Media Literacy:Towards a Model of Learning ProgressionFunded by the Economic and Social Research Council, 2009-2011

David Buckingham, Andrew Burn,

Becky Parry, Mandy PowellCentre for the Study of Children, Youth and Media

Institute of Education, University of London

The context

The ‘key concepts’ model – 25 years on…

Examinations – institutionalisation

Media literacy as regulatory policy

Changing literacies? – primary education

Media education, media studies, media literacy, media arts, moving image education…

Technology, creativity, citizenship…

Media (education) 2.0

Education policy: performativity, centralisation vs. marketisation

Why research?

The policy debate – leave it to teacher?

Rhetoric versus reality

Looking at learning, not just teaching

Everyday practice, not avant-garde showcase projects

Not ‘effectiveness’ or ‘good practice’, but what works and doesn’t work in specific settings

Big issues and old theories

Progression: ages and stages (Piaget) or the ‘spiral curriculum’? (Bruner)

Understanding learning: language/s and conceptual understanding (Vygotsky)

Multiple literacies: media and modes (Kress), social practice (Street); intelligences (Gardner)

Culture: cultural capital, taste and critical discourse (Bourdieu)

Legitimation: what kinds of knowledge or discourse ‘count’ in the media classroom? (Bernstein)

Media education issues

Understanding learning progression – development, experience, assessment, pedagogy?

The ‘key concepts’ approach – is it still relevant in light of changing media?

Creativity and critique (theory and practice) – making the dialogue happen

Culture/s – generation, class, fragmenting audiences…

Our research

‘Developing media literacy: towards a model of learning progression’, ESRC, Jan 09 – Dec 11

What and how can students learn about media over time?

Years 2/3, 4/5, 8/9, 10/11

Cross-sectional and longitudinal

Specialist Media Arts schools and partner primaries

Locations – broadly middle-class / working-class

Fieldwork

Year 1 – ‘audit’: survey, interviews

Years 2 and 3 - curriculum development: six ‘units’ of classroom work

‘Baseline’ activities – existing knowledge (time-capsule, advertising)

Key concepts – language (narrative)

representation (celebrity)

institution (news)

audience (health promotion)

And the ‘follow-on’

Work (still) in progress!

Logistics and messy realities

Collaboration with schools and teachers

Dealing with the data mountain

Comparison across sites and age groups, and over time – breadth but also depth

Not an experiment or a randomised trial

A few snapshots from different sites

teachers’ cultures, students’ cultures

Teachers’ and students’ media cultures• Do media educators incorporate young

people’s media cultures in the work of the classroom?

• How would they find out about these?

• And what about their own media cultures?

• What about different social contexts?

• Cultural capital; cultural omnivores; third space

• What might all this mean for the media classroom?

Survey of media uses and attitudes: 1745 young people; 259 teachers

Student media culturesGeneral consumption:- Secondary: television,

music, games, films (82-58%)

- Primary: Television, games, music, films (84-63%)

- newspapers all (35-32%)

Teacher media cultures

General consumption:-Television, music and

radio (70%)- Film and

newspapers (68%; media teachers, 86%)

- Games (15%)

Teachers’ gaming cultures

• Frequent gaming: 15%

• However:

• Recent game experience: 63%

• Wide variety, from the MMORPG Everquest to Call of Duty and Medal of Honour, Wii sport, Wii Fit.

Online cultures

STUDENTSSecondary- 59% use Facebook- 40% use Bebo- 5% use Twitter

PrimaryCBBC, Youtube

dominant for younger; giving way to Facebook and Club Penguin for older

TEACHERS90% - internet use for

personal purposes. More ‘functional’

(shopping, banking, etc) than ‘social’.

BUT:43% used social

media, with Facebook dominant.

Making their own media

Students

- making (but not editing) short films (43% P, 87% S)

- Photos (67% P, 88% S)- music mixes (32% P,

82% S)- websites (20% P; 79%

S)- Made a computer game

(27% P; 80% S)

Teachers

- 20% make music- 10% make websites- 9% make films- 5% make radio- 4% make television- 4% make animation

What social gaps?• Greater game console ownership in less affluent

area – 61% vs 36% game console in bedroom• More computer ownership in affluent area: 44% to

39% in bedrooms• Greater newspaper reading in less affluent area

(predominance of tabloid titles)• Students’ own media (mobile phones, music

players) more widely tolerated in school in less affluent area: 75% (45% and 27% in more affluent area)

• Bigger gap between teachers’ and students’ media cultures – similar differences as overall but more pronounced (eg newspapers; game choices)

Tastes: the example of games• Different tastes/preferences in some cases: eg

more affluent site top primary games: Club Penguin (40); Lego (35); less affluent site: Grand Theft Auto (32); Call of Duty (25) – but equally many shared tastes: FIFA, Sonic, Mario, Ben 10 common across both sites and all 4 schools

• BUT gender more significant: Boys top 5: FIFA, Lego, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Mario Kart; Girls: Club Penguin, The Sims, Dress-Up games, Mario Kart, CBBC

• AND AGE: 6 year-olds: Ben 10, CBBC, Cbeebies, Mario Kart, Sonic; 11 year-olds: GTA, Mario Kart, FIFA, The Sims, Call of Duty

What social gaps?

SO:Gaming and newspaper choices examples of

different media tastes – but perhaps less pronounced than differences across age and gender

More affluent area – teachers mostly lived in the same area, shared many media uses and tastes

Less affluent are – teachers mostly lived elsewhere, shared fewer uses/tastes – but may have more positive views of students’ media uses and tastes

MEDIA TEACHER PERCEPTIONS OF STUDENT MEDIA CULTURE

SOME FEEL REMOTE:• I found [teaching a course on computer games] quite challenging because it’s something I don’t

do in my spare time.

SOME FEEL CLOSE:• I was showing some pictures I put on Facebook simply because it was an easy way to store

them, to bring them up because you can put them on Flickr, but often they’ve been taken down or whatever. They went ‘oh my god, the teacher’s got Facebook!’

SOME SEE A TECHNOLOGICAL GAP ...:• It's a tricky situation for me because although I use a lot of technology here, I’m actually

previously quite a Luddite really, so with really quite old fashioned ideas about what things work, certainly in terms of new technologies

SOME ASSUME CYBER-SAVVINESS:• But then and the one big thing that you possibly also are going to have with media is how far

ahead of the kids are the teachers. But then interestingly when I talk to my year 11’s about Twitter they hadn’t heard of it, which I was really surprised about because I thought they would know more about it than I did

What gaps between teachers and students?There are gaps, but equally considerable overlap and common

ground: no ‘digital natives and digital immigrants’

Pronounced niche interests and tastes across both groups; but enough ‘common culture’ (especially in television viewing) to still matter

Teachers are generally enthusiastic about incorporating students’ media interests in the curriculum

Still notable (though variable) prohibition of students’ own media practices in school

Teachers (in general) are generally positive about students’ cultural experiences, though with some vestiges of protectionism and with some erroneous assumptions

But what actually happens in teaching?

COMPLICATED CLASSROOMS ...

RESIDENT EVIL: A SNAPSHOT FROM ONE OBSERVATION

LOOKING AT HORROR NARRATIVES IN FILM AND GAME (GCSE MEDIA STUDIES)

- Teacher knows a lot about games (though disavowing knowledge of new technologies)

- Connects with boys (but also some girls) who like games

- Conflict with one girl who prefers films- Destabilising of conventional hierarchies of

distinction- Opening up of questions beyond the safety of

curriculum requirements, but promising conceptual complexity and cultural commitment

- Exploring these issues through production

Media education – bridging the gap?

• Less obvious ‘common culture’, even between young people – though still enough to matter

• What gets legitimised as ‘educational capital’ - and by whom?

• How do teachers explore students’ (very varied) media cultures?

• How do teachers use their own popular cultural allegiances in the classroom?

• How can this become a ‘third space’ for negotiation?

• Next, some more detailed examples…

Media Language

Exploring Media LanguageBuckingham, 2003

• Meanings. How do media use different forms of language to convey ideas or meanings?

• Conventions. How do these uses of language become familiar and generally accepted?

• Codes. How are the grammatical ‘rules’ of media established? What happens when they are broken?

• Genres. How do these conventions and codes operate in different types of media texts – such as news or horror?

• Choices. What are the effects of choosing certain forms of language – such as a particular type of camera shot?

• Combinations. How is meaning conveyed through the combination or sequencing of images, sounds or words?

• Technologies. How do technologies affect the meanings that can be created?

Scary Films

• Meanings. How do media use different forms of language to convey fear, tension and suspense?

• Codes. Are there grammatical ‘rules’ of scary films? What happens when they are broken?

• Choices. What are the scary effects of choosing certain forms of language – such as a particular type of camera shot, mise en scene or gesture?

• Combinations. How is fear conveyed through the combination or sequencing of images, sounds or words?

Two Key IssuesAvoiding Parsing Film Grammar

• Focusing on media language is an attempt to see how meanings are made, what motivates them, and how different groups of people might interpret them.

• It connects with our other key concepts: representation, media institutions and media audiences.

Acknowledging Children as Readers of Film

• Children draw on their existing understanding of media language, when they ‘read’ media texts.

• How can these understandings be drawn on in the classroom?

Media Learning: 3 StagesBuckingham, 2003 p.142

•Analysis

•Production

•Exhibition

•Recursive

•Iterative

Emerging Concepts

• Show and Tell• Online Message

Boards• Drawings• Screenings• Mind maps

Year 9 Message Boards

• I don't watch that many horror movies but i have watched a few and i really like them! - particularly ones like cloverfield....but scarier. Also i think the best horror movies are the ones where you know the least and never see the "monster" or whatever is scary. Then, when the movie finished you can be really concious of "being watched" but not know what to look out for. When you see the monster in cloverfield its kinda disappointing and ruins it a bit.

Year 2 Drawings

Introducing new ‘tools.’

• Listen to sound• Watch the clip• Look closely at freeze

frames• Learn some vocabulary

(e.g. shots)–make inferences

• Storyboard key sequences

• Repeat same exercise with other clips

• Year two and four in site (A) were given many opportunities to read (enjoy, infer, analyse and respond) to a series of clips.

• The storyboard activities were distinct in relation to modes. So each task involved a focus on sound or camera shots or asked for drawings or only required note form.

Forms of ExpressionY4 storyboarding opening of ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ with attention to the visual.

Describing Shots

• ‘Closing up and turning up camera’

• ‘Camera man walks forward, gates open, see castle.’

Interrogating Observations

• You walk backwards because you want to keep what is in front of you, in your line of sight.

Y4

Text as a scaffold

Conclusions

• We can teach primary aged children to pay closer attention to visual and aural composition.

• In different modes some children demonstrate understandings beyond what they can verbally articulate.

• Identifying or being able to draw a ‘close up’ is not an end point.

• The role of the teacher is to connect this with meaning and affect.

Production

• Creative Constraints • Building Blocks• Process / Product• Pleasure, play,

popular culture• Sharing / Celebration• Reflection• Further production

opportunities

How do you want the audience to feel when they see that?: Modelling

creative decision-making

• Maintaining a link between media language, audience and institution the teacher connected the children to lived experience and allowed them to continue to draw on their own repertoires of understanding of texts.

Introducing theory: Introducing theorising

• A framework was developed which allowed the students to explore texts, drawing on their own experiences, to decide the point of view each was foregrounding.

• Simultaneously, the students were making decisions about to what extent this theory was useful and some went further to suggest amendments to the theory.

POV: Across Media

• Working across different media, the students tested out a theoretical framework (Perceptual, Neutral and Interest pov).

Year 8 analysis of POV

• [The game is] telling the audience what to do, sometimes in the form of instructions. it makes the reader feel a bit like a puppet. It’s also a bit like watching yourself doing the action.

• Perceptual is the POV that is used the least because your not seeing it through the characters eyes you are looking down on them.

Implications for Older Students

• Challenge• Tight / Niche Focus• Texts?• Valuing existing

experiences

Representation: the rhetoric of diversity and the politics of

difference

Representation: its parts Realism

is this text intended to be realistic? why do some texts seem more realistic than others?

Truthhow do media claim to tell the truth about the world? how do they try to seem authentic?

Presence and absencewhat is included and excluded from the media world? who speaks, and who is silenced?

Bias and objectivitydo media texts support particular views about the world? do they put across moral or political values?

Stereotypinghow do media represent particular social groups? are those representations accurate?

Interpretationswhy do audiences accept some media representations as true, or reject others as false?

Influencesdo media representations affect our views of particular social groups or issues?

... its challengestoo philosophical/political?rendered concrete and visible through

social contexts (gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality, disability)

class?over-simplification: spot the stereotype,

the search for ‘truth’ and ‘reality’, labelling representations as ‘positive’ or ‘negative’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’

identity?

Representation and celebritywhat is celebrity?

fame/infamy/stardom/power?who becomes one? who doesn’t? how do people become celebrities? produced

by whom and why?how is celebrity constructed or signified?

what are the ‘signs’ of celebrity?why do people like and dislike celebrities? is ‘celebrity culture’ new? what does the

apparent ‘rise’ of celebrity culture tell us?

the meanings of celebrity [are located] in the intertextual relations between celebrity and audience … neither a property of a specific individual, nor is it a construction of the culture industries. It is a product of media representations and the way in which audiences appropriate these meanings into their own everyday lives and concerns[Duits & van Romondt Vis, 2009, p42]

how representations are constructed through processes of selection

how production (medium, technology and form) affects representations

how representations relate to institutions and audiences

a celebrity collageanalysis of a range of different case

studies eg historical, political, culturalanalysis of one particular celebritysimulation: the manufacture of a new

celebrity

These children don’t know about celebrityR: who is famous these days?

C: Madonna

A: I don’t know who Madonna is

B: she looks like Lady Ga Ga

A: who’s Lady Ga Ga?

D: Michael Jackson is special

R: what do you like about him?

D: his songs, his music

R: what’s your favourite song?

D: Billie-Jean ... Thriller ...

A: ... I don’t know Thriller ...

R: do you know who he is?

A: ... people talk about him ... I just don’t know his songs

R: is he famous because he’s rich?

D: he performs ... does things everyone wants to know about ... has big audiences so everyone

will be talking about him ... I never used to know about Michael Jackson until he died and more

and more people talked about him, more of his albums have been published

R: so how do you know about that?

D: it’s his family ... they need to make more money from his albums. His sister, she’s a famous

singer. The parents needed to make money from the children because they weren’t as famous

Celebrity collage

fame as deserved in terms of skills/talent/hard work: just and individually won

extraordinary/specialcontribution to society‘known’objective ‘truth’

Subjective realities ...

I love Usher. I love him so much I want to kiss him (y2)

he’s [Johnny Depp] sexy, seductive, attractive, good-looking, works hard, is good (y8)

they’re the main attraction ... people want to see them more

in the public eye ... someone might want to read about/find out about

appeared from nowhere [Susan Boyle], unexpected recognition

Some more contradictionsW: people like Paris Hilton ... her dad started her

career so she’s not known for herselfX: the new Dr Who assistant ... she only got the job

because she’s Catherine Tait’s nieceY: usually famous for cosmetic reasons rather than

doing anything useful or goodZ: attention seekers, do outrageous things ... take

their clothes offG: Osama Bin Laden ... off message? ...

how to make sense of these contradictions?

Case studies ...

image analysis: why that image?established and establishing patternstechnologies of representationcomparing versionsimportance of contextusing difference

So far ...

representation as cultural construct: cultural hierarchies

representation as social context: social subjectivities eg gender, ethnicity, age and class

context and content of equal importance: audience, institution and language

patterns and contradictions: building theory by moving backwards and forwards between abstract and concrete, familiar and unfamiliar

towards complexity and away from over-simplification (stereotype, objectivity, truth, realism)

the relationship between theory and practice?

Beyond caricature: recuperating Institution as a productive

concept

Institution: its concrete parts? Production processes

who makes media? who does what and how do they work together? what technologies do they use?

Economicswho owns the companies that buy and sell media? what do things cost? how do companies make a profit?

Connections between media how do companies sell the same ‘properties’ or ‘brand identities’ across different media platforms?

Regulation who controls the production and distribution of media? are there laws about this? how effective are they?

Targeting audienceshow do media reach their audiences? how much choice and control do audiences have?

Access and participationwhose voices are heard in the media? whose are excluded? why?

What are the issues?

transmission pedagogy tedious facts: so what? deficit model of media learning or absent

Challenging the orthodoxies of deficit and disinterest

Harry Potter: institutions, organisations and individuals

BBC: institutional case studyNews: what is it, who is it for, who makes

it, who pays for it Simulation: who has power and when, who

does what, where are the opportunities and constraints, what are the implications for producers, content and audiences?

Reaping the benefits of a media curriculum in Year 2

drawing on previous learning experiencesusing the conceptsmoving across and between forms and

platformsback and forward on a continuum between

abstract and concreteproductive pedagogywho are ‘they’ and what do ‘they’ want?

The Harry Potter model: institutions, organisations and

individualswho are ‘they’?what do they want?to have fun: institution as culturalto make money: institution as economicfor us to be safe: institution as social

The BBC: teaching for complexity

What does the BBC have to sell to get its money back?

a different media modelit’s always been there: institution as

historicalthey’ll be cut off: institution as politicalother models: institution as competitive

Making judgments

Back to broadcast news: ITV10, BBC6, BBC3 & Newsround

comparing contentreliability of sourcesmaking judgmentswhat’s the relationship between the

images they see and the people and events in the story?

wholesale and retail newsform, content and audiences: news values

We found ... institution as concept: more than the sum of

its parts (but strong focus on institution anchors all activities)

teaching for and learning about complexity: avoiding cynicism and caricature

all ages interested in news, news values and ethics, working with judgments

all ages interested in regulation and funding issues

valuable aspect of media literacy

Audiences

Everywhere and Nowhere

• We cannot really isolate the role of media in culture, because the media are firmly anchored into the web of culture, although articulated by different individuals in different ways. We cannot say the audience for ‘Superman’ will behave in a particular way because of the effect of a particular message; we cannot know who will use ‘Superman’ as some kind of personal reference point , or how that will take place. The “audience” is everywhere and nowhere?

(Bird, 2003)

(The concept formerly known as) Audience

• Audience as a concept is complex.

• Studying Audience has shifted dramatically, with changing perceptions of the ‘active audience.’

• Shifts in media culture have also raised questions about participation, power and constraint.

A need to move beyond……

• Targetting Audiences

• Stereotypes and Assumptions

• Neatening up / Closing Down

What have we said so far?

AS: Who thinks someone might not like it?

J: There’s different people / different countries/ they might not know about horror books…

AS: We knew that a shadow or creepy music might mean….

 News – your opinions changed – you produced four different programmes for different audiences? What changed your mind?

 C: Horror is different subject, genre from news – news is

about what’s happening round the world and it’s true AS: Same about horror, differently about news?

AS: You believed children would like one version of news and adults another?

AS: Why do you think everyone watching a horror would feel the same?

AS: Did I show you proper adult horror films?

Class: No. AS: I’m glad that I’ve got you stumped. That’s the

starting point for our lesson. I think by the end of tomorrow afternoon – you will have an opinion on this – whether you agree with me or not is beside the point….

Moving between personal to general

• I watch an awful lot of soaps – I don’t watch many chat shows.

• Some people might say ‘I watch mainly the news…I don’t watch much reality television.’

Confronting Discourses

• Studying Audience should help pupils to interrogate assumptions about media effects that are commonly found in public discourse about the media.

• (Bazalgette, 1992)

With parents (and cake)• Playing video games like ‘Grand Theft

Auto’ makes young people aggressive.

 • Children’s television programmes like

‘Teletubbies’ are good for children.

• Social networking sites like ‘Facebook’ stops young people making friends, going out and socialising.

 • The media today make girls want to

grow up too fast. 

• Make a list of points for and against the statement and be ready to share your ideas with the whole class.

 

Maintaining the ‘question’

• Different kinds of people watch different kinds of stuff.

• Do they?

• Like with radio….people like listening to it for different reasons.

• What different reasons do people have for listening to the radio?

Which Method? • A questionnaire: a set of questions on paper or online that you ask your target audience to

answer.

• An interview: a set of questions you ask an individual from your target audience to answer verbally.

• A research diary: you ask your target audience to keep a diary / record for a period of time – and give them prompts or questions to consider to relate to your research.

• An observation: a period of time where you visit your target audience in their own home, work or school and watch and listen, make notes and perhaps record what they do and say.

• A focus group: a set of questions you ask to a small group of people from your target audience.

• An experiment: you ask one person from your target audience to do something e.g. watch TV and then you see what they do next.

• Desk research: you look at the facts and figures that are collected about media for your target group. For example, BARB http://www.barb.co.uk/ Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board publish the viewing figures for television programmes.

• Content Analysis: You select a media text and analyse it. You might count how many times a film has a violent scene in it.

•  

J: Say if you bought a drink – you’d look at the back and see what ingredients there is.

AS: Ah so you are comparing media to a drink. A scientific way of doing it – so you’d see how much fat and sugar was in it to see it was bad for you. Films are more difficult to do that with cos they don’t come with a label saying what’s inside them and we don’t know exactly how much violence or swearing.

R: Or you could just have a little go with your mum… AS: Ah so you could test it?

AS: Experiment – this is what Riley was talking about so – we might say this half of the class – you go and watch Cbeebies and this side you go and watch ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ – one of the most outrageous horror films ever made and then I’m going to bring you back and see whether this half behaves better than this half!

All laugh.

AS: No believe it or not that is what people have done in the past!Now it’s quite difficult to measure behaviour isn’t it? It’s not like you can get

out a ruler and measure – I can’t measure your behaviour with a ruler…

‘Real’ Research

• The children all interview a parent.

• Most of the class also undertake a questionnaire with younger children.

• One group undertake desk analysis – including data from BARB etc

Not guessing…..

AS: In this room we’ve got two different audiences – can we make something that different audiences both like? So we are not just guessing. We are not just saying ..oh I think children will like this because it’s bright and colourful, we are finding out do children actually like programmes that are bright and colourful? We’re not going to say ‘oh that’s got lovely flowers in it, mums will that because maybe your mum’s won’t. Maybe they would rather watch horror films or football?

 Do I need to know what celebrities they like or doesn’t that matter? Do I need to know what job they do or doesn’t it matter?

Analyse Findings

• Data handling / number crunching

• Audience Profiling• Reporting back• Putting it all together

Apply Findings

• Health promotion.• Replacing ‘The

Simpsons’.• Devising

programme• Initial feedback• Pitches• Final feedback

Conclusions

• Maintaining complexity

• Confronting stereotypes and assumptions

• Research but also research analysis and application

Conceptual learning

Different types of concepts – more or less factual, abstract, clearly defined

Concepts as tools not tablets of stone – as means not ends – contested, changing

Not learning theory, but learning to theorise

Testing and interrogating theory/generalisation

Concrete to abstract – but also abstract to concrete

Connecting concepts

Theory and practice

Theory to practice – practice to theory (reading to writing, audience to producer)

Working across and between multiple media/modes

The role of meta-language (and ‘technical’ language) – just-in-time and useful

Simulation – making it matter, but also distancing

Balancing creativity and constraint – depending on aims, motivations and context

The need for recursive experiences – ‘developmental media-making’ – cycles of action and reflection

Progression

Recognising students’ ‘proto-concepts’

But also interrogating and challenging – evidence, justification, testing generalisations, how do you know?

Are there ‘building blocks’ – for example in learning media language?

Are some concepts more ‘difficult’ than others? (For kids or for teachers?)

A spiral, iterative curriculum – in analysis, theory and production

A systematic, recursive approach leading to much more challenging possibilities at secondary level

Culture/s

Accessing and validating students’ existing preferences and expertise – beyond anxiety

Bringing in teachers’ cultural preferences

‘Third spaces’ and social differences

Expanding cultural repertoires, encountering the unfamiliar = ‘cultural progression’?

Taste, identity and power – personal and political, controversial concepts

Interrogating how and why things are differently valued

Policy going forwards (or backwards)…

Revisiting and renewing ‘key concepts’

Teacher training and subject knowledge

Assessment – but of what? Critical thinking? Critical practice?

Curriculum specifications – depressing learning?

Media literacy, technology, creativity…

English and literacy – but cross-curricular (arts, social sciences)