Responses to Being Media Literate

[Mike Gange]

My media studies students have to keep a reflective journal, with at least ten entries, added over a 17 week semester. They can use their journals to prepare for the exam question,  which follows. I have posted responses from a Grade 12 girl and a Grade 12 boy. Both granted permission for this post, but I will not release their names.

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The goal of this class was to help you become more “media literate.”

What is meant by “media literate?”

How have you become so?

What have you learned about the media this year?

 

LL, female, age 17

 

Learning how media works; watching ads days after day. Seeing all the product placements, knowing the characters such as the Green Giant, or Rocky and Bullwinkle, or Pillsbury Doughboy are selling us things we might not ordinarily need. Singing theme songs to TV shows. Looking at Logos and being part of the revolution on how ads are becoming more and more a part of our lives.

 

With all the ads there comes some issues, such as how ads exploit women, make us feel we need to look and act in a certain way. Or how men are supposed to be strong, heroic and tough. To live in this world we need to become media literate. By being media literate we are able to understand how the ads work or how they effect us. Such as product placement promoting the brand Coke, or when we see a movie star drinking it, we feel we should too.

 

We learned about the rule of thirds. We learned that everything on Tv is laid out so perfectly. That TV always wraps up issues in the third act, which is not life.

 

We learned about ads, for instance, that Kool cigarettes......

you can read more at my blog:

http://meonmedia.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/responses-to-teaching-med...