At first, I thought Buckingham's book was going to detail the many novel, progressive ways that media is being utilized in the classroom. This seems to be a popular theme of late. However, I came to find, after reading through the first couple chapters of his book, that Media Education is less about the use of media in the classroom than it is about the critique of media strategies. As he says in his own words, "Media education therefore aims to develop a broad-based competence, not just in raltion to print, but also in these other symbolic systems of images and sounds. This competence is frequently described as a form of literacy, and it is argued that, in the modern world, 'media literacy' is just as important for young people as the more traditional literacy of print" (4). Essentially, what he's set out to do in Media Education is to show students--and parents for that matter--that literacy no longer means the ability to read and write. To succeed in the modern world--a world filled with television, the internet, radio, advertising, etc...--one must be literate in all forms of media. This is necessary because "the media do not offer us a transparent 'window on the world', but a mediated version of the world.
In Chapter 4 he gives us some examples of media education. For instance, he details a marketing exercise in which "students are given an article from an advertising trade newspaper concerned with the Juice Up campaign" (64). The students are then asked to "consider how the marketing campaign was conceived by the advertising agency and the company. Discussion here focuses on issues such as the scheduling and placement of the ads, and what the producers assume about their audience" (64).
Buckingham goes on to detail half a dozen other exercises in 'creating the image', 'scheduling', 'catching the audience', and others, in an effort to further illustrate his point.
While I agree with much of what Buckingham has to say in Media Education, he seems to be covering a topic most of us are familiar with. The forms of media he talks about are not new, and even the most naive student should know that advertising is not always what it seems. As I said, I agree with what he's getting at, but I'd like to think that much of what he discusses is already common knowledge. What I would have liked to have seen instead, would have been a text dedicated to using these new forms of media to teach children, and adults alike, in an engaging, progressive manner. Too long has our educational system relied on the traditional lecture, quiz, pass/fail model. It doesn't work; it's just that simple. New tools are at our disposal; it's time a book actually detailed meaningful ways in which these tools can be implemented in the classroom.
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