beyond media literacy: by colin scheyen...
TRANSCRIPT
BEYOND MEDIA LITERACY: NEW PARADIGMS IN MEDIA EDUCATION
By
COLIN SCHEYEN
Integrated Studies Project
submitted to Dr. Robert Runte
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts – Integrated Studies
Athabasca, Alberta
November, 2013
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Abstract
This article provides a framework for educators, community workers and
activists to integrate multimedia projects into their work with young people. It
contends that our current media literacy practices do not adequately provide
young people with the tools to effectively engage with multimedia to challenge
many of the hegemonic narratives that are perpetuated by corporate and
governmental interests. Instead, this framework integrates creative
collaboration and critical pedagogical methods to encourage young people to
use multimedia projects to instigate positive change in their lives and their
communities. Most importantly, this framework encourages adults and young
people to explore their media literacy together to shift the group’s focus from
passive consumption of media content to active creation.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 4
WHY YOUTH? WHY MEDIA? 5
YOUTH AND MEDIA 7
MEDIA LITERACY TODAY 10
THE CONSUMER/PRODUCER SPECTRUM 15
CREATIVE COLLABORATION 18
INTEGRATING MEDIA 26 CASE STUDY 1: I KNOW I CAN 27 CASE STUDY 2: IS IT WORTH IT? 29
SUGGESTED PROJECTS 32 RESOURCES 36
WORKS CITED 38
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Introduction In 2012, I was invited to a special gala that was hosted by one of the most
prestigious media institutions in Canada. This event connected some of Toronto’s best
indie filmmakers, graphic artists, video game designers, and educators to create
innovative platforms to teach media literacy to young people. After some casual mingling
over catered food and expensive drinks I noticed that even though this project focused on
engaging youth with new digital platforms, not one adult other than myself had thought
that it was important to actually involve young people in the project. In fact, one of the
young men that I had brought with me felt so out of place with the group that he had to
ask the facilitator “are kids allowed to be here too?” The very fact that this young man
had to ask if he was allowed to be involved in a project that he probably understood
better than anyone else in the room demonstrated to me that something was clearly wrong
here. Perhaps this young man may not have had the same technical knowledge as some of
his adult peers, but he was able to bring a unique youth perspective to the table and
informed his teammates on current trends and gaps in media literacy. By simply giving
this young man the chance to work with the adults in the room, he eventually went on to
play an instrumental role in the creation of an innovative peer-based learning tool that
could be used in collaboration with current elementary and high school curriculums.
Stories like this are a common occurrence when talking about media literary and
young people. As adults and educators we often see ourselves as the keepers and
suppliers of knowledge and forget that young men and women often have just as much to
teach us. When we deny young people the right to partner with us to explore and navigate
the world we lose out on the opportunity to have meaningful and relevant discussions that
can result in important changes to our communities. Furthermore, when we impose our
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own vision of appropriate and inappropriate uses of multimedia on young people we too
lose out on the opportunity to be better educators, citizens, producers, and consumers of
media.
This handbook is for teachers, community workers, activists and anyone else
interested in breaking away from the antiquated models of media literacy that are often
promoted in curriculums across Canada and the United States. The traditional model of
media literacy marginalizes young people as merely consumers rather than producers of
media and encourages them to only consume the kind of content that adults and
corporations see as appropriate. As a result, our current understanding of media literacy
is no longer relevant to our increasingly connected world. Educators need to be
responsive to these changes to better equip ourselves and young people with the skills
needed to navigate new and emergent platforms. In short, we cannot tell young people
how to be media literate. I encourage students and teachers to explore their literacy
together to challenge one another to move beyond being merely passive consumers of
media. Instead, true media literacy requires adults and young people to be honest with
themselves and understand that all of us both consume and produce content at different
times. The key, however, is to shift our thinking away from our predominant culture of
media consumption and challenge ourselves to create content that expresses our unique
perspectives of the world around us.
Why Youth? Why Media? It is no secret that young men and women have a long history of successfully
adopting diverse mediums to suit their own unique circumstances. Whether it is film,
music, literature, or graphic arts, young people have created some of our most important
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cultural works that have communicated the ideas and values of many past generations. As
a youth I was always fascinated with how the Punk and Hip Hop sub-cultures were able
to accurately explore and express some of the serious challenges that inner-city youth
were facing at that time. Eventually these movements exploded into hundreds of creative
scenes around the world that allow youth to connect with one another and share ideas.
Both of these movements have taught me that young people do not need to be taught to
be media literate; they only need to be provided with an opportunity to explore, analyze,
break it down, rip it up and start again.
Most importantly, both of these movements embraced a do it yourself (DIY)
mentality that empowered young people to make do with the scarce resources around
them to produce something meaningful. B-Boys and B-girls, for example, used cardboard
boxes because they couldn’t afford floor mats; graffiti artists replaced canvas and brushes
with spray cans and city walls; punks turned everyday objects like safety pins and patches
into fashion accessories that communicated their unique perspectives. Neither movement
waited for government funding or school resources before they did this; they simply
created something out of nothing by interacting with the world around them. As teachers
and community workers we can learn a lot from young people by realizing that we do not
need expensive budgets to develop multimedia programs that will engage young people.
Instead, we only have to engage in meaningful activities where youth are given sufficient
freedom to examine, discuss and deconstruct the world around them.
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True Story: While working as a teacher in Queens, New York I came to know R, one of the most extraordinary rappers and freestylers I have ever met. R had all the talent in the world with no money to record at a studio. In the 12 months that I knew R, he was able to put together an entire mixtape of great songs he recorded by beatboxing into an old Nokia phone and then playing that back while he rapped into his Blackberry. It didn’t matter that the recording quality was terrible because his skill set was so obvious. By using the tools around him he was able to create his own private recording studio.
After listening to and learning from young men and women throughout my career
and education I have come to realize that the only rule of media literacy is that there are
no rules. There are no twelve-step programs that will effectively engage youth and teach
them to be better consumers or producers of media content. There is no failsafe formula
that will make young people more aware of hidden messages in advertising or able to
safely navigate social media in a responsible manner. Instead, this handbook will attempt
to outline a set of guiding principles that are deeply rooted in the philosophies of critical
pedagogy and youth engagement and are directly inspired by the ways in which I have
seen young men and women use various mediums to suit their own unique needs. While I
have found that these principles are most engaging for youth who belong to marginalized
communities, they could be very easily applied to any demographic, young or old, who
feel underrepresented by the majority of corporate media networks.
Youth and Media “All media exists to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.” Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media The most important thing to remember when using multimedia to engage young
people is to recognize that all of us are immersed within an ocean of media. These
messages have fundamentally structured the ways in which we see the world. Advertising
campaigns emphasize the importance of consumerism; government messages reinforce
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and validate political ideologies; film and television shows highlight specific lifestyles
and narrative structures; and commercial radio stations play songs that fit a narrowly
defined format of appropriate and inappropriate content and song structure. These
messages are inescapable in modern society and influence adults just as much as young
people. How can we break these messages down and navigate this vast ocean of
influence? How can we support young men and women to be aware of these influences
and work with them to develop their own voice? Is it even possible?
To do this we need to have a basic understanding of how competing stakeholders
such as governments and corporations control different aspects of media in our society. It
is important to note that all media does not operate within a vacuum, but rather is
contingent upon the economic, political and social factors of our society. The more
democratic and free a society is, the greater authority its citizens will have in influencing
and participating in the broadcasting and distribution of content. However, the more
hierarchical a society is, the more discriminatory and polarizing its media will be. Henry
Giroux explains that consumerism is the principle means of engagement for young
people. This influence, he contends, has drastically limited our
capacity for imagining… public spheres and democratic cultures that might offer the skills, knowledge, and values necessary to engage human suffering, define responsible public action as an enabling quality, and provide public forums, spaces, and events where the occupants of different residential areas [can] challenge one another, talk, quarrel, argue or agree, lifting their private problems to the level of public issues and make public issues into matters of private concerns. (64)
The majority of mainstream media networks do not aim to engage and challenge citizens
in critical dialogue and democratic participation, but rather attempts to turn complex
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issues into one-dimensional sound bites that will sell newspapers and increase viewership
rather than facilitate any democratic participation.
More importantly, these sound bites are not randomly generated by a machine or
even based upon hard facts, but rather are constructed out of highly hegemonic narratives
that have been used by the news media for decades and have proven to increase
viewership and sell advertising space. Many of these narratives are often based upon
racist, sexist, ageist, classist, and religious profiles that existed well before the news story
was ever broadcast and will continue to be found in the mainstream media until much
larger systemic changes are made.
This issue has serious implications for young men and women. When one turns on
a television, for example, one can find countless examples of how young men and
women’s bodies have been used to sell products and exploit gender stereotypes. Young
men are often portrayed as ambivalent, dangerous and hyper-maculated while young
women are fair skinned, submissive, and overtly feminine. If we hear any perspectives
from young men and women at all, they are rarely unique or relevant to lives of real
young people. Instead, they are nameless bodies that are seen and not heard and are used
to perpetuate stereotypes far more than break them.
Most tragically of all, when young men and women see these messages day in and
day out they begin to internalize them and accept these false consciousnesses as absolute
truth. Some accept lighter skin as the benchmark for beauty, some accept jingoistic
rhetoric that promotes hegemonic interests, and others construct worldviews based upon a
narrow and biased perspective of current events. Whatever the message, it is not enough
for young people to only learn how to read, understand and evaluate these messages.
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They need to engage with and deconstruct them so that they can begin to unveil their
hidden assumptions and then use this knowledge to begin to recognize their own position
in the world.
While these issues are relevant to the lives of all young people to some degree,
marginalized youth have a particularly unique position in the media. A recent study
concerning Canada’s major news networks found that over seventy percent of all articles
related to issues of youth justice focused on homicides that were committed by young
people in spite of the fact that they constituted merely 0.02 percent of all court cases
(McCormick 117). This clear discrepancy between what was reported and what actually
took place demonstrates that corporate media networks are selective with what they
choose to report. Furthermore, these narratives have played a significant role in
constructing the public’s false understandings of marginalized youth and marginalized
communities as a whole. Without sufficient opportunities to discuss, analyze, deconstruct
and respond to these oppressive narratives, many young men and women will continue to
submit to their roles as passive consumers. Therefore, it is imperative that we
consistently provide opportunities for young people to have meaningful engagements
with media content to answer back to these narratives and to construct new ones that are
based upon their real life experiences.
Media Literacy Today Media literacy is a loaded term. On the one hand most educators and community
workers agree that young men and women need to have a strong understanding of the
context of the messages that they encounter while playing videos game, MMORPGs,
watching TV, films, listening to music, reading eBooks, participating in social media
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websites, and the thousands of other activities that young people do with media on a daily
basis. However, problems arise once archaic models of media literacy are imposed upon
young people. Some adults, we shall call them the Protectors, see media literacy as a way
to shield young people from content that they believe to be inappropriate. In this sense,
young people are seen as potential victims from foul language, violence, and online
predators. People who subscribe to this vision see media literacy as a way to safeguard
young people from danger and see adults as having the skills, experience and expertise to
lead the way. While the intentions of this perspective may be in the right place, most of
these concerns are often rooted in the facilitator’s own ignorance or personal biases and
not within the youth’s current perspectives.
A second perspective of media literacy, which we will call the Critics, sees the
adult as the refined connoisseur who wants to bestow his or her own personal taste upon
young people. People who subscribe to the Critic vision of media literacy see content as
broken down into two distinct categories of high and low art and want to teach young
people to appreciate what they determine to be the best examples of their genres. Often
this entails listening to many of the teacher’s boring lectures on why these works are
important. By the end of this experience the students have not gained any skills or
expertise other than a better understanding of the personal biases of their teacher.
A third perspective of media literacy, which we shall call the Reader, sees content
as something that young people only consume. People who subscribe to this vision of
media literacy believe that content is something that is to be bought and viewed with a
critical eye. As a result they teach Media Literacy with a textbook approach by making
students memorize irrelevant and isolated facts that have very little to do with their own
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personal lives and interaction with multimedia. Students who are unfortunately taught by
Readers rarely get the opportunity to create anything because their facilitators have
become too attached to the idea that content is something that is only produced by media
networks for people to consume.
A fourth perspective of media literacy, which we shall call the generational gap,
presupposes that adults are too “out of touch” with current media trends to teach young
people how to use them. People who subscribe to this vision of media literacy do not
want to take the time to catch up on the latest technological trends and so stick to the
same technologies that they learned when they first became interested in multimedia.
More importantly, teachers who find themselves within the generational gap are often so
afraid of these new technologies and social media platforms that they deprive young
people the opportunity to teach these skills to them.
Finally, a fifth perspective of media literacy, which we shall call the tech guru,
stresses the importance of integrating the latest and greatest gadgets and devices into their
lessons. Even though there is nothing wrong with providing opportunities for young
people to test out and play with the latest technologies, people who subscribe to this
vision of media literacy often place too much emphasis on engaging with the device and
not enough importance on providing opportunities for the students to engage with one
another and their communities. By the end of the course, the youth may have learned how
to operate a wide variety of devices and software, but they have not learned more about
their communities, themselves, and their unique position in the world.
The reality is that when we were students and were learning how to be literate,
our teachers did not teach us only how to read. They taught us reading and writing at the
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same time to make us more proficient and versatile communicators. Media literacy
should be the same. We cannot teach young people only how to read content and expect
that is enough for them to succeed in our multimedia culture. Media literacy is the new
literacy of today and we must work with, rather than for, young people so that they are
sufficiently equipped to be literate consumers and producers in the twenty-first century.
Furthermore, true media literacy requires that we make peace with the fact that all of us,
young and old, consume and produce media at different times, but often our consumerist
culture encourages us to consume far more than we create. This is problematic because
mainstream media networks focus on profit margins and may not represent our
communities’ best interests.
Many of us have seen the Protectors, Critics, Readers, the Generational Gappers,
and the tech gurus imposed upon young people on countless occasions. Perhaps some of
you reading this even see parts of yourself in these perspectives. They are common
paradigms for adults to fit into because as teachers and youth workers we often take on
the responsibility of overseeing the lives and education of young people. The problem
with this, however, is that when we take on the role of the Protector, Critic, Reader,
Generational Gapper, or tech guru, we are often imposing our own vision of what young
people should be and how we believe they should interact and consume content. In fact,
we may actually be causing more harm than good by failing to empower young people
with the skills they need to effectively navigate the digital world around them.
As adults we need to come to terms with the fact that we just might be the
problem. Many of us may not be very technologically savvy or computer literate. Some
of us may not know what makes a good photograph or how to shoot and edit a film.
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Some of us may have never created a blog, vlog, webpage or even interacted on social
media websites before and feel that that makes us inadequate to teach these skills to
young people. Therefore, out of fear of failure we stick to what we know. We know how
to watch films, we know how to listen to music and we know how to read a webpage so
we teach those skills to young people. The problem is that this is not enough. We are
fooling ourselves and failing young people if we continue to impose these archaic models
of media literacy.
If we want to move forward we need to be bold and open to the idea of
exploration. If you are uncertain of what Twitter or Pinterest are, get the students to show
you and explore those platforms together. Do some research and find the closest 3D
printer or Google Glass in your area and expose young people to these exciting new
opportunities. Ask your students to do some research and find articles on the latest trends
and upcoming innovations. Talk about them and try to predict where these trends will
take us. Have fun with these new discoveries! Keep that spirit of exploration alive!
Unfortunately, by the time you read this handbook many of these trends will be
yesterday’s news, but I do encourage you to be open to these be technologies and
implement them in your daily life and your pedagogical practices as much as possible.
Keeping that spirit of discovery alive will be contagious to your students and will create a
learning environment to which everyone can contribute.
Most importantly, we need to understand that the old paradigms of media literacy
are about as effective as bringing a knife to a gunfight. They often do not explore and
examine many of the platforms that young people are already working with on a daily
basis. They do not provide the tools for young people to respond to the racist, sexist,
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classist and ageist messages that are perpetuated by many corporate media networks.
They do not recognize young people as capable of deconstructing these issues and reply
back with alternative perspectives that more accurately reflect their own beliefs and
aspirations. And finally, they do not recognize young men and women as the experts in
their own lives and communities. Instead, they reinforce the ignorant perspective that all
media content, whether it is on television, the Internet, the recording arts or any other
medium is merely a static object that is to passed down and evaluated through the
ideological and technological limitations that have been created by the teacher. Instead,
we need to foster an environment where young people can grow to understand that THEY
ARE THE MEDIA AND THE MEDIA IS THEM so that they can begin to construct
content that accurately reflects their perspectives rather than continuing to allow
corporate media networks with their own separate interests and agendas to do it for them.
"If you want to make a movie, make it. Don't wait for a grant, don't wait for the perfect circumstances, just make it."- Quentin Tarantino “You don’t have to get better, just get out there, you’re as good as you are. Don’t wait till you’re better, how are you ever gonna know? Just go out there and do it.”- Joey Ramone
The Consumer/Producer Spectrum It is important for educators and youth workers to jump into multimedia projects
in spite of any apprehensions they may have working with the digital arts. Multimedia
projects offer youth and adults an exciting opportunity to engage in dynamic and relevant
conversations about the world around them. It does not matter if the technical quality of
the projects do not compare to the films and television shows that we are accustomed to
watching. What does matter is the quality of the conversations that lead to these finished
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products. This is where the truly meaningful work will instigate the impetus for change in
young people's lives and the communities in which they live.
I am proposing a new perspective for media literacy that seeks to educate the
teacher as much as the student. This model of media literacy acknowledges that all of us,
young and old, produce and consume media to some degree and we need to understand
where we fit into the consumer/producer spectrum before we can assist others in doing
so. Some of us may produce content by simple things such as blog posts or Instagram
pictures, while other may have more experience with custom web design or Youtube
videos. Whatever one’s experience, a fundamental of media literacy requires adults and
youth to ask themselves questions such as:
• How much media content do I consume compared to how much I create?
• How do these messages affect me?
• Do I foster a culture of creation or consumption?
• Do I create content that allows me to respond to issues I feel are important?
• How original is the content that I create? Am I restricted by templates that are
provided for me? If so, how can I move beyond these restrictive barriers?
• Do I create or consume works that marginalize others?
• What are the key messages of the works that I create or consume?
• What messages are missing and is that a gap I could fill?
Many of these questions do not have simple answers and require us to take a hard look at
ourselves before we can even begin to support young people to do the same.
The following chart differentiates between typical media consumption, traditional
media literacy and the new media literacy for which I am advocating.
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Consumerism Old Media Literacy New Media Literacy Passive consumers: Media content is a commodity to be bought and sold.
Critical consumers: One uses their “spending power” to determine what to support.
Active creators: One uses the tools around them to voice their opinions and perspectives of the world.
Content is to be sold to advertisers and bought by the consumer.
Media content is consumed so we need to be critical consumers.
Media content can be bought, but it can also be created, remixed and shared with others for free.
Youth consume media content that may or may not expand their understanding of the world.
Youth should be trained to consume only media content that expands their understanding of the world.
Youth engage with the world and voice their perspectives.
Messages are accepted at face value.
Messages need to be evaluated and critiqued so that we know what we’re buying into.
Messages are analyzed, deconstructed, and reframed.
Communities are created based upon a common interest in commodities.
Youth find communities that suit their interests and values.
Youth create and contribute to communities that meet their needs.
Media networks frame messages.
Media networks frame messages.
Various media platforms are one of the essential tools in which individuals communicate with one another.
Autocratic in nature. Corporate and government owned media networks control media content.
Autocratic in nature. Corporate and government owned media networks control the media content, while educators, parents and elders attempt to control what young people. consume.
More democratic in nature. Educators partner with young people to create messages that reflect their perspectives.
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Understanding where you and your students fit into the consumer/producer
spectrum can be challenging and we must be careful to neither over-romanticize nor
downplay the work that young people are doing. For example, young people are currently
creating blogs and participating in social media sites twice as often as adults (Stern 97).
This is definitely an exciting opportunity to engage young people, but we also have to be
careful to not misconstrue activities such as these as purely acts of creation since many of
these web pages, blogs, and social media websites use preexisting templates and
functions that limit one’s ability to create original content. Furthermore, many of the
videos that young people create and upload to Youtube and other video web pages are
rarely original content and often mimic the films and television shows that they consume.
For this reason, we need to understand that media literacy is a journey, not a
destination and all of us can be both consumers and producers at different times. The
goal, however, is to not only understand what kinds of messages we are promoting in our
consumption, but to also use the Internet and contemporary technology to participate in
global, independent media networks that accurately reflect the hopes, aspirations, and
values of the people who created this diverse content, By failing to do so, we risk not
providing sufficient opportunities for young people to create a voice of their own that will
enable them to represent themselves and explore the world on their terms rather than
through the profit margins of corporate media networks.
Creative Collaboration Paulo Freire’s perspectives on critical pedagogy are the best tools to bring media
literacy into the classroom and make it relevant to the lives of young people. Freire’s
groundbreaking work, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, has become a essential read for
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anyone interested in breaking away from the oppressive assimilation imposed by school
curriculums and developing a framework that will enable students to make connections to
the world around them and build a common understanding that will empower them to
become advocates for their own lives and education.
Freire’s work begins by characterizing our current educational models as a system
of indoctrination in which the educator deposits knowledge into the students in the same
way that one would deposit money into a bank account. Freire explains that:
In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence… Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students…. This solution is not (nor can it be) found in the banking concept. On the contrary, banking education maintains and even stimulates the contradiction through the following attitudes and practices, which mirror oppressive society as a whole: a) the teacher teaches and the students are taught; b) the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing; c) the teacher thinks and the students are thought about; d) the teacher talks and the students listen -- meekly; e) the teacher disciplines and the students are disciplined; f) the teacher chooses and enforces his choice, and the students comply; g) the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the action of the teacher; h) the teacher chooses the program content, and the students (who were not consulted) adapt to it; i) the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his or her own professional authority, which she and he sets in opposition to the freedom of the students;
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j) the teacher is the Subject of the learning process, while the pupils are mere objects. (Freire 53)
Freire reminds us that an effective educational model must acknowledge the student as
the expert in his or her own life and must foster a learning environment in which the
student can take responsibility for their own education by building upon an understanding
that reflects the world around them. With this in mind, educators must remember to
encourage young men and women to bring their experiences into the classroom and
engage in thoughtful and meaningful conversations with their peers.
Fundamentally, Freire encourages educators and community workers to start from
where young people are at, rather than where the teacher is. Often educators use pre-
determined “learner outcomes” as the benchmark for which to develop their lesson plans
and thus create lessons that are more relevant to the lives of those who created the
outcomes than to the young men and women who will have to sit through them. Instead,
Freire encourages educators to listen to students and engage in meaningful conversations
that bring the students’ past experiences into classroom discussions and activities rather
than imposing the singular perspectives of the curriculum. Once these conversations have
determined where the young people’s hopes and interests reside, then the educator and the
students can begin to brainstorm and implement projects that are inspired by and relevant
to these conversations. Perhaps the youth will want to explore issues of cultural identity?
Bullying? Setting personal goals? Whatever the issue, it is important that the process is
organic and directly led by the interests and needs of the students. Encourage the youth to
take control of the class and make it their own. Have them lead conversations, activities,
and allow them to bring their experiences and expertise into the classroom.
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How does one lead these conversations? How do we encourage young people to
contribute to and explore the world around them while sharing their experiences with one
another? The first step is creating a culture of honesty and mutual respect. As I stated
earlier, public debate in the mainstream media has not taught young people about the
importance of mutual inquiry and critical dialogue. Often young people have learned that
debate and dialogue means that one person must be declared the winner while the other
person is declared the loser. This argumentative culture ultimately teaches us that it is
more important to “win” a debate, rather than to learn to listen attentively, search for
commonalities and differences and attempt to resolve and rectify why those discrepancies
exist. As educators and community workers we need to foster a culture that moves
beyond the superficialities of the argumentative culture and encourage young people to
learn by listening to one another.
This may sound challenging, but I am always amazed at how well young men and
women pick up on this. Whenever I begin to work with a group of young people I always
get the youth to establish ground rules that will help foster meaningful and inclusive
conversations. Often these rules begin with simple things such as “only one person talks
at a time” or “don’t use foul language,” but with support and guidance, this activity always
goes much deeper until the youth begin to talk about avoiding judgments “until you truly
understand what the other person is saying” or “learn to separate the opinion from the
person.” Most importantly, remember that once these rules have been written it is
essential that you encourage the youth to exercise and impose them during discussions to
foster a culture of mutual inquiry and respect.
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Once a culture of mutual respect and understanding has been established young
people can begin to engage in a lively debate and dialogue about the world around them.
This usually begins with the facilitator calling on a specific topic for debate. Sometimes
this can be in the form of a questions or it can be a word that the group must come
together to define. Since my work is mainly in the area of violence prevention, I often
write questions like “what is violence?” on the board and have the groups come up with
their own responses. It is essential that the initial question that is posed to the group is
open in nature and fosters multiple perspectives. I encourage educators to avoid “yes and
no” questions because they aim to divide students into categories rather than exploring a
multitude of perspectives. Other examples could be “what is ideology?” “What are some
of the essential values for success in life?” “What is a community?” “What does a safe
space look like?” It is essential that young people also pose their own questions.
As an instructor it is important that I give the youth sufficient time to develop
their answers and to share them with the whole group. Once each group has spoken we
look for commonalities and differences in the answers and then try to understand and
rectify why these differences exist. Additionally, it is essential that I encourage young
people to call their own questions and facilitate the same type of discussions that we have
had in the past. While this rarely happens in the early stages of the group’s development,
eventually the youth will understand the process and the rules so well that they will
eventually learn to enforce them. Once the youth have begun to call their own questions
then your work as the facilitator is done. Step aside. Participate in the youth’s discussions,
but don’t control them. At this point you are merely a participant.
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Encouraging young people to make connections to the real world outside of the
classroom is empowering to students because it demonstrates to them that their
experiences matter and are relevant to any learning environment. Teachers often make
the false assumption that young people are merely empty vessels that are waiting for
information to be deposited into their brains. In my experience, however, I have seen that
most young people have a wealth of experience on which to draw and share with one
another. Most importantly, recognizing young people as capable of independent thought
and genuine reflection, rather than malleable Playdough to be molded by adults means
that you are putting faith in that individual as the expert in their own life. While it is true
that many young people still have much more to learn about world, engaging in an open
and honest dialogue about their experiences is inspiring to everyone involved. I have
witnessed countless examples of young men and women returning to class the next day
with bright smiles on their faces as they are eager to share their research on issues that
were unresolved during past discussions. Getting young people this inspired to take
ownership of their education is the kind of learning culture to which all teachers and
community workers should aspire.
Research is another important aspect of the Freirian model. All dialogue and
debate must be firmly rooted in the direct experiences of the learner. I always encourage
my program participants to become private investigators of the real world and share those
experiences with the rest of the group. This could be a question such as “count the
number of advertisements that you see on your way to school. How did those
advertisements made you feel?” or “identify the different kinds of violence that you see
happening on a daily basis.” Of course, one’s research does not need to stop with the
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outside world. Get the youth to take notes of their experiences on social media websites
or any other digital forum where they interact others. These virtual environments are just
as valid as any other physical environment that they encounter. I encourage young people
to write their answers into their phones, digital devices, or notebooks. By encouraging the
group to continue to record their observations of the world and share them with the rest of
the group, young people learn to make connections between the theory of the classroom
with their experiences in the outside world. It gives young people the opportunity to
isolate their experiences and bring them to group discussions with the intention of
elaborating on those ideas and developing them into theories that they can apply to their
everyday lives. It is also important that the youth take ownership of their research and
discussions. The instructor may pose some of the initial research questions, but it is
important that the students take the lead by doing their own research and pose questions
and research topics for their fellow students to investigate as well. Encourage the
students to continue to update the group on their outside research and support the group
to critique, debate and reexamine each student’s research from multiple angles.
Or course, all of this research and investigation means nothing without sufficient
opportunity for the group to elaborate and unpack many of these important observations.
Facilitating meaningful conversations that are based upon young people’s experiences are
essential for the group’s success. Educators and community workers need to drop the
desire to always be in control of the group and allow the group to engage in a
constructive and organic dialogue. For some adults this may be difficult because the
traditional method of educating young people is based upon control and authority.
Instead, Freire believes that adults, educators and community workers need to be a
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participant rather than controller of these discussions and engage in a conversation that
meets the young people at their level. Think of the topic(s) of discussion as a physical
object that is placed in the middle of the room between the participants. Freire
encourages us to “meet around it and through it for mutual inquiry” (99) in an attempt to
not only reach a mutual understanding of the object, but to share each participants unique
perspective of that object. Instead of the teacher telling the students what that object is
and how it can be understood, critical dialogue demands opening participants up to the
opportunity to reflect upon their current reality in an attempt to make and remake a
mutual understanding of that object. “Through dialogue, reflecting together on what we
know and don’t know, we can then act critically to transform reality.” (Freire & Shor 98-
99)
Another important aspect of critical dialogue is giving young people the
opportunity to call their own discussion questions and engage in conversations on their
own terms. Young people are constantly told what they can and cannot talk about and it
can be extremely liberating for them to choose topics that they sincerely want to talk
about. I call this tool a “critical consciousness café” because the participants get to choose
what topic(s) they want to talk about, where in the space they want to have that
conversation, and for how long they would like to talk about it. Students are given the
autonomy to attend any discussion that they would like and at any time can freely move
on to other discussion groups that are taking place in the classroom. The importance of
this activity is that the participants learn that all conversations are dynamic and organic
experiences that can begin and end once the group, not the instructor, is satisfied.
Additionally, enabling young people to cross-pollinate ideas that they have acquired in
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multiple conversations gives them the opportunity to hear diverse perspectives that they
might not hear in a singular group discussion. Furthermore, it allows the youth to take
what they have learned in one discussion and apply it to and share it with their peers.
They become both learners and teachers at the same time.
Ultimately, the creative collaboration stage is a time when young people can
investigate the world together and attempt to understand the similarities and differences
of their experiences. It is a time of relationship building that can provide the inspiration
for multimedia projects that challenge young men and women to see the world from
multiple perspectives and apply their own experiences to those projects.
Integrating Media What do conversational activities have to do with media literacy? Isn’t media
literacy about viewing, critiquing, evaluating and creating media? Although media
literacy is about all of those things, the purpose of the creative collaboration stage is to
facilitate meaningful and relevant conversations that will provide the inspiration for
upcoming multimedia projects. From my own experiences, there is nothing that a group
of young people cannot do once they are inspired and feel that they have something that
they can to contribute to a group project. Perhaps the most important thing that all
educators and youth workers need to remember when beginning to integrate media into
the classroom is not to force or rush into anything. Do not jump into lengthy media
projects because you feel pressured to do so. Allow the young people to get engaged,
build group dynamics, and develop a sense of trust with one another first. You may find it
necessary to do some small projects to develop technical skills and build group dynamics;
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this is fine. However, the early stages of media literacy projects are an exciting time to
explore and learn about the world together.
Here are two case studies that accurately reflect my experiences integrating
creative collaboration and multimedia projects together. The first case study focuses on
long-term engagement (six months) and demonstrates how to successfully facilitate
meaningful conversations that focused on the process of building group dynamics and
bringing the outside world into the classroom. The second case study focuses on short-
term engagement (eight sessions over one month) and demonstrates how to encourage
students to bring their past experiences into a project to make it more meaningful and
relevant to their lives.
Case Study 1: I Know I Can http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1_bPr5Nh5s
After a few weeks of working with a diverse group of youth between the ages of
15 to 22, the team observed that our conversations continually returned to issues of goal
setting and planning for the future. This was not an intended outcome, but a commonality
that existed within the group. Some youth spoke of frustration with mainstream media,
which they felt regularly, represented young people as apathetic toward the future and
uninterested in success. Other youth talked about the challenges that they are currently
facing as their High School careers come to an end and are unsure of what career paths to
take. Finally, others talked about some of the personal issues that they were currently
struggling with and the difficulties that they were facing to stay out of the judicial system.
All of these identified commonalities told me that the group was ready to move on to a
project about goal setting and planning for the future. In addition to this, many of our past
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conversations focused on issues in Hip Hop music, so we also knew that this would also
be a commonality that the group would enjoy.
It did not take long for us to decide to create a cover version of a song that talked
about goal setting and planning for the future. After a few minutes of brainstorming
different songs that discussed these issues, one of the participants identified “I Can” by
Nas as the perfect song for the group to communicate their perspectives. The team
quickly decided to established roles and even started to plan out a music video that would
accompany the song. After that, the group quickly got to work and the project began to
take on a life of its own.
Since the song is divided up into three verses, three different rappers from the
group decided to take a verse and communicate their own unique perspectives of goal
setting and planning for the future. Issues in these verses included staying true to one’s
self, using faith as a guiding tool, healthy living, financial challenges, avoiding
materialistic values, knowledge of self, and staying out of the judicial system. Even
though each of the three rappers had different stories and perspectives on success, they
were able to communicate exciting poetry that effectively summarized many of the
discussions that the group had had over the course of the previous few weeks. When the
project was finished, the group had a party to celebrate their accomplishment and to
launch the video on YouTube.
By talking about issues that were relevant to the youth in the community, the song
became a hit in the Scarborough area and was viewed over five thousand times by people
who had heard about the project. While five thousand views is pretty small when
compared to many of the viral hits that take place on YouTube, the video itself was a
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great example of the power of localized media that can be created to make positive
changes in communities.
All of these realizations were never forced or imposed by myself or anyone else in
the group. They were realizations that we arrived at together by staying true to Freire’s
dialogical method. As the group facilitator I could have told the group what media project
we were going to do and how we were going to do it. However, if I had done that the
experience would not have been nearly as honest or as meaningful for the young people
who participated in its creation.
Case Study 2: Is It Worth It? In November, 2012, I provided a series of multimedia workshops to an expelled
students program in Toronto. The program aimed to provide an opportunity for expelled
or suspended students to continue to pursue their academic credits outside of the
mainstream schools. As one of the teachers explained to me, “this is their last
opportunity to demonstrate that they can participate in a regular school or else they will
be completely removed from all programs." While most of the students in the program
were insightful, intelligent young men and women, many had a long history of violence
that had affected their ability to succeed in their respective schools. Of the twelve
students who worked with me on this project, eleven were in the program due to a violent
history at school and in their communities.
Since many of my workshops focus on engaging youth to talk about violence,
this program seemed like the most logical place to begin. The students were very excited
to start the project because it meant that they would get time away from their traditional
and highly structured classroom. The workshop began with a series of videos that I
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thought would stimulate a conversation to get the students thinking about what their
project would look like. After watching a series of Public Service Announcements and
music videos that all discussed and depicted violence, one of the youth suggested that we
watch the Amanda Todd video that had gone viral the month before the workshop.
Amanda Todd was a grade ten student from Port Coquitlam, British Columbia who had
committed suicide after experiencing relentless bullying at her school and through social
media. While watching the video I could see that the majority of the students were moved
by the video and could relate to its contents. I initially found this to be rather ironic since
many of the students were placed into this program because they had bullied or at least
participated in the bullying of other students. After watching the video the youth clearly
demonstrated that the Amanda Todd video would be the inspiration for their video
project and the group quickly began to brainstorm other kinds of violence that they would
like to address in their film.
After a lively debate, the students identified the three main types of violence that
they all experienced on a daily basis in their schools and in their communities. These
included the selling and use of illegal drugs; street violence, the temptation that many
youth have faced to align themselves with gangs to gain a reputation in their
communities; and bullying, which they identified as the common thread of violence that
affected most of their lives. Once these themes were identified the group was able to
quickly create a rough sketch and script that identified many of the common links
between each kind of violence. The thrust of the film focused on a nameless protagonist
who experiences each kind of violence on a daily basis and eventually faces the decision
to continue to perpetuate violence or to rise above. The students wanted the film to be
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“raw” and not look like the after school specials that they determined to be “phoney,” and
irrelevant to their daily experiences. Instead, they wanted to create something that would
make people think about violence and the choices that they were making. In the end, all
of the youth agreed that “Is It Worth It?” would be the perfect title to get their point
across.
One Student, J., was exceptionally impacted by the project and wanted to play an
important role in its creation. As the only Caucasian student in the class, J. clearly
identified as an outsider to the group. Throughout multiple workshops, I observed that
many of his fellow students made insulting offhand remarks toward him and treated him
like an outsider. J. Insisted that he play the role of the victim in this video project and
took his role seriously by always arriving early and taking the time to get into character to
ensure that his acting was “real.” From this perspective, I observed J.’s acting to be a
complex negotiation of his experiences as a perpetrator and victim of bullying that was
similar to the character in the film. On one level, J. was placed in the Caring and Safe
Schools program because of his repeated history of bullying other students and engaging
in what the school board defines as “high risk behaviour.” Yet on another level, J.
experienced bullying on a daily basis from his fellow classmates and demonstrated a
firsthand understanding of what it means to be victimized and demoralized by others.
When I pointed out this contradiction to J. after the filming and editing had been
completed, he explained to me that the entire process helped him to see violence from a
whole new perspective that he had not considered before.
To me, violence is more than just beating someone up or punching someone in the face. Everyday we are faced with power struggles with different people and we have to make a choice on how we want these
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power struggles to affect us and make us feel about ourselves. I now understand that I’m not totally innocent or guilty because I’ve seen violence from both sides.
J.’s newly found understanding of the complex nature of violence and power dynamics
was achieved by taking a step back in the brainstorming process and applying the
concepts of our discussion to his own personal struggles. Additionally, his remarkably
“real” performance was the result of bringing his own experiences to the film and
challenging himself as an actor by drawing parallels between his own experiences and
those of the main character.
In the end, the Students felt that they had succeeded in creating a gritty but
realistic portrayal of school-based violence. Every student explained that the project had
been a positive experience for them and helped them to understand that while one cannot
always control their environment, one can control how they allow their environments to
impact them. In spite of the fact that the production quality of the film may not be up to a
professional standard, the experiences and lessons that each student acquired while
engaging with one another allowed them to confront some of their biggest challenges.
Collaborating on a project of this scale empowered them to see themselves as active
agents of change rather than victims of their own histories.
Suggested Projects Once the group has developed both a technical competency with the equipment
and feel comfortable working with one another, I encourage you to move on to a bigger
project that will allow them to go even deeper. Feel free to consider any of one the
suggested projects below, or come up with your own project idea that is relevant to your
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group discussions. Either way, always remember to keep this process organic. Resist the
urge to take the lead. Let the group develop group roles and challenge one another.
Digital Storytelling
Digital Stories are a great activity to get young people reflecting on their pasts and
to integrate media in the process. Get the youth to write a story about their pasts and ask
them take photos or dig through old ones to bring that story to life. Use the photos to
illustrate the recording of their stories. Below are a few examples of digital stories that I
have done with youth in the past:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pZFCbiApug
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXSc7hMf7bg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKCPmKHxGm4
Photo Diaries
Photo Diaries are a great way for youth to think about their mental health on a
daily basis. Ask the youth to take three photographs a day (it can be on a smartphone or
any other photography device) that reflects their mood at that time and get them to bring
their photos into the group. Have a discussion about what inspired the photos and how
they were feeling at that time. After a few months, the youth will have a large catalogue
of work that reflects their feelings over that time period. They may even want to create
weekly or monthly photo calendars or blogs that document their emotions over that time.
Mini-Documentary
Group discussions always lead into fascinating topics that the youth might want to
explore on a more in-depth basis. Documentaries are a great opportunity for youth to
examine issues and communicate their own unique perspectives.
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Team Blogs/Vlogs
Through your discussions with young people, you may find that some youth are
drawn to certain topics more than others. Team blogs or vlogs are a great opportunity for
youth to work in groups to create blogs that suite their interests. The groups can have
weekly presentations on their latest postings and talk about what they would like to do
with their blogs in the future.
Perhaps the greatest challenge with blogs and vlogs is the fact that there are
already so many of them on the Internet and it can be a challenge to create something that
will get noticed. In this case, I always encourage youth who want to take on this kind of
project to centre their blog/vlog around a very narrow and specific topic. Ask the teams to
think about their expertise and what makes them unique from other people. Maybe they
all live in the same neighborhood? Share a similar hobby? Or feel passionate about a
particular issue? By narrowing the focus of their blog/vlog they will be able to connect
with similar minded people and will typically find more success than by creating one that
is generalized and non-specific.
Music Videos
Earlier in this handbook I described the process that the young people went
through from talking about goal setting to writing a song and making a video about that
topic. Music videos are fun and relatively easy to make. They are also very adaptable to
discussion topics. In the past we have also created songs and music videos that satirize
political and social issues while also criticizing the commercialized values that are often
promoted in the typical pop song videos. These have always been very positive project
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and I encourage you and your group to not shy away from controversy. Powerful music
videos always seem to get people talking.
Remix Project
Media representation is a common topic among the youth that I work with. What
better way to talk about this issue than to remix and subvert content that the youth find
objectionable. Download a news report video off the web and mash it up with something
else to give it a new message. Activities such as this are a great way to introduce and
explore topics such as culture jamming and satire.
Short Films
Youth are always eager to create short films. Videos are great opportunities to
learn essential collaborative and communication skills while simultaneously discussing
important topics. Just make sure that the films are inspired by the discussion topic that
you have had with the youth. Here are a few short films that some of the youth that I have
created:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnze-d6adVc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsO___Xf9q0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YK7lEmwFis
Create a Social Media Campaign
From your discussions with the youth you may find that your group shares a
common passion for a particular political or social issue. Perhaps your group might want
to create a social media campaign that will raise awareness or promote that issue? You
could integrate videos, photos, podcasts, articles, or any other web content that will help
to spread the word of your campaign. Try to use as many social media platforms
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(Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) as possible so that you can target a wide demographic and
make as big an impact as possible.
EPals
Many of us had pen pals growing up; someone on the other side of the world with
which we could communicate and share our experiences. EPals are a great opportunity to
do so much more by connecting with another group somewhere else in the world. Get the
youth to send their EPals photos, videos, messages or anything else that communicates
their perspectives to their new friends. Best of all, EPals is 100% free. In the past, my
group and I have been able to develop meaningful relationships with groups on the other
side of the world that explore cultural differences and commonalities, global citizenship,
and language lessons. We even had a photo exhibit of our Epals’ work in our space while
they did the same in theirs. Whatever you decide to do, I always find that Epals projects
break down many misconceptions that young people have about youth from other
cultures and ultimately results in fostering global citizenship and multiculutralism.
www.Epals.com.
Resources Photoshop, Final Cut, or any professional software can be expensive. Fortunately, there
are many free resources that one can use to integrate multimedia into one’s programming.
The following is a list of free resources that I would recommend. This software is easy to
use and comparable to their professional counterparts.
Gimp- Great replacement for Photoshop. Can be downloaded for free at
http://www.gimp.org/
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Lightworks- Lightworks is the best free video editing software that I have come across.
Great interface and professional design. Highly recommended. Can be downloaded for
free at http://www.lwks.com/
Wordpress/Blogger- Both Wordpress and Blogger are free blogging pages. Youth can
customize their blogs without knowing code. Video and audio and be easily intregrated
into the blogs as well.
http://wordpress.com/
http://blogger.com
Hackasaurus- Hackasaurus is a powerful plug-in from Firefox. Youth can download an
entire webpage and remix it. Don’t worry though, the “hacked” webpage is never affected
since the plug-in only downloads the pages. Check out their website at:
http://www.hackasaurus.org
Weebly/Wix- Weebly and Wix allows youth to create custom web pages for free. While
both Weebly and Wix operate under a template format, which has limited options, the
pages are very visually appealing and easy for youth to use.
http://www.weebly.com/
http://www.wix.com/
Soundcloud/Mixcloud- Soundcloud and Mixcloud allow artists to post their audio tracks
online and integrate them with webpages and blogs. While Soundcloud allows for a free
hour of audio to be uploaded, Mixcloud allows for an unlimited amount for free.
http://soundcloud.com
http://www.mixcloud.com/
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Works Cited Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum, 2000. Print.
Giroux, Henry. “Mis/Education and Zero Tolerance: Disposable Youth and
the Politics of Domestic Militarization.” Boundary 2 28.3 (2001): 61-94.
McCormick, Chris. “Youth Deviance and the Media.” Youth at risk and youth justice : a
Canadian overview. Eds. Smandych, Russell C., and John Winterdyk. . Don
Mills, Ont: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.
Shor, Ira, and Paulo Freire. A Pedagogy for Liberation : Dialogues on
Transforming Education. South Hadley, Mass: Bergin & Garvey
Publishers, 1987. Print.
Stern, Susannah. “Producing Sites, Exploring Identities: Youth Online
Authorship.” Ed. David Buckingham. Youth, Identity, and Digital Media.
Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2008. Print.