RELEVANCE AND RIGOUR IN MEDIA EDUCATION

1. RELEVANCE AND RIGOUR IN MEDIA EDUCATION BARRIE McMAHON ADJUNCT SENIOR LECTURER EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY Western Australia CURRICULUM MANAGER POST COMPULSORY EDUCATION Department of Education and Training barrie.mcmahon@eddept.wa.edu.au

2. GLOBAL MEDIA;GLOBAL EVENTS • Global economies and global contests for power • Global crises • Global media with vested interests to report • State • Military • Media

3. GLOBAL MEDIA CHARACTERISTICS • Spectacle • Simplistic cause and effect portrayals • Demonisation • Justifications • Political spin • Double talk • Misinformation • Depictions divorced from underlying causes • Public accommodation

4. “Naturally the common people don’t want war. That is understood…All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” (Hermann Goering from Colbert’s Nuremberg Diary)

5. MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY • Long held belief in a free press • Instead we have • State, military, press interdependence • Reporting by press release • Reporting by official briefings • Selected journalists, embedded journalists • Media oligopolies • Free press? Media education is the democratic intervention

6. MEDIA EDUCATION IN A GLOBAL SOCIETY THE TASK Understand how we make sense of the world Expose the process to students Students develop a critical framework Students apply their critical framework to future media texts

7. RELEVANCE AND RIGOUR • Fine tune goals, outcomes • Use proven strategies • Engage students from the start • Give students quality feedback • Fucus on conceptual understanding as the goal

8. PROVEN STRATEGIES For example Video productions Credit card analysis Film studies But modify the intended outcomes and monitor student progress Prioritise outcomes about analytical and critical skills over production skills THE CONSTRUCTION OF MEANING

9. TRANSPOSITION Student understandings Unfamiliar challenges and settings ISSUE UNFAMILIAR Transposition Familiar task and situation Student understandings developed SITUATIONS UNFAMILIAR

11. POINT-OF-VIEW IDENTIFICATION Identifies from whose point of view the construction is occurring INTERPRETATION Shows how point of view is constructed and recognises changes to point of view TRANSPOSITION Connects the point-of –view and the preferred position it implies to own position on the subject matter OUTCOMES FOR ONE TEXT COMPONENT

12. ASSESSING MEDIA TASKS Reasons for assessing • Recognise student achievement • Diagnostic • Political • Checkpoint to keep program on track Part of teaching and learning cycle hence • Formative • Summative Conducted by • Teachers • Students • peers

13. INDICATORS • “I can…” statements. INDICATORS FOR THE READER • Cultural experiences • Level 4 • I can identify how my own cultural experiences help me to make sense of a text and recognise that other people’s meanings may be different • Level 8 • I can recognise factors that influence how other people make meaning and can draw from my own cultural experiences to generate my preferred meaning • Reading situation and intended use • Level 4 • I can identify the purpose of a text and how meaning is shaped by where it is experienced • Level 5 • I can demonstrate how I can change meaning by changing the purpose of a text • Level 8 • I can illustrate how my knowledge of texts and their purposes can be connected to make my own meaning and their influence of production

14. WHERE TO FROM HERE? • Need an international response to global media • Build on what we have achieved so far • Tailor the international response to local needs • Inject resources and rigour into our response