TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION

Technology and Education



Abstract

This article discusses the critical importance of media education to the teaching of civics and social studies and examines approaches to civics via media literacy. Useful Web site resources are also given. This article argues that in a representative democracy, people must be educated in all forms of contemporary mediated expression and well beyond the print media. The state of media education in the United States, relative to other countries, and the growing presence of core curricular frameworks in the 50 states that call on teachers to help their students become more media literate are also discussed. Keywords: media literacy; civics; social studies; democracy; television

Introduction

In the most recent presidential election, 89% of 18-year-olds did not vote, meaning of course that only slightly more than 1 in 10 did. It is interesting that a general decline in voter interest and turnout has occurred during the past 50 years, coinciding with the unprecedented rise in media and information technology, all manner of which bring important political news right into our homes. There is a multitude of reasons for the public's all too anemic attitude toward politics and civic involvement-too many to recount here. But all too much evidence suggests that nowhere is there more disinterest than among young voters. The good news is that there are solutions, not just to improving voter interest but also to increasing critical analysis of the media. The solutions include schools and other groups encouraging students to read the newspaper, to attend to all forms of mediated news, and to become media literate (i.e., to actively analyze, evaluate, and produce media in all their forms).

Taking television by itself, with most Americans viewing from 3 to 4 hours a day, it takes only a simple calculation to recognize that most people will spend from 9 to 12 full years of their lives watching television. Most people, after all, are awake only for roughly 50 of the approximately 75 years each of us is given. And this estimate applies, too, to people in most every developed,Westernized country in the world. At this rate, the average American viewer will spend 2 years of his or her 50 waking years watching television advertisements.

Meanwhile, support for media literacy generally and as it relates to civics education has come from the highest sources in the educational and broadcasting establishment. Ernest Boyer, then president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, wrote 15 years ago in Turning Points: Preparing Youth for the 21st Century (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1989) that it is no longer enough simply to read and write. Students must also become literate in the understanding of visual images. Our children must learn how to spot a stereotype, isolate a social cliche, and distinguish facts from propaganda, analysis from banter, and important news from coverage.

In an interview for the Public Broadcasting Service program "Media Literacy: The New Basic?" (On Television, Ltd. & Rutgers University, 1996), Walter Cronkite, long the most "trusted ...