This document summarizes research on developing a model of learning progression for media literacy education. The research was conducted over three years across multiple schools, looking at how students' media literacy skills progress from years 2 through 11. Key findings include identifying gaps between teachers' and students' media cultures, exploring how representations are taught, and examining students' understanding of media concepts like language, audiences, and celebrities at different ages. Classroom examples show how topics can be approached in age-appropriate ways to foster conceptual learning.
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Media lit intro and conclusion
1. Media Literacy: Towards a Model of Learning Progression Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, 2009-2011 David Buckingham, Andrew Burn, Becky Parry, Mandy Powell Centre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media Institute of Education, University of London
Our first set of activities focused on media language and moving image. There was diversity across the age groups in terms of pedagogy and focus. I present here what I hope are some useful snapshots of data and our emerging analysis.
A focus on media language provides children with sets of questions about texts as described above. Having decided to focus on moving image we then also decided to have a particular focus on how fear is created in film. We hoped this would link well with ideas about audience and affect.
In relation to studying film – we wanted to move away from a study of genre, forms and conventions. So not horror (which we found wasn ’t universally liked by yp too). But addressing broader questions of film language – made specific by a focus on how are fear, suspense and tension created in film.
We feel that interpreting the signs which make up comic strips, TV shows or computer games should not be seen as an academic code-cracking exercise. Critical to connect with the social and cultural context. Critical to acknowledge the understandings children bring to new texts or to production tasks based on their exp as readers of film.
Our unit of work was informed by this Vygotskian model of learning – key aim to value children ’s existing understandings but also to extend and challenge these. We saw what we are beginning to describe as shuttling between these – rather than linear progression, highlighting the need for recursive learning opportunities.
We considered carefully how best to enable children to begin to share their existing understandings of media language. This was often a starting point, but was equally important to foreground throughout the process. Online message board was v good at ensuring students talked to each other (not just to the teacher).
Interestingly, this issue of the visibility of the monster was found in all the year groups ( prompts consideration of what the audience knows and what is withheld.)
So in year 2 we also have consideration of how much of the ‘monster’ should be displayed and how much held back from the audience. There was a split in this class from those who displayed the monster vividly and those who hid the monster behind a door or window or under the bed. Some of them were also able to verbally articulate their ideas about this issue. The issue of the visibility of the monster cropped up in production too.
Across the sites we took what could be described as an ‘orthodox’ approach to teaching media language. Vast range of texts included. I am going to focus on some storyboarding activities because they challenge previous data about storyboarding and proved to be a useful scaffold – encouraging attention to different aspects / modes of film.
Storyboarding tangibly improved the attention to detail the children paid to specific uses of media language. EG In the Batman activity the students didn ’t draw but wrote notes on a storyboard print out. In each the role of the teacher – asking why re creative choices? Was critical.
In drawings some children are better able to demonstrate what they are paying attention to and this is more than observation – here meaning is being constructed / understanding demonstrated.
The media language the children had been taught was fairly simple (MS,CU, LS) and not sufficient to describe the clip they were drawing. Indicates a need to introduce vocabulary ‘just in time’.
However, this focus on sound and camera movement enabled one Y4 boy to extend his understanding. He explores the position of the character in relation to the camera movement and audience expectations of scary films. The role of the teacher, is to enter into a dialogue which extends the discussion from an observation towards a connection with social and cultural meaning.
In this storyboard activity the children were storyboarding an imagined second sequence to the film Lucky Dip. They use the sign combinations they have observed in the film but combine them in new ways to new effects.
Far from being ‘ unproductive busy work’ or demonstrating children draw everything in mid shot and don’t pay attention to composition – this data demonstrates that taught in a connected way, very young children can display complex understandings not just of the individual signs and their arrangement but the meanings they express.
A vast array of additional issues were raised by the production work the children undertook which include some questions about the role of cc, play, celebration, process over product which we are still examining. Might have time to say more about in discussion.
In year 2 in site (B) the teacher enabled the students to step into the shoes of the director. This connected their directorial choices re shot composition, gesture, light to their imagined audience.
In site A the teacher wanted to move away from some of the more orthodox approaches such as using narrative structure theory. He also wanted the students to learn to theorise, rather than passively accept a taught theory.
The data demonstrates students using and testing out the theory and combining this with their opinions based on their experiences as readers of texts / players of games. The data also demonstrates students stretching the theory, asking for new adaptations of it.
making connections
The final unit focused on the concept of Audiences and I am planning to share work from the Y3 class from one site.
Elizabeth Bird describes the notion of Audience as problematic, ever changing and fluid.
Rather than try to resolve or simplify some of the complexity of the concept – it seemed to us to be important to directly address it – even with the youngest children.
Rather than undertaking exercises which ask students to target ‘ stereotyped ’ audiences – we aimed to enable children to engage with real audiences in a reflexive way – i.e. raising questions about research methods and the status of knowledge.
The Y2 teacher started this unit by summing up the ideas about audiences that the children had expressed in the earlier units. He puts it to them that ‘they’ said all people would be scared of their movies. By doing so he invites them to question if they still think this by the end of the unit.
This data is an example of this summing up. AS confronts them with their own statement that everyone would feel the same about their horror films – scared and shows them how their ideas about audience developed.
I believe that here he is asking them a very difficult question. He then shows clips from EE, Ben 10, Loose Women asking the children to consider who in the room would like / watch them (parents and children). This takes them into a discussion linking genre and audience.
He develops this link between genre and audience and here he models movement between the personal and then to wider generalisations .
Our first activity aimed to enable interrogation of assumptions.
We invited discussion of a set of statements. The statements were intended not to provoke debate about the actual issues (although that ’ s how they got used in some contexts) but more to focus on the epistemological/theoretical questions – i.e. how would we know? what evidence would we need to make a judgment about this? It was important for teachers to allow some airing of opinion and personal experience here, but also to question gently some assumptions. For example, often children are very censorious about media for children younger than themselves. AS approached this by having parents invited in to share the discussion. Interestingly, initially the parents took up the stance of the negative statements. However, Alex challenged their assumptions by asking them about the games they play. He was also very candid about his own media preferences and these were not at a great distance from the children ’ s or the parents (there was lots of common ground.) As a result the parents ’ responses began to shift. They began to share their media pleasures and this allowed the groups to question the assumptions. They also moved from talking about ‘ other ’ people to including their own experiences.
Throughout AS uses a range of strategies to challenge and interrogate – note the upwards inflection / not quite rhetorical. So when one group decides girls are growing up too fast because of media influences he asks the girls in the class to put their hand up if they are too young to be wearing lip gloss. This technique allows them to see that they are making assumptions about ‘others’ whilst seeing themselves as impervious to influence. Needless to say no hands went up. The constant ‘do they?’ pushes the children to find evidence for their claims - but also to consider how secure they are with the idea they have suggested.
The children and parents were asked to consider the adv and disadv of fairly traditional research methods and how these might be used to research the statements.
AS introduces each method by making connections with things the children have already encountered. For example he explains that he keeps a research diary but doesn ’t always remember to fill it in. He points out I’m researching by being in the room, observing. He points out that they all completed a questionnaire. In this example he makes a connection between a child ’s experience and content analysis.
Again AS connects the children ’s suggestions with methods that have been used in order to see possible difficulties.
The children then conduct real research. They are told that this will help them to plan a media product for an audience later on. Questions are provided as a scaffold but they are also able to devise their own. The desk researchers clearly dispute some of the assumptions raised in earlier discussions.
He uses the parents present to make audiences concrete. They are also discerning that aspects of audience are important. Throughout this process AS insists that the children don ’t tell him what they think, but that they explain what the data tells them.
They don ’t only capture data they analyse it. Although they have been given a set of questions they come up with their own. For example ‘do you have a dog? Fave colour / food – and this data does prove useful to them. Collectively they listed a set of things that adults might want from a programme and another set for children and also prioriitised or ranked these criteria.
The final tasks were to devise health promotion campaign and a replacement for The Simpsons – using the data they had about adult and child audiences. In the feedback everyone had to base their comments on their research data – not personal opinions. They had to refer back to the list and say how it would appeal to adults / children. Individuals in the room were asked to comment – again using the data. The children ’s ideas in The Simpsons activity had become firmly rooted in their own pleasures and so they found themselves defending their decisions against the criteria. In this example the children had devised a storyline based on a house where some children lived. The children were naughty and this meant they were in conflict with a set of adults. This prompted an interesting debate about the way children’s programmes include content for both children and parents.
Still looking at the data but the year three data emphasises the importance of appropriate pedagogy which connects with the children ’s experiences in order to grapple with complexity and challenging ideas. Not to be afraid of ambiguity and provisionality even with very young children. What implications does this have for work with older students?
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