Today we continued with our exploration of The Constructed Teen: how much of their identity and the way they view the world is because of the messages they've seen, read and heard? Would they view the world differently if they had been exposed to different messages?
We began by looking at insightful comments from yesterday's writing that I had copied onto sheets and posted on the board. (Pictures will follow eventually)
We then moved into deconstructing media messages.
This was the first one. I chose it deliberately for its simplicity, but even so it contains cultural values and makes assumptions. Again, we're working from the first key concept from the Association for Media Literacy
All media are constructions.
Media present carefully crafted constructions that reflect many decisions and result from many determining factors. Much of our view of reality is based on media messages that have been pre-constructed and have attitudes, interpretations and conclusions already built in. The media, to a great extent, present us with versions of reality. When analysing a media text consider the following questions: How is this message constructed? How well does it represent reality?
I asked the students the following.
1. Who would have been involved in creating this message?
2. Why would this message have been created?
3. What's being valued in this message?
4. What does this message mean? How do you know this?
5. What assumptions are being made in this message?
Such a simple text prompted strong, insightful discussion.
We then moved onto more challenging media constructions in our exploration of "the constructed teen".
We asked similar questions and of course had an intense, passionate and lengthy discussion. One observation in particular stood out. It was Loran's observation, "In our magazines on Arctic Oil we spent a lot of time thinking about fonts. When I look at them I'm noticing the differences between the two covers. Even the fonts have a message."
We began by looking at insightful comments from yesterday's writing that I had copied onto sheets and posted on the board. (Pictures will follow eventually)
We then moved into deconstructing media messages.
This was the first one. I chose it deliberately for its simplicity, but even so it contains cultural values and makes assumptions. Again, we're working from the first key concept from the Association for Media Literacy
All media are constructions.
Media present carefully crafted constructions that reflect many decisions and result from many determining factors. Much of our view of reality is based on media messages that have been pre-constructed and have attitudes, interpretations and conclusions already built in. The media, to a great extent, present us with versions of reality. When analysing a media text consider the following questions: How is this message constructed? How well does it represent reality?
I asked the students the following.
1. Who would have been involved in creating this message?
2. Why would this message have been created?
3. What's being valued in this message?
4. What does this message mean? How do you know this?
5. What assumptions are being made in this message?
Such a simple text prompted strong, insightful discussion.
We then moved onto more challenging media constructions in our exploration of "the constructed teen".
We asked similar questions and of course had an intense, passionate and lengthy discussion. One observation in particular stood out. It was Loran's observation, "In our magazines on Arctic Oil we spent a lot of time thinking about fonts. When I look at them I'm noticing the differences between the two covers. Even the fonts have a message."
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