Media Literacy II

This sections readings address mediated communication, the production and consumption of messages through technologies of various sorts.  The type of communication under discussion includes everything except face-to-face communication.  I see two broad themes in this section's readings: 1) media provides a method of accessing information in the environment in the absence of direct experience, and 2) media technologies shape the interaction between human beings and their environment.

Absence of Direct Experience

Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion, published in 1922, provides an earlier take on what I believe are similar issues that arise in thinking about media and media literacy today.  Lippmann's work takes up the use of media in the early 20th Century and particularly in the wake of World War I.  He wrote in Public Opinion that the "real environment is altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance."  The only way to deal with the "variety" and "permutations and combinations" is to "reconstruct" the environment "on a simpler model" (Lippmann, 1997, p. 11).  Lippmann uses the word stereotype to identify the tool human beings use to manage a complex environment in the absence of direct experience.  The use of stereotypes is matter of economy.  Lippmann writes that "modern life is hurried and multifarious, above all physical distance separates men who are often in vital contact with each other ... There is neither time nor opportunity for direct acquaintance."  So human beings notice a trait marking a "well known type, and fill in the rest of the picture by means of the stereotypes we carry in our heads" (Lippmann, 1997, p. 59).

I noted in another piece that the "capitalist mode of production for profit has necessitated (and facilitated) greater interdependence among a wider range of people in terms of breadth, i.e. geographic extent, and depth, i.e. increase points of interaction.  The result of this socio-economic integration is an extended reach of unintended consequences of human action and an increased difficulty on the part of individuals in recognizing the source of their personal 'troubles.'"  I see this as a structural issue, a social issue, as opposed to a cultural issue.  The issue here is a change in objective conditions as opposed to interpretations of what those changes mean.

Like Lippmann, who saw stereotypes, generalizations, etc. as constituting a pseudo-environment to which people react, Gee (2012) sees ideology and theory as methods of making sense of a complex environment.  Though Gee is not clear on this point, I think he sees a difference between generalizations and theory.  He defines theory as a "set of generalizations about an area ... in terms of which descriptions of phenomena in that area can be couched and explanations can be offered" (p. 13).  So theory might best be considered as organized generalizations.  Generalizations and theories about the world are shaped, Gee says, by human interaction with the social and physical environment.  Jan et. al. (2011) note a number of significant factors shaping socialization, and I would add generalizations as well.  These include family, schools, economic background, friends and associations, among other factors (p. 198).

Gee (2012) draws a useful distinction between tacit and explicit theories.  When generalizations and theories are made apparent, they can becomes objects of inquiry, they become factors in evaluating claims (p. 13).  Gee further suggests we think about tacit and explicit theories as existing along a continuum (p. 16).

Media Technologies, Extensions of Man (and Woman)

Sourbati (2009) makes a useful distinction between the analogue media moment and the digital media moment.  The analogue moment was about providing universal service, in the form of physical access to mass media technologies.  In the digital moment, however, "there is not a straightforward correspondence between access to a network and the ability to use a service."  On one hand, there is an expanded array of services provided by the "transmission infrastructure."  Additionally, access to the technology does not equate with being able to use the services provided (p. 249).  Sourbati argues, therefore, for the importance of teaching media literacy skills in the local context, relying on local resources, e.g. volunteers to assist users.

Traditionally, when when we think about media, we think of mass media forms such as newspapers, radio or television broadcasting, movies.  Something that struck me this week was that various social media forms - Twitter, Facebook, etc. - should perhaps also be considered mass media forms that allow a person to communicate a message to a large amount of people.  Just as newsreels and radio provided war news to the home front during World War II, Twitter and YouTube are being used by protestors and revolutionaries in the Middle East to communicate information to people around the world.

Braman's (2009) discussion about the "convergence of communication styles" adds something useful to our discussion.  Braman notes that media have, in the past, been distinguished by the "number of message receivers," the "nature of interactivity," and the "difference between synchronicity and asynchronicity" (p. 57).  Traditional broadcast mediums, she says, are characterized by one sender with many receivers and no direct interactivity and are experiences synchronously "by its entire audience."  She contrasts this was telephony and "personal letter writing."  Braman says that the Internet "blends communication styles in all three dimensions" (p. 59).

I appreciated the definition of media literacy provided by the United Kingdom's Office of Communications, cited in Sourbati (2009): "the ability to access, understand and create communications in a variety of contexts" (p. 248).  However, I think this definition is insufficient for determining the relationship between media literacy and information literacy.  Is media literacy integrated into our current working definition of information literacy?  When we speak about media literacy, are we talking more about the instrumental side of the literacy equation?  What is the relationships between communication and information?  Are all messages information?

Braman, S. (2009). Change of state: Information, policy, and power. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Gee, J. P. (2012). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideologies in discourses (4th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Jan, M. et. al. (2011). Public opinion & political socialization through the lens of media. European Journal of Scientific Research, 55 (2), p. 196-206.

Lippmann, W. (1997). Public opinion. New York, NY: Free Press. 

Sourbati, M. (2009). Media literacy and universal access in Europe. The Information Society, 25, p. 248-254.

Media Literacy I

This segment's readings take up the impact of technologies that enable human beings to engage their environment, particularly how these technologies shape how information, in the form of messages, is received and processed.

Protectionist vs. Empowerment Perspectives

Hobbs (2011) outlines two approaches to media literacy.  Protectionist approaches define media literacy "in relation to the goal of reducing negative effects of exposure to mass media."  Empowerment perspectives, on the other hand, approach media literacy as a way of making individual more deliberate consumers and producers of media (p. 422).  Protectionist approaches see audiences as victims, and empowerment approaches see audiences as active participants in the making of meaning (Hobbs, 2011, p. 424).  In Hobbs' (2011) view, the educational goal of media literacy, from empowerment perspectives, is critical autonomy on the part of media consumers and producers.  She specifically mentions the techniques of close reading and media production in advancing the educational goal of media literacy (p. 426).

Hobbs (2011) places Potter (2010) in the category of protectionists who primarily view media literacy as an "antidote to mass media exposure" and "blinded inadvertently to the wider range of aims of media literacy education (Hobbs, 2011, p. 421).  I think Hobbs (2011) is a little unfair to Potter (2010), who notes a general consensus that the "purpose of becoming media literate is to gain greater control over influences in one's life, particularly the constant influence from the mass media" (p. 681).  A number of the definitions Potter (2010) offers in his list of "Sampling Definitions of Media Literacy" highlight the role of audiences in actively creating meaning from images generated - or accessed? - through mass media devices (p. 676).

Something that we (or I) need to give more attention to is thinking out the difference between media literacy and digital literacy, both terms that Hobbs (2011) uses in her piece.  However, I do not see where she defines digital literacy.  In my novice mind, I could see how those concerned with digital literacy, focusing on digital technologies that enable users greater opportunity to be producers of content, could more easily see active audiences engaged in the production of meaning.  Let me be clear, I think human beings are always engaged in the activity of making meaning.  They are not always engaged in the activity of producing content, but digital technologies have made this production of content much easier for a wider range of people.  It is a historical phenomenon.  Media literacy seems more tied to dealing with mass media, e.g. radio, movies, television, etc.  These are medium that flow in one direction; there is not a feedback loop, necessarily.  Radio is broadcast out to thousands, and these individual thousands do not broadcast back.  Focusing on mass media could lead one to neglect the ways audiences do push back against the messages they receive.  The cultural studies scholarship of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s went a long way in advancing our understanding of how audiences engage with mass media, highlighting the power these audiences have in constructing the meaning of, or interpreting, the messages they receive.  These cultural studies scholars were working in response to media scholars of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s who recognized the potential of mass media for controlling audiences, for shaping opinions, e.g. propaganda, advertisements, etc.

Extensions of Man (and Woman)

The potential digital technologies hold for enabling more individuals to become producers of content - and the information and communication technologies that support such production - makes a nice segue to a discussion of McLuhan (1994), who examines various technologies - media - as methods of interfacing with the environment.  Media, in the context of McLuhan (1994), does not refer to content but rather to the technologies that "extend" human beings into their environment.

I found Understanding Media a difficult book, and I'm still working out the main ideas.  McLuhan's thesis does come early in the book.  The first technology McLuhan takes up is literacy, which he writes provided human beings with the "power to act without reacting,"  Literacy - and the machine age technologies - fragmented human beings and allowed them to carry out the "most dangerous social operations with complete detachment."  However, in the electric age, in the age of automation, technologies have extended human beings to such an extent that the "whole of mankind" is incorporated, and therefore human beings "necessarily participate, in depth, in the consequences of every action" (McLuhan, 1994, p. 4).  This has ushered in an "Age of Anxiety," born of an "electric implosion that compels commitment and participation" (McLuhan, 1994, p. 5).  A cultural lag exists, however.  McLuhan (1994) writes, "we continue to think in the old, fragmented space and time patterns of the pre-electric age" (p. 4). 

There do appear to be at least three pieces to McLuhan's discussion:

1) Technologies - used in a very liberal sense to include the written word - are tools / methods by which human beings "extend" their mastery of their environment, both in terms of scope, e.g. geographic distance, time, etc., but also in terms of control.

2) Technologies shape or impact the interaction between human beings and their environment, e.g. "hot" and "cold" technologies.

3) There is a historical argument here as well.  At some point, the technologies shifted from providing a fragmentation and "explosion" to integration and "implosion."  Automation, electric technologies mark the shift.

Right?  So there is this theoretical piece about what technologies do, an empirical component that deals with experiences of environment via particular technologies, and this historical piece.

Hobbs, L. (2011). The state of media literacy: A response to Potter. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 55 (3), p. 419-430. 

McLuhan, M. (1994). Understanding media: The extensions of man. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. (Original work published 1964)

Potter, J. W. (2010). The state of media literacy. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 54 (4), p. 675-696.