iron Man fan fiction by obsession_inc - read it here
Recontextualizing - take something and put in a new place, time, circumstance
Transforming - take something and make it something entirely new (yet still kind of the same)
Also, this is a cool, related resource from Jonathan McIntosh (the guy behind Buffy vs. Edward, etc.)
A history of subversive remix videos before YouTube: Thirty political video mashups made between World War II and 2005 - by Jonathan McIntosh
 |
| L.H.O.O.Q. by Marcel Duchamp |
Cutting - take something, and then cut some things out of it...
...and then maybe, reassemble those things into something new...
.
..or even, reassemble those things with other things to make something new...
Manipulating - take something and change its form, but not its content...
...for example, slow it down...
...or...(actually, I don't even know how to describe this...)
Covering - take something and re-make it...
...maybe in a different medium...
...or a different style...
...or maybe in a different genre...
...or take the style of one thing and combine it with the genre of another...
...which leads us to...
Mashing - take something and combine it with another thing
 |
| Magritte Meets Mario |
 |
| "There Goes the Neighborhood" by Coran Stone |
Revising - take something and change its content...
...for example, swapping the genders of the main characters...
Expanding - take something and add more to its content...
 |
| "Snowy" from Fallen Princesses by Dina Goldstein |
De-centering - look at something from another perspective from within that something
 |
| Star Wars: Tag and Bink are Dead from Dark Horse Comics |
Iron Man fan fiction by obsession_inc - read it here
Recontextualizing - take something and put in a new place, time, circumstance
 |
| "BERNABE MENDEZ from the State of Guerrero works as a professional window cleaner in New York He sends 500 dollars a month" from Superheroes by Dulce Pinzon |
Transforming - take something and make it something entirely new (yet still kind of the same)
Also, this is a cool, related resource from Jonathan McIntosh (the guy behind Buffy vs. Edward, etc.)
A history of subversive remix videos before YouTube: Thirty political video mashups made between World War II and 2005 - by Jonathan McIntosh
Robin Hood: A Case Study
"Recent work in cultural studies directs attention to the meanings text accumulate through their use. The reader's activity is no longer seen as the task of recovering the author's meanings but also as reworking borrowed materials to fit them into the context of lived experience. Michel de Certeau (1984) writes, 'Every reading modifies its object...The reader takes neither the position of the author nor the author's position. He invents in the text something different from what they intended. He detaches them from their (lost or accessory) origin. He combines their fragments and creates something unknown' (169). This modification need not be understood as textual 'disintegration' but rather as home improvements that refit prefabricated materials to consumer desires. The text becomes something more than it was before, not something less."
- Henry Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, 1992.
"...the tales are reflections of the social order in a given historical epoch, and, as such, they symbolize the aspirations, needs, dreams and wishes of common people in a tribe, community or society, either affirming the dominant social values and norms or revealing the necessity to change them. According to the evidence we have, gifted narrators told tales to audiences who actively participated in their transmission by posing questions, suggesting changes and circulating the tales among themselves. The key to comprehending the folk tale and its volatile quality is an understanding of the audience and reception aesthetics."
- Jack Zipes, Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales, 2002.
 |
| Statue of Robin Hood in Nottingham |
 |
| (clockwise from top left): Douglas Fairbanks (1922); Kevin Costner (1991); Errol Flynn (1938); illustration by N.C. Wyeth (1917); Jonas Armstrong (2006); Cary Elwes (1993); Russell Crowe (2010); animation by Walt Disney Productions (1973). |
 |
| Robin Hood --> Green Arrow --> Katniss Everdeen |
And then there's this guy...I'm still not sure how I feel about him.
 |
| The CW's 'Arrow' |
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Fan-Sexism Update
“Just as studying fan culture helped us to understand the
innovations that occur on the fringes of the media industry, we may also want
to look at the structures of fan
communities as showing us new ways of thinking about citizenship and
collaboration. The political effects of these fan communities come not simply
through the production and circulation of new ideas (the critical reading of
favorite texts) but also through access to new social structures (collective
intelligence) and new models of cultural production (participatory culture).
Have I gone too far? Am I granting too much power here to these consumption
communities? Perhaps. But keep in mind that I am not really trying to predict
the future. I want to avoid the kind of grand claims about the withering away
of mass media institutions that make the rhetoric of the digital revolution
seem silly a decade later. Rather, I am trying to point toward the democratic
potentials found in some contemporary cultural trends.” (Jenkins 2006, 246-7)
"We are long past the point where we can get away with either fully celebratory or fully cynical accounts of the changes that have been set in motion by these shifts in who has access to the means of cultural production and circulation...Chris Kelty sums up the problem: ''Participating' in Facebook is not the same thing as participating in a Free Software project, to say nothing of participating in the democratic governance of a state. If there are indeed different 'participatory cultures' then the work of explaining their differences must be done by thinking completely differently about the practices, tools, ideologies, and technologies that make them up. Participation is about power, and no matter how 'open' a platform is, participation will reach a limit circumscribing power and its distribution.' (2013, 29)" (Jenkins 2014)
Misogyny Island 'choose your own adventure' game.
Here is a link to my annotated bibliography, in progress.
Misogyny Island 'choose your own adventure' game.
Here is a link to my annotated bibliography, in progress.
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Uncle Tom --> Magical Negro Stereotype
 |
| Will Smith & Matt Damon in The Legend of Bagger Vance |
 |
| Tim Robbins & Morgan Freeman in The Shawshank Redemption |
 |
| Tom Hanks & Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile |
 |
| Sidney Poitier & Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones |
 |
| Lawrence Fishburne & Keanu Reeves in The Matrix |
 |
| Kevin Costner & Morgan Freeman in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves |
 |
| Jim Carrey & Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty |
 |
| Patrick Swayze & Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost |
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Feminism & Pop Culture
Many of you have heard about the Bechdel Test. It was developed by cartoonist Allison Bechdel to address gender representation in popular media and goes as follows.
Now, the Bechdel Test is among the criteria that discerning media consumers can use to examine the representation of gender in popular culture (along with Mulvey's critique of 'the male gaze' and McRobbie's response to 'post-feminism'). Here's something that's kind of alarming.
Now, the Bechdel Test is among the criteria that discerning media consumers can use to examine the representation of gender in popular culture (along with Mulvey's critique of 'the male gaze' and McRobbie's response to 'post-feminism'). Here's something that's kind of alarming.
Now, there's a long tradition of feminist-oriented fan-created remixes of popular culture--and in particular, Star Trek. For decades, (mostly heterosexual female) Trek fans have produced 'slash' vids (and 'slash'-fiction) in which Kirk and Spock were engaged in a homosexual relationship. What's interesting about these vids is that...
- They involve female audience's appropriation of male-dominated popular culture (often) to make a critique of patriarchal institutions, gender relations and media's representations of gender and sexuality.
- These practices long predated the YouTube, iMovie, or even the consumer Internet.
This recalls Mulvey's discussion of 'alternative media.' She writes,
"However self-conscious and ironic Hollywood managed to be, it always restricted itself to a formal mis-en-scene reflecting the dominant ideological concept of the cinema. The alternative cinema provides a space for a cinema to be born which is radical in both a political and an aesthetic sense and challenges the basic assumptions of the mainstream film."
On that note, here's a feminist fan-vid (also made before YouTube) remixing Disney cartoons and other popular media (Beverly Hills 90210, Dawson's Creek, etc.). In what way does this piece 'challenge the basic assumptions of the mainstream film' and, by implication, commonly held assumptions about gender relations in contemporary society?
Because Disney films are particularly fun to pick on, there are a number of feminist cut-ups/mash-ups/remixes/remakes of princesses.
There is quite a bit of documentary media that critiques representations of women in mainstream media.
And then, there are examples of media that attempt to provide a voice for the voiceless women and girls around the world who continue to struggle with (often institutionally-sanctioned) marginalization and (often violent) oppression.
And then, of course, we have Hermione.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Why this Silly Superhero Stuff?
Last week, I discussed the important role that understanding media as art, and then making media arts, plays in my philosophy and practice of media literacy education. You might be thinking, 'Make art. Make change. Okay. I get that. But why this silly superhero stuff?'
Well, here's a thing...
Well, here's a thing...
"Many of the core myths of popular culture have their roots in movements of popular resistance (Zipes, 1979; 1991). We need to restore those more 'radicalizing' elements to contemporary superhero stories so that the Ninja Turtles, like Robin Hood before them, will fight to build a better world rather than simply defend property rights. Such instruction should not consist of forcing our own stories and interests onto children's imaginative play. Rather, instructors should recognize and foster the radical potential of children's own fantasy lives and build on those fantasies by providing additional stories and historical background. At the same time, our students come from diverse ethnic backgrounds and can draw on alternative cultural traditions that may further enrich our attempts to rewrite and recontextualize popular narratives." (Jenkins, "Empowering children in the digital age: Towards a radical media pedagogy," 1997)Welcome students...
Popular Culture, Fandom & Gender Equality
As a scholar that looks at fandom and is interested in issues of gender equality, there are some things that have been happening lately that have disturbed me.
#GamerGate
A female video game developer is publicly accused by her ex to have cheated on him in order to get a positive review from a game reviewer. The allegations prove to be false, but despite this, the developer is sexually harassed and threatened by the online 'gamer' community. To top it off, her personal information is hacked and posted online, which makes the threats and harassment worse.
Around this time, a female cultural critic, who produces a web series addressing video games' representations of women, releases a particularly scathing critique of misogynistic representations in games. She is also sexually harassed and threatened by the online 'gamer' community. To top it off, her personal information is hacked and posted online, which makes the threats and harassment worse, to the point where she is forced to leave her home and call the authorities.
#RayRice
Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice goes to trial for domestic abuse. Earlier this year, he was caught on video in a hotel elevator punching his girlfriend out and dragging her out of the elevator. Rice is accepted into a 'pretrial intervention program' which is basically probation without prosecution. Months later, the NFL suspends Rice for 2 games. Then when more video surfaces, the Ravens end Rice's contract and the NFL suspends him indefinitely. While many football fans have supported the suspension and even critiqued the NFL for not investigating the incident earlier, certain Ravens fans, many of them female, have rallied around Rice, wearing his jersey to games and posting photos online.
This intersection of fandom and misogyny is frightening, especially when it ends with fans justifying, threatening or actually committing acts of violence against women. This may seem a silly lens to look through for such a serious issue. But considering the statistics of violence against women in the US--between 1/4 and 1/6 American women have reported being the victim of attempted/completed rape and 1/4 American women will be victims of domestic violence in their lifetime--any little thing we can do to slow this epidemic of abuse is worthwhile.
Some quick research on the subject reveals that while fan-sexism is in the news, it's nothing new.
Camille Bacon-Smith's history of female fans of Star Trek--Enterprising women: Television, fandom and the creation of popular myth (1992)--describes how Star Trek fandom was essentially born out of the split between the predominately-male literary science-fiction fans and a new generation of female fans. Not welcomed in the 'boys' club' of literary sci-fi, these women gravitated towards the Star Trek television series. In fact, according to Henry Jenkins, the moniker 'Trekkie' (as opposed to the less controversial 'Trekker') was "a term applied by literary SF fans to these women who were now attracted to television, and it was an exercise in cultural hierarchy. A trekkie was like a groupie..."
In 2008, Katharine W. Jones of Philadelphia University published a study entitled "Female Fandom: Identity, Sexism, and Men's Professional Football in England" in which she examines female soccer fans' attitudes about sexism within the culture. Interestingly, she finds that "Women used three strategies to respond to sexism and homophobia. First, they expressed disgust at abuse, sometimes redefining fandom to exclude abusers. Second, they downplayed sexism. Their third strategy was to embrace gender stereotypes, arguing that femininity was inconsistent with 'authentic' fandom and that abuse was a fundamental part of football."
As someone interested in the possibilities for fandom and related cultural practices and communities to be a place in which new forms of civic participation and social relations might be created, the idea that these fan communities perpetuate and commit acts of violence is particularly distressing. Maybe this semester, I can figure out what to do about it. Maybe I can reappropriate fandom from the gamers and the haters and find a way to condemn abuse and bring about change. Like this girl and her dad...
#GamerGate
A female video game developer is publicly accused by her ex to have cheated on him in order to get a positive review from a game reviewer. The allegations prove to be false, but despite this, the developer is sexually harassed and threatened by the online 'gamer' community. To top it off, her personal information is hacked and posted online, which makes the threats and harassment worse.
Around this time, a female cultural critic, who produces a web series addressing video games' representations of women, releases a particularly scathing critique of misogynistic representations in games. She is also sexually harassed and threatened by the online 'gamer' community. To top it off, her personal information is hacked and posted online, which makes the threats and harassment worse, to the point where she is forced to leave her home and call the authorities.
#RayRice
Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice goes to trial for domestic abuse. Earlier this year, he was caught on video in a hotel elevator punching his girlfriend out and dragging her out of the elevator. Rice is accepted into a 'pretrial intervention program' which is basically probation without prosecution. Months later, the NFL suspends Rice for 2 games. Then when more video surfaces, the Ravens end Rice's contract and the NFL suspends him indefinitely. While many football fans have supported the suspension and even critiqued the NFL for not investigating the incident earlier, certain Ravens fans, many of them female, have rallied around Rice, wearing his jersey to games and posting photos online.
This intersection of fandom and misogyny is frightening, especially when it ends with fans justifying, threatening or actually committing acts of violence against women. This may seem a silly lens to look through for such a serious issue. But considering the statistics of violence against women in the US--between 1/4 and 1/6 American women have reported being the victim of attempted/completed rape and 1/4 American women will be victims of domestic violence in their lifetime--any little thing we can do to slow this epidemic of abuse is worthwhile.
Some quick research on the subject reveals that while fan-sexism is in the news, it's nothing new.
Camille Bacon-Smith's history of female fans of Star Trek--Enterprising women: Television, fandom and the creation of popular myth (1992)--describes how Star Trek fandom was essentially born out of the split between the predominately-male literary science-fiction fans and a new generation of female fans. Not welcomed in the 'boys' club' of literary sci-fi, these women gravitated towards the Star Trek television series. In fact, according to Henry Jenkins, the moniker 'Trekkie' (as opposed to the less controversial 'Trekker') was "a term applied by literary SF fans to these women who were now attracted to television, and it was an exercise in cultural hierarchy. A trekkie was like a groupie..."
In 2008, Katharine W. Jones of Philadelphia University published a study entitled "Female Fandom: Identity, Sexism, and Men's Professional Football in England" in which she examines female soccer fans' attitudes about sexism within the culture. Interestingly, she finds that "Women used three strategies to respond to sexism and homophobia. First, they expressed disgust at abuse, sometimes redefining fandom to exclude abusers. Second, they downplayed sexism. Their third strategy was to embrace gender stereotypes, arguing that femininity was inconsistent with 'authentic' fandom and that abuse was a fundamental part of football."
As someone interested in the possibilities for fandom and related cultural practices and communities to be a place in which new forms of civic participation and social relations might be created, the idea that these fan communities perpetuate and commit acts of violence is particularly distressing. Maybe this semester, I can figure out what to do about it. Maybe I can reappropriate fandom from the gamers and the haters and find a way to condemn abuse and bring about change. Like this girl and her dad...
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Key Terms
Pedagogy
"the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept"
"[Pedagogy] enables us...to ask under what conditions and though what means we 'come to know.' How one teaches is therefore of central interest but, through the prism of pedagogy, it becomes inseparable from what is being taught and, crucially, how one learns...What pedagogy addresses is the process of production and exchange in this cycle, the transformation of consciousness that takes place in the interaction of three agencies--the teacher, the learner, and the knowledge they produce together." (Lusted "Introduction: Why Pedagogy?" Screen 27(5) 1986, 3)
Ideology
"What is ideology? The term was likely coined by the French thinker Claude Destutt de Tracy at the turn of the nineteenth century, in his study of the Enlightenment. For de Tracy, ideology was the science of ideas and their origins. Ideology understands ideas to issue, not haphazardly from mind or consciousness, but as the result of forces in the material environment that shape what people think...Ideology today is generally taken to mean not a science of ideas, but the ideas themselves, and moreover ideas of a particular kind. Ideologies are ideas whose purpose is not epistemic, but political. thus an ideology exists to confirm a certain political viewpoint, serve the interests of certain people, or to perform a functional role in relation to social, economic, political and legal institutions." (Sypnowich, "Law and Ideology," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2001/2010)
Hegemony
"Gramsci used the term hegemony to refer to the moment when a ruling class is able, not only to coerce a subordinate class to conform to its interests, but to exert a hegemony or total social authority over subordinate classes. This involves the exercise of a special kind of power--the power to frame alternatives and contain opportunities, to win and shape consent, so that the granting of legitimacy to the dominant classes appears not only 'spontaneous' but natural and normal." (Clarke, Hall, Jefferson & Roberts, "Subcultures, Cultures and Class," 1975, 101)
Literacy
"the ability to read and write; competence or knowledge in a specified area"
"A first critical lesson is that literacy is not an independent variable, as in the myth. It is instead historically founded and grounded, a product of the histories in which it is entangled and interwoven, and which give literacy its meanings...Related to this, second, we must grasp the fundamental complexisty of literacy, the extent to which it is a product of the intersection of multiple economic, political, cultural, and other factors." (Graff, Literacy Myths, Legacies & Lessons: New Studies on Literacy, 2011, 65)
"Critical literacy is the ability to read texts in an active, reflective manner in order to better understand power, inequality, and injustice in human relationships. For the purposes of critical literacy, text is defined as a 'vehicle through which individuals communicate with one another using the codes and conventions of society.' Accordingly, songs, novels, conversations, pictures, movies, etc. are all considered texts." (Coffey, "Critical Literacy," Learn UNC: K-12 Teaching and Learning from the UNC School of Education)
Media Literacy
??????????????????????
Feminism
"Feminist criticism is part of the broader feminist political movement that seeks to rectify sexist discrimination and inequalities. While there is no single feminist literary criticism, there are a half-dozen interrelated projects: exposing masculinist stereotypes, distortions, and omissions in male-dominated literature; studying female creativity, genres, styles, themes, careers, and literary traditions; discovering and evaluating lost and neglected literary works by women; developing feminist theoretical concepts and methods; examining the forces that shape women's lives, literature, and criticism, ranging across psychology and politics, biology and cultural history; and creating new ideas of and roles for women, including new institutional arrangements." (Leitch, The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism, 2nd Ed., 2010, 24)
Cultural Studies
"In recent decades, cultural critics started to pay serious attention to mass, popular, and everyday materials, usually in the context of their ideologies (dominant ideas and values). Those in the discipline called cultural studies, in particular, study such discourses as television, cinema, advertising, rock music, magazines, minority literatures, and popular literatures (thrillers, science fiction, romances, westerns, Gothic fiction), focusing on how such materials are produced, distributed, and consumed. While researchers in cultural studies employ various methods, including surveys, field-based studies, textual interpretations, historical background studies, and participant observations, institutional analysis and ideology critique have been especially important." (Leitch, The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism, 2nd Ed., 2010, 30-1)
Multiculturalism
"Multiculturalism is a body of thought in political philosophy about the proper way to respond to cultural and religious diversity. Mere toleration of group differences is said to fall short of treating members of minority groups as equal citizens; recognition and positive accommodation of group differences are required through 'group-differentiated rights'..." (Song, "Multiculturalism," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2010)
Critical Pedagogy
"Critical pedagogy is a way of thinking about, negotiating, and transforming the relationship among classroom teaching, the production of knowledge, the institutional structures of the school, and the social and material relations of the wider community, society and nation-state...I am calling for a pedagogy in which a revolutionary multicultural ethics is performed--is lived in the streets--rather than simply reduced to the practice of reading texts...Teachers need to build upon the textual politics that dominate most multicultural classrooms by engaging in a politics of bodily and affective investment, which means 'walking the talk' and working in those very communities one purports to serve. A critical pedagogy for multicultural education should quicken the affective sensibilities of students as well as provide them with a language of social analysis, cultural critique and social activism in the service of cutting the power and practice of capital at its joints." (McLaren, "Revolutionary Pedagogy in Post-Revolutionary Times: Rethinking the Political Economy of Critical Education," 1988, 441, 452)
Critical Theory
"Critical Theory has a narrow and a broad meaning in philosophy and in the history of the social sciences. 'Critical Theory' in the narrow sense designates several generations of German philosophers and social theorists in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School. According to these theorists, a 'critical' theory may be distinguished from a 'traditional' theory according to a specific practical purpose: a theory is critical to the extent that it seeks human emancipation, 'to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them' (Horkheimer 1982, 244). Because such theories aim to explain and transform all the circumstances that enslave human beings, many 'critical theories' in the broader sense have been developed. They have emerged in connection with the many social movements that identify varied dimensions of the domination of human beings in modern societies. In both the broad and the narrow senses, however, a critical theory provides the descriptive and normative bases for social inquiry aimed at decreasing domination and increasing freedom in all their forms." (Bohman, "Critical Theory," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2005)
Dialectic
"For Hegel, only the whole is true. Every stage or phase or moment is partial, and therefore partially true. Hegel's grand idea is 'totality' which preserves within it each of the ideas or stages that it has overcome or subsumed...Nothing is lost or destroyed but raised up and preserved in a spiral. Think of the opening of a fern or a shell. This is an organic rather than a mechanical logic. Hegel's special term for this 'contradiction' of overcoming and at the same time preserving is aufhebung, sometimes translated as 'sublation.'...
"the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept"
"[Pedagogy] enables us...to ask under what conditions and though what means we 'come to know.' How one teaches is therefore of central interest but, through the prism of pedagogy, it becomes inseparable from what is being taught and, crucially, how one learns...What pedagogy addresses is the process of production and exchange in this cycle, the transformation of consciousness that takes place in the interaction of three agencies--the teacher, the learner, and the knowledge they produce together." (Lusted "Introduction: Why Pedagogy?" Screen 27(5) 1986, 3)
Ideology
"What is ideology? The term was likely coined by the French thinker Claude Destutt de Tracy at the turn of the nineteenth century, in his study of the Enlightenment. For de Tracy, ideology was the science of ideas and their origins. Ideology understands ideas to issue, not haphazardly from mind or consciousness, but as the result of forces in the material environment that shape what people think...Ideology today is generally taken to mean not a science of ideas, but the ideas themselves, and moreover ideas of a particular kind. Ideologies are ideas whose purpose is not epistemic, but political. thus an ideology exists to confirm a certain political viewpoint, serve the interests of certain people, or to perform a functional role in relation to social, economic, political and legal institutions." (Sypnowich, "Law and Ideology," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2001/2010)
Hegemony
"Gramsci used the term hegemony to refer to the moment when a ruling class is able, not only to coerce a subordinate class to conform to its interests, but to exert a hegemony or total social authority over subordinate classes. This involves the exercise of a special kind of power--the power to frame alternatives and contain opportunities, to win and shape consent, so that the granting of legitimacy to the dominant classes appears not only 'spontaneous' but natural and normal." (Clarke, Hall, Jefferson & Roberts, "Subcultures, Cultures and Class," 1975, 101)
Literacy
"the ability to read and write; competence or knowledge in a specified area"
"A first critical lesson is that literacy is not an independent variable, as in the myth. It is instead historically founded and grounded, a product of the histories in which it is entangled and interwoven, and which give literacy its meanings...Related to this, second, we must grasp the fundamental complexisty of literacy, the extent to which it is a product of the intersection of multiple economic, political, cultural, and other factors." (Graff, Literacy Myths, Legacies & Lessons: New Studies on Literacy, 2011, 65)
"Critical literacy is the ability to read texts in an active, reflective manner in order to better understand power, inequality, and injustice in human relationships. For the purposes of critical literacy, text is defined as a 'vehicle through which individuals communicate with one another using the codes and conventions of society.' Accordingly, songs, novels, conversations, pictures, movies, etc. are all considered texts." (Coffey, "Critical Literacy," Learn UNC: K-12 Teaching and Learning from the UNC School of Education)
Media Literacy
??????????????????????
Feminism
"Feminist criticism is part of the broader feminist political movement that seeks to rectify sexist discrimination and inequalities. While there is no single feminist literary criticism, there are a half-dozen interrelated projects: exposing masculinist stereotypes, distortions, and omissions in male-dominated literature; studying female creativity, genres, styles, themes, careers, and literary traditions; discovering and evaluating lost and neglected literary works by women; developing feminist theoretical concepts and methods; examining the forces that shape women's lives, literature, and criticism, ranging across psychology and politics, biology and cultural history; and creating new ideas of and roles for women, including new institutional arrangements." (Leitch, The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism, 2nd Ed., 2010, 24)
Cultural Studies
"In recent decades, cultural critics started to pay serious attention to mass, popular, and everyday materials, usually in the context of their ideologies (dominant ideas and values). Those in the discipline called cultural studies, in particular, study such discourses as television, cinema, advertising, rock music, magazines, minority literatures, and popular literatures (thrillers, science fiction, romances, westerns, Gothic fiction), focusing on how such materials are produced, distributed, and consumed. While researchers in cultural studies employ various methods, including surveys, field-based studies, textual interpretations, historical background studies, and participant observations, institutional analysis and ideology critique have been especially important." (Leitch, The Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism, 2nd Ed., 2010, 30-1)
Multiculturalism
"Multiculturalism is a body of thought in political philosophy about the proper way to respond to cultural and religious diversity. Mere toleration of group differences is said to fall short of treating members of minority groups as equal citizens; recognition and positive accommodation of group differences are required through 'group-differentiated rights'..." (Song, "Multiculturalism," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2010)
Critical Pedagogy
"Critical pedagogy is a way of thinking about, negotiating, and transforming the relationship among classroom teaching, the production of knowledge, the institutional structures of the school, and the social and material relations of the wider community, society and nation-state...I am calling for a pedagogy in which a revolutionary multicultural ethics is performed--is lived in the streets--rather than simply reduced to the practice of reading texts...Teachers need to build upon the textual politics that dominate most multicultural classrooms by engaging in a politics of bodily and affective investment, which means 'walking the talk' and working in those very communities one purports to serve. A critical pedagogy for multicultural education should quicken the affective sensibilities of students as well as provide them with a language of social analysis, cultural critique and social activism in the service of cutting the power and practice of capital at its joints." (McLaren, "Revolutionary Pedagogy in Post-Revolutionary Times: Rethinking the Political Economy of Critical Education," 1988, 441, 452)
Critical Theory
"Critical Theory has a narrow and a broad meaning in philosophy and in the history of the social sciences. 'Critical Theory' in the narrow sense designates several generations of German philosophers and social theorists in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School. According to these theorists, a 'critical' theory may be distinguished from a 'traditional' theory according to a specific practical purpose: a theory is critical to the extent that it seeks human emancipation, 'to liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them' (Horkheimer 1982, 244). Because such theories aim to explain and transform all the circumstances that enslave human beings, many 'critical theories' in the broader sense have been developed. They have emerged in connection with the many social movements that identify varied dimensions of the domination of human beings in modern societies. In both the broad and the narrow senses, however, a critical theory provides the descriptive and normative bases for social inquiry aimed at decreasing domination and increasing freedom in all their forms." (Bohman, "Critical Theory," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2005)
Dialectic
"For Hegel, only the whole is true. Every stage or phase or moment is partial, and therefore partially true. Hegel's grand idea is 'totality' which preserves within it each of the ideas or stages that it has overcome or subsumed...Nothing is lost or destroyed but raised up and preserved in a spiral. Think of the opening of a fern or a shell. This is an organic rather than a mechanical logic. Hegel's special term for this 'contradiction' of overcoming and at the same time preserving is aufhebung, sometimes translated as 'sublation.'...
- Thesis: A thought is affirmed which on reflection proves itself unsatisfactory, incomplete or contradictory...
- Antithesis: ...which propels the affirmation of its negation, the antithesis, which also on reflection proves inadequate...
- Synthesis: ...and so is again negated...
In classical logic, this double negation would simply reinstate the original thesis. The synthesis does not do this. It has 'overcome and preserved' (or sublated) the stages of the thesis and antithesis to emerge as a higher rational unity." (Spencer & Krauze, Introducing Hegel, 1996)
Stereotypes
"a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing."
"...a stereotype--which we retain in the face of contradictory evidence--must function in one of the following ways: it may be relatively fundamental to our conceptual scheme; it may protect our self-esteem; it may help bring about some desirable situation; or it may shield us from facing an unchangeable, unpleasant fact." (Andre, "Stereotypes: Conceptual and Normative Considerations")
Political Remix
"It's a process. It's about deconstructing mass media or mass media fragments or corporate media or pop culture. So then, you capture it off of TV, off of movies, off of music videos, off of mainstream music, off of newscasts, especially. and then you reconstruct it. So, you break it apart, you reconstruct it, and then you create a new subversive message. You use the old vehicle to make something new and you put that alternative message back out there." (McIntosh, "Building a Critical Culture with Remix Video")
Fan (or Avatar) Activism
"The Avatar activists are tapping into a very old language of popular protest. The cultural historian Natalie Zemon Davis reminds us in her classic essay "Women on Top" (2) that protesters in early modern Europe often masked their identity through dressing as peoples real (the Moors) or imagined (the Amazons) seen as a threat to the civilised order. The good citizens of Boston continued this tradition in the New World when they dressed as Native Americans to dump tea in the harbour. And African-Americans in New Orleans formed their own Mardi Gras Indian tribes, taking imagery from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, to signify their own struggles for respect and dignity..." (Jenkins, 2010, "Avatar Activism")
Stereotypes
"a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing."
"...a stereotype--which we retain in the face of contradictory evidence--must function in one of the following ways: it may be relatively fundamental to our conceptual scheme; it may protect our self-esteem; it may help bring about some desirable situation; or it may shield us from facing an unchangeable, unpleasant fact." (Andre, "Stereotypes: Conceptual and Normative Considerations")
Political Remix
"It's a process. It's about deconstructing mass media or mass media fragments or corporate media or pop culture. So then, you capture it off of TV, off of movies, off of music videos, off of mainstream music, off of newscasts, especially. and then you reconstruct it. So, you break it apart, you reconstruct it, and then you create a new subversive message. You use the old vehicle to make something new and you put that alternative message back out there." (McIntosh, "Building a Critical Culture with Remix Video")
Fan (or Avatar) Activism
"The Avatar activists are tapping into a very old language of popular protest. The cultural historian Natalie Zemon Davis reminds us in her classic essay "Women on Top" (2) that protesters in early modern Europe often masked their identity through dressing as peoples real (the Moors) or imagined (the Amazons) seen as a threat to the civilised order. The good citizens of Boston continued this tradition in the New World when they dressed as Native Americans to dump tea in the harbour. And African-Americans in New Orleans formed their own Mardi Gras Indian tribes, taking imagery from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, to signify their own struggles for respect and dignity..." (Jenkins, 2010, "Avatar Activism")
Monday, September 8, 2014
What is media literacy?
Nichole Pinkard from Digital Youth Network
Andrea Quijada from The Media Literacy Project
Sut Jhally from the Media Education Foundation
Author Douglas Rushkoff
Henry Jenkins from University of Southern California
Andrea Quijada from The Media Literacy Project
Sut Jhally from the Media Education Foundation
Author Douglas Rushkoff
Henry Jenkins from University of Southern California
Monday, September 1, 2014
Welcome to 458!
Hey everyone, welcome to Media Literacy Education. I think this semester should be a lot of fun.
One of the aims of the course is to explore the relationship between media, self and society. To help us start this exploration, here's something from media scholar Larry Grossberg in which he explores how we can understand what matters to us.
While critics generally recognize that meanings, and even desires, are organized into particular structures or maps, they tend to think of mood as formless and disorganized. But affect is also organized; it operates within and, at the same time, produces maps which direct our investments in and into the world; these maps tell us where and how we can become absorbed—not into the self but into the world—as potential locations for our self-identifications, and with what intensities. This ‘absorption’ or investment constructs the places and events which are, or can become, significant to us. They are the places at which we can construct our own identity as something to be invested in, as something that matters. (Grossberg 1992, 57)
On that note, here's something that has mattered to me since I was a child.
While Grossberg's article specifically addresses how media audiences become fans, we're going to expand upon his discussion of 'mattering maps' to include some 'weightier matters'--social issues that interest and affect us.
Among the issues that I'm interested in exploring is our culture's treatment (and media's representations) of masculinity--how we define and perform 'manhood.' This is a growing field of study, as more people realize that promoting gender equality necessarily involves rethinking how we've traditionally understood what it means to be a man. Here's a cool Kickstarter doc that takes a stab at it.
Superhero stories (both comics and movies) are especially problematic when it comes to representations of masculinity. These supermen are strong and brave, sometimes intelligent, oftentimes selfish, and almost always unfairly treat women. Even the kid stuff falls into this same trap--think of our favorite super-family, The Incredibles. Who is gifted with strength and speed? Flexibility and invisibility?
I don't feel entirely comfortable with how superhero stories are modeling what it means to be a man for my two young boys. So, as part of last year's Stories for Change, I (along with illustration student Cody Robles) developed superMEN, a series of 4 short web-comics that reimagined superheroes (Batman, Superman, Wolverine & Iron Man) as dads. The idea of re-envisioning superheroes as dads isn't entirely new...
...and in other fan-creations...
But we wanted to take it even further--to appropriate these male superheroes to promote some alternative ideas about masculinity, defined here by scholar Cooper Thompson...
And here's a quote from Brigham Young (referenced in David Bednar's recent address on social media, actually) that can help introduce us to the idea of critical media literacy...
For next week:
Among the issues that I'm interested in exploring is our culture's treatment (and media's representations) of masculinity--how we define and perform 'manhood.' This is a growing field of study, as more people realize that promoting gender equality necessarily involves rethinking how we've traditionally understood what it means to be a man. Here's a cool Kickstarter doc that takes a stab at it.
Superhero stories (both comics and movies) are especially problematic when it comes to representations of masculinity. These supermen are strong and brave, sometimes intelligent, oftentimes selfish, and almost always unfairly treat women. Even the kid stuff falls into this same trap--think of our favorite super-family, The Incredibles. Who is gifted with strength and speed? Flexibility and invisibility?
I don't feel entirely comfortable with how superhero stories are modeling what it means to be a man for my two young boys. So, as part of last year's Stories for Change, I (along with illustration student Cody Robles) developed superMEN, a series of 4 short web-comics that reimagined superheroes (Batman, Superman, Wolverine & Iron Man) as dads. The idea of re-envisioning superheroes as dads isn't entirely new...
 |
| from The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller |
 |
| from Wolverine: Origins |
...and in other fan-creations...
 |
| 'Uncanny Dad' by Andry Rajoelina |
 |
| 'Batdad' by Andry Rajoelina |
But we wanted to take it even further--to appropriate these male superheroes to promote some alternative ideas about masculinity, defined here by scholar Cooper Thompson...
- Boys must learn to accept their vulnerability, learn to express a range of emotions such as fear and sadness, and learn to ask for help and support in appropriate situations.
- Boys must learn to be gentle, nurturant, cooperative, and communicative, and, in particular, learn non-violent means of resolving conflicts.
- Boys must learn to accept those attitudes and behaviors which have traditionally been labeled as feminine as necessary for full human development--thereby reducing homophobia and misogyny. This is tantamount to teaching boys to love other boys and girls.
And here's a quote from Brigham Young (referenced in David Bednar's recent address on social media, actually) that can help introduce us to the idea of critical media literacy...
"Every discovery in science and art, that is really true and useful to mankind has been given by direct revelation from God, though but few acknowledge it. It has been given with a view to prepare the way for the ultimate triumph of truth, and the redemption of the earth from the power of sin and Satan. We should take advantage of all these great discoveries, the accumulated wisdom of ages, and give our children the benefit of every branch of useful knowledge, to prepare them to step forward and efficiently do their part in the great work." (Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A Widtsoe [1954], 18-19)
For next week:
- Review the syllabus, the TMA Viewing & Creation Policy, etc.
- Read Kellner & Share "Critical Media Literacy, Democracy and the Reconstruction of Education” , complete and submit Study Guide #1 (via Learning Suite).
- Continue thinking about what matters to you. Start developing a pitch for the Big Idea (Sept 16).
- EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY: The Salt Lake Comic Con is this weekend. Guess who will be there? Stan Lee, Lou Ferrigno, Charisma Carpenter (and Alan Tudyk and a bunch more Whedon alum), the dude who plays Arrow on Arrow, the dude who played the Green Power Ranger on Power Rangers, the one and only Napoleon Dynamite (and the list goes on and on). If you want some extra points, go, take some notes, find some correlations between what you see and your developing understanding of 'critical media literacy' and 'stories for change' and report back to us next week.
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