Why I Write

20 Oct

The National Writing Project is hosting Why I Write to increase the visibility of the power of writing through a national campaign on October 20. As a big proponent of expanding the concept of literacy, I’m supportive of any initiative that conceptualizes composition as the practice of using symbols (of all kinds, including language, images, graphic design, sound, music and interactivity) to create and share meaning.

My big-picture vision about multimedia composition is paired with a substantial interest in helping students master the mechanics of writing. Word choice, grammar, organization and structure– all these skills come together when we write. In digital composition, a similar carefulness and precision enables us to create and share complex emotional nuance and deep ideas. Even as an experienced teacher, I continue to discover new strategies that help students learn how to manipulate symbols. These days, I’m quite taken with Gerald Graff’s and Cathy Birkenstein’s They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing.

A well-organized essay or a well-turned sentence can thrill me, although that’s not the reason why I read or “why I write.” For me, reading and writing are far more prosaic: both are simply a means to support my thinking as I discover and share ideas.

And even though I’m keen on all things multimedia, I reject the claim that online writing is a completely new discourse form. The idea simply revolts me: good writing is good writing is good writing.

For these reasons, I was amused to find this set of comments at Inside Higher Education. Perhaps it’s inevitable that people will blather on quite sloppily about the importance of writing when posting online, with all the speed and ease it offers. Perhaps it’s just a little TOO easy to string together banal ideas about the value of writing.

But there are some things to really treasure about online writing. For example, see below. How glorious when the dangling modifiers of a university president get corrected by a high school student!  

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Tuning in to Media

10 Oct

I finally got around to digitizing my 1993 documentary, Tuning in to Media: Literacy for the Information Age, which I produced with Rob Stegman of Blue Star Media in Boston as part of the Harvard Institute on Media Education. What a trip to see my 80s hair!

Seeing it again after many years, I remember the thrill of assembling luminaries such as Neil Postman, Barry Duncan, Kathleen Tyner, Joshua Meyrowitz and Bob Kubey for a screening and discussion of the Rodney King beating and the Los Angeles riots. For me, it was a great learning experience to create this documentary, as I got to participate in the full production experience: raising the money, developing the concept, writing the script, gathering footage, editing, voice-over, post-production, and distribution/marketing.

I had thought the program would be about teachers and students using media literacy in the classroom, but when an amateur video of Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King hit the national airwaves, we were all shocked. Many Americans had no idea what police brutality looked like in large urban centers.  Amateur video was a new phenomenon. It came as a surprise then, when the jurors in the trial convicted only one officer who was found guilty of excessive force; the other officers were cleared of all charges. The verdicts were broadcast live, and word spread quickly throughout Los Angeles. At various points throughout the city that afternoon, people began rioting.

I remember that Elizabeth Thoman was about to head home to Los Angeles the very day the riots began after participating in a media literacy conference on the East Coast. It was a tragic experience for her to come home to her city in flames– and it was a difficult time for all Americans. At the time, it seemed as if the chaos in the city reflected the depth of public confusion about the relationship between the world of symbols and the “real” world. For the next three days the violence and mayhem continued, covered unflinchingly by the news media. People stayed home, watching on TV with the rest of the country as live TV coverage showed fires raging throughout the city, innocent bystanders being assaulted and looters sacking businesses. It was the worst civil unrest the city had experienced since 1965: more than 50 people were killed, over 4,000 injured and $1 billion in property damage.

I’m just as troubled today as I was in 1993 about the level of desensitization in our society – and its impact on the quality of our democracy. As it has ratcheted up, we are left with quite an “empathy gap,” as genuine feelings that lead to action are drowned by a barrage of sensation provided to us by both news and entertainment. I suppose I’m still attracted to media literacy’s potential to activate our critical awareness and help us “wake up” both cognitively and emotionally to the role we play as citizens in making a difference in the world.

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Picking a Fight

27 Sep

I’ve never thought of myself as the kind of person to pick a fight.

I do like to deeply engage with ideas, of course, and I prefer to engage in arguments that are well-supported with evidence and reasoning. And of course I can spot and attack “gee-whiz” marketing hype from 500 yards. But no one I know has called me a mama grizzly.

And I’ve never been someone to bludgeon someone over the head with my own ideas. Like any academic, I do like to talk about my work– but I also like to ask questions. I aim to learn from others, even when their viewpoints are very different from my own.

But when I read a recent issue of the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, it simply made my blood boil. Jim Potter’s invited essay for this important and well-respected journal claims in its title to depict the state of media literacy. But it omits so much of the innovative and important work that has emerged in the last ten years from scholars across the fields of communication, education and public health. My grad students, colleagues and Labsters will remember that week — I could hardly believe Potter’s essay had been published. I simply went ballistic! I pounded out a rejoinder (in a verbal body slam of sorts) and e-mailed it off to the journal.

What made me see red? By conceptualizing media literacy primarily as a response to counteract the negative effects of mass media and popular culture, Potter’s vision of media literacy mischaracterizes the field. At a time when more and more stakeholders are embracing the depth and complexity of media literacy, Potter publishes a narrow little piece that boxes media literacy into a wee corner of the media effects tradition. Yikes!

Let’s set the record straight. Jim Potter has long had a rather ambivalent relationship with the larger community of media literacy educators and scholars. He’s published a best-selling textbook titled, Media Literacy and another book titled, The Theory of Media Literacy. But he’s never participated in the discourse community of media literacy scholars. To my knowledge, he’s never attended a media literacy conference— and there have been dozens and dozens of them over the past 15 years. We travel in different circles, I guess you might say.  Unfortunately, some communication scholars still see media literacy simply as a minor variant within the media effects tradition precisely because Jim Potter has carefully positioned it there– not as a field of inquiry, a place of advocacy, an innovative pedagogy, or a community education movement,  but simply as an antidote to all manner of negative media effects, including media violence, materialism, stereotyping and much more. I thought this argument was nearly over in 1998, when I thought I had nailed the coffin on this issue by identifying it as one of the seven great debates.

Jim’s going to publish a response to my critique of his essay, as well he should. Maybe we will get a chance to duke it out at ICA, NCA, BEA or AEJMC. Two big ol’ bears growling at each other– it could be crowd-pleasing fun! But special thanks are owed to Susan Brinson at the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, who accepted it for publication. You can read my critique of Potter’s essay by clicking here.

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Big Ideas from September

24 Sep

Here’s a short visualization of some of the big ideas we’ve been unpacking during the first month in my New Media Literacies class this Fall.

BTMM 4455 syllabus Fall 2011

Our Class Blog

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Reflections from an English Major

22 Sep

Back in the day, when people debated about what to call this new enterprise, this practice of engaging learners in noticing, analyzing, reflecting on, and composing in response to their own mediated culture, I was deeply torn about whether it should be called “media literacy” or “media education.” I opted for the latter for many major initiatives (including the Harvard Institute on Media Education and, of course, the Media Education Lab). Some readers will remember the vociferous 1990s debates we had as the discourse community sorted out what we meant, exactly, by terms like “critical analysis” and “authentic audiences” and “autonomy.”

But “literacy” has been the most problematic and slippery term of all. As an undergraduate, I was a double major in English and Film/Video, of course. I was (and still am) enamored with documentary film and the editing process. Deeply connected to the practice of reading. A lover of words. I brought to this work a deep sense of the connectedness between reading and writing in relationship to the many different symbol systems, genres and forms of expression that are part of our culture.

But at a very critical period in my life, a mentor invited me to consider the long-term potential impact of my work in K-12 education, encouraging me to reflect on whether I would be OK if reading films replaced the practice of reading books. Impossible, I remember thinking. But it’s an issue that can still keep me up at night. Today, as I struggle to get my undergraduates to read, it’s becoming more central to my sense of professional identity as a teacher. For in the zero sum game that is education, more time with one form of expression displaces time spent with something else. And since each media form demands particular kinds of attentional and cognitive skills that are unique to the medium, and different media genres require more sets of specialized skills, I’m right to reflect on how my teaching practices support (or supplant) the particular values associated with reading. I deeply care that people continue to value poetry, for example, and short stories, and drama; I want to explore how the use of new media and technologies can nurture and support this process. As an eternal optimist, I love how T.S. Eliot invites me to embrace how the creative individual makes, destroys and remakes the world through life and through art:

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others…)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea’s throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.

With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

- T.S. Eliot, “The Four Quartets”

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Why Leadership Matters

13 Sep

I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership recently, and some of you know why. In January, I’m going to become the Founding Director of the Harrington School of Communication and Media at the University of Rhode Island. It’s a terrific opportunity to help the faculty grow and develop a distinctive new type of communication school that connects the traditional communication disciplines of journalism, film/media, public relations and communications studies with programs in writing and rhetoric and a graduate program in library and information science. In my view, this is the perfect constellation of departments for a 21st century learner. So imagine how excited I am about the possibilities!

Which leads me to reflect on the nature of leadership. Some of the best leaders I know I encountered at business school. For nearly 20 years, I taught media studies at Babson College and was fortunate to have been mentored by distinguished faculty leaders including Al Anderson, Allan Cohen, Sydel Sokuvitz and Dick Mandel.

So when the National Association for Secondary School Principals asked me to write about digital and media literacy, I wrote about some Philadelphia leaders, including Sam Reed of Beeber Middle School and Jessica Brown, principal of the Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush High School. I thought about all the principals and school leaders who I have learned from, beginning with the legendary John Katsoulis, Assistant Superintendent of the Billerica Public Schools and Damian Curtiss, Chairman of the English Department. Back in the early 1990s, these two school leaders inspired me to help them make a difference in a single school district, and from them, I learned alot about the process of making change by supporting teachers as learners and leaders. One of my former students, Amy Purcell Vorenberg, is now a principal. She started her career as a teacher at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, where she participated in the Felton Scholars Program in Media Literacy, which I ran at Babson College. Today she is the Principal of the Philadelphia School.

One of the best principals I ever met was Dr. Paul Folkemer, who was the principal of the Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, New Jersey and then became Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction in Scarsdale, New York. Paul’s insight on managing educational change was informed by his own passion for “teaching the news.”

From these leaders, I discovered how important it is for educational leaders to listen well, take strategic risks, build meaningful relationships, see the big picture, work the system, and hold on to your own passions – even in balancing all the many challenges of management and administration. Leaders need the same kind of intellectual curiosity, flexibility and openness to new ideas that should drive the entire educational enterprise.

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Building Bridges and Identifying Distinctions

4 Sep

I’ve been trying to build bridges between digital literacy and media literacy for a bit of time Building Bridgesnow because the sea change that’s resulted from the rise of the Internet helps magnify the power of the key concepts of media literacy. It’s also important to identify what’s distinctive about digital literacy and media literacy in relation to the broader conceptualization of technology in education. As New York Times reporter Matt Richtel ably demonstrates in “In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores” (Sept 3), the deep investments being made in K-12 educational technology may or may not help raise test scores. But one question in his report looms large for me: does technology in education substitute student engagement for the more fundamental development of critical thinking and communication skills?

In Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action, a white paper I developed for the Aspen Institute under the auspices of the Knight Foundation, I make a point of distinguishing between mere technology usage and the more complex and holistic competencies of digital and media literacy (access, analyze, compose, reflect and act), offering a framework that promotes intellectual curiosity, critical thinking and communication skills. As I see it, digital and media literacy is rooted in a belief that instructional practices that address the confluence of popular culture, mass media, the Internet and digital tools for information-gathering and creative expression cultivate the intellectual curiosity, literacy competencies and critical thinking skills that enable people to become lifelong learners.

Today, it seems, those of us in education are not talking enough about intellectual curiosity: instead, we’re talking mostly about using tools for student engagement. And more than ever, the focus seems to be on the tools. Search tools, widgets, social media apps and collection tools all offer new possibilities for teaching and learning. Philanthropies like the McArthur Foundation and the Knight Foundation are spending enormous sums on developing new digital learning tools just as school districts are spending economic stimulus billions on new data projectors and digital white boards.  Of course, as a learner myself, I like using new tools myself, to be honest. I enjoy the opportunity to explore the blogosphere with online search tools like Now Relevant. In my own creative work and with my students, I also use blogs, wikis and screencasting tools like Jing.

But for those of us interested in supporting students’ digital and media literacy competencies, we can get resentful of all the focus on the tools (and not on the instructional practices or the big conceptual ideas that enable the tools to be used wisely and well). Every week, it seems, there’s a new tool to explore. For example, Mozilla offers a suite of tools (www.hackasaurus.com) that offer simple tools that help youth play with online digital code by remixing their favorite web sites. It’s possible that such playful work builds a deep understanding of the constructed nature of online media and promotes a sense of oneself as an author. But it may also just reinforce the “gee-whiz” gadgetry ethos that’s pervasive in our culture today.

That’s why I like to examine the work of ordinary classroom teachers who integrate digital and media literacy into the curriculum in ways that are not dependent on heavy access to computers, those who are not generally working in a one-to-one laptop classroom. It’s all about making connections between the classroom and the living room, between school culture and the “real world.”

High school history and English teachers who use popular culture to promote critical thinking skills seem particularly ready to adjust to the unpredictability that can result when students get to articulate their own ideas and values. When students get to dig into some of the pleasures, paradoxes and contradictions at work in popular culture, they learn more about themselves, their values and their society. With support from a skillful teacher, students can make connections between the present and the past. This process nurtures intellectual curiosity, which occurs when students use what they already know to generate their own questions, exploring the gap between what they think they know and the vastness of the still unknown.

As Matt Richtel ably demonstrates, the deep investments being made in K-12 technology may not support the development of students’ knowledge and skills when they substitute student engagement for the more fundamental development of reading comprehension, reasoning and critical thinking skills. Those of us who work with college students recognize the problem immediately as we discover the difficulty many students experience when they’re asked to summarize what they’ve heard, read or viewed.

But while technology usage alone won’t rectify the problem, neither will a return to traditional teaching methods. In Digital and Media Literacy: Connecting Culture and Classroom, I show how these practices don’t require technology at all—but they do depend on a skillful teacher who creates a learning environment where genuine and robust dialogue between students and teacher can occur.

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Amy Jussel is Amazing

29 Jul

Just fresh from a conversation with the amazing Amy Jussel, my head is spinning with ideas. The feeling reminds me of my graduate student days when I’d reel from the thrill rush of being around smart people who are good at exploring and rapidly juxtaposing ideas to examine the connections between them. Amy is the founder of Shaping Youth, one of the best blogs out there about the media and marketing’s influence on kids.

As I explain in my new book, Digital and Media Literacy: Connecting Culture and Classroom, Amy offers us a moral compass by celebrating media that honors children and respects families while simultaneously offering her powerful critique of all manner of problematic media content, marketing gamesmanship and those PR spin games that take advantage of children or exploit young people. She has written about the sexploitation of children to sell swimsuits, Rhianna’s revenge fantasy videos, and Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood’s campaign against sponsored curriculum materials created by the American Coal Foundation.

Amy asked me to give a blow-by-blow commentary on the highlights of the NAMLE conference, and of course, I enjoyed re-reading the program again to talk about the many amazing topics and programs that were featured at the conference. One of the best features of the conference is the confluence of classroom teachers, educational practitioners, scholars, media professionals and young people – the conference features people who are implementing and putting ideas into action, not just pontificating. Because she embodies this ideal as an activist herself, I’m going to try to make sure that Amy Jussel comes to the 2013 National Media Literacy Education Conference in Los Angeles to share her special brand of advocacy and independent voice on behalf of children and young people.

Talking with her on the phone, I can’t help but think about how inspiring she would be on the college circuit, offering her insight on marketing and kids and media and technology to undergraduates in a Jean-Kilbourne-like program. But she says she’s a writer/producer more than a performer. When you read the blog, it’s evident that she’s a natural researcher, too. Amy doesn’t do ANYTHING in a one-over lightly fashion, which is why she has such a vast audience and influence as a blogger. Her posts are rich with information and ideas and connections and her clever writing, compelling prose and amazing hyperlinks all make for great online reading!

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Reflections on NAMLE 2011 in Philadelphia

26 Jul

What a whirlwind it’s been here in Philadelphia at the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) conference. This bi-annual event brings together established scholars and practitioners with newcomers to the field. The conference is a vital way for discovering new ideas and new approaches to media literacy education and strengthening our social bonds with people who share this crazy passion.

For months, of course, we’ve been anticipating the event, with many current and former Labsters actively involved as members of the Local Committee and as presenters, exhibitors and volunteers. The event opened with a fantastic evening program that included a video tribute to the 10th anniversary of the organization and a live band, with dancing to The Sound of Philadelphia. Thanks to Sherri Hope Culver, Deb Parker and Vanessa Domine for pulling off this great conference!

Another highlight of the conference was learning more about the work of Wen Xu and her colleague Jie Zhang, faculty at the Communication University of Beijing, who have, in only two years, developed an extraordinary approach to teacher education. They have been using a multi-faceted and developmentally sensitive plan, offering 19 staff development programs reaching nearly 2,000 teachers and developing a wide variety of lesson plans and curriculum materials for elementary educators. Several Chinese universities are now working to develop materials and offer teacher education programs. How fortunate I am to have a visiting scholar, Haixia He, from Ningxia University, who is working at the Media Education Lab this year studying how to incorporate media literacy into ESL programs in China.

Another highlight was the opportunity to meet with scholars and practitioners interested in sharing their work through the Journal of Media Literacy Education. As co-editors, Amy Peterson Jensen, Paul Mihailidis and I hosted brainstorming sessions to help more than 30 new scholars and teachers in the process of developing manuscripts for publication.

For me, the greatest part of the conference was getting compliments about the work of current and former Temple students and members of the Media Education Lab, including David Cooper Moore, John Landis, Mike RobbGrieco, Kelly Mendoza, Tina Peterson, Laura Stevenson, Jonathan Friesem, Angela Cirucci, Kate Spiller, Emily Bailin, Hans Schmidt, Laura Deutsch, Jiwon Yoon, Henry Cohn-Geltner, Nuala Cabral and Tanya Jackson, and my daughter, Rachel Hobbs. Along with former visiting scholars Wen Xu, Silke Grafe and Hans Martens and undergraduates Kelly Reed, Hephsie Loeb, Ben Warren, and Molly Schlesinger, we made a good showing in the media literacy education universe.

I’m already missing NAMLE friends and colleagues and can’t wait for the reunion in 2013 Los Angeles!

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Summer School for Media Education in Corvara Italy

14 Jul

Lucky me – I was invited to participate in the Summer School in Media Education in Italy! What a pleasure it is to join my Italian media literacy friends for this important program of professional development. And of course, the Italians have always been key players in the international media literacy community. When I met Roberto Gianatelli at a conference in Toronto the late 1980s, he was beginning to plan a gathering of Italian media educators at about the same time I was trying to develop a teacher education summer program at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

He first hosted the first Summer School in Media Education in the summer of 1991 at the lovely resort town of Corvara in Badia, high in the Tyrolean Alps of Northern Italy, surrounded by the majestic Dolomite Mountains. Every year, this group meets in Corvara for an annual gathering and it’s easy to sense the vitality and depth of collegial relationships that have developed as a result of this tradition.

I have always felt a special kinship to Roberto and the diverse community of Italian media educators, who have followed a course quite parallel to that of the American media literacy movement, developing a professional membership organization for media and communication in education, MED, and recently launching a journal for scholars and practitioners, Media Education: Studi, Richerche, Buone Pratiche.

Now the Summer School in Media Education is celebrating its 20th anniversary July 11 – 17, 2011, with more than 60 educators from across the nation gathering for a rich program of professional development, networking and sharing. Co-directed by Gianna Cappello, Roberto Gianatelli and Alberto Parola and coordinated by Luciano Di Mele, this program offers a combination of lectures, discussion groups, methodological seminars, and production workshops for media professionals and educators working in primary, elementary, secondary and out-of-school settings.

Peccato non parlo bene italiano, but thanks to my dear friend and colleague Damiano Felini, I can make some sense of the program. Because this year’s Summer School theme focuses on the cinema, many of the production workshops explore the use of film in the context of media literacy education. For example, in a session on videogames and cinema led by Max Andreoletti and Anna Ragosta, participants explored the videogame, “The Movies,” which is a Sims-style simulation game where you get to control a movie studio and produce short films. Participants discussed various possibilities for using this software with children.

In a session on digital storytelling led by Alessia Rosa and Isabella Bruni, participants created short films exploring the representation of teachers in the movies and movies that made a difference in their lives. One group of educators explored the power of the 1964 film “Mary Poppins,” with each team member writing reflectively about a song or story element of the film with special personal significance to them. Another group, led by Filippo Ceretti, learned strategies of film analysis by selecting film stills from a short film and re-creating them to better understand the constructedness of visual imagery. It’s a real thrill to share my passion for media literacy with this talented group of educators!

You can read my keynote speech here.Hobbs speech 7.17.11

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