Exploring Media Literacy: Media Literacy Week ’15

Nov 10, 2015

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Sherri Hope Culver leads a group exercise for Media Literacy Week, image courtesy of The Lamp

The Center for Media and Information Literacy was represented by Sherri Hope Culver at an event last week at Fordham University, to celebrate the first day of Media Literacy Week, the inaugural Media Literacy Week in the United States.

As Emily Long from The Lamp writes about the event:

“As NAMLE president Michelle Ciulla Lipkin pointed out in her introduction, being tech-savvy is not the same thing as being media literate, which is just one reason why raising awareness of media literacy is so important in a digital age. And one of the fun things about media literacy is the ability to use popular culture and entertainment as teaching engines, which is exactly what Temple University professor Sherri Hope Culver did when she ran a small-group exercise based on The Jetsons. Each small group of mostly college students included at least two guest media literacy educators, and each group was tasked with designing an episode of The Jetsons in which viewers would explore one of five questions NAMLE recommends for media literacy practice:

  • Who created the message?
  • What techniques are being used to attract my attention?
  • How might different people understand this message differently?
  • What values are included or omitted in this message?
  • What is the purpose of this message?

The exercise was meant to show how children’s media can easily incorporate basic media literacy lessons into their programming, and also gets people thinking about we communicate with youth. We also got thinking about story construction, character motivations and the world of the show, all elements which shaped the episodes we designed and which can be found in a multitude of media we interact with on a regular basis. This week features many more opportunities (including virtual and ongoing events) to explore how media literacy can change the way we learn with and make media. Check out the calendar here, and we hope to see you at an event soon!”

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