Well one of my first blogs was about the subject of Mass Media. Last semester I took 307s which is the social impact of mass media where I had to teach media literacy to young kids. I gotta say that it was not an easy task. Kids these days are surronded by advertising and media everywhere from the shows on tv, food places, 
cell phones, video games, movies, internet, pretty much everywhere. The kids didn't know really how to comprehend what we were teaching them but we got it through their heads what advertising and media even is, which was an acomplishment in itself. At the start of our teaching, we only had about 2 kids and towards the end a lot more wanted to come, we probably had about 15, so it felt good that they started to take an interest in learning about media. It's not an easy subject to explore and I don't think there is any way of regulating it because pretty much only one dude runs the whole corporate media, and he has the money to do it, so who is going to stop him? I don't even watch the news anymore, unless it's Sportscenter, and even then I bet Rupert owns that too. It's pretty damn horrible nowadays, that's for sure.
cell phones, video games, movies, internet, pretty much everywhere. The kids didn't know really how to comprehend what we were teaching them but we got it through their heads what advertising and media even is, which was an acomplishment in itself. At the start of our teaching, we only had about 2 kids and towards the end a lot more wanted to come, we probably had about 15, so it felt good that they started to take an interest in learning about media. It's not an easy subject to explore and I don't think there is any way of regulating it because pretty much only one dude runs the whole corporate media, and he has the money to do it, so who is going to stop him? I don't even watch the news anymore, unless it's Sportscenter, and even then I bet Rupert owns that too. It's pretty damn horrible nowadays, that's for sure. 
2 comments:
It's great that you participated in the teaching of young kids. I never really gave the news much thought growing up and didn't realize how different news is depending on who is reporting it. It's amazing once you start really looking at all the news outlets and then start thinking what a schmuck you were! I have already started to teach my son that what you see on tv is subject to scrutiny. A few years ago he wanted this toy for Christmas that he kept seeing on tv and I kept telling him that it may not work as well at home as it seemed to on the commercials. It was a very complicated race track with tons of pieces and once we finally got it together, it kept falling apart and never did anything close to what was advertised. He now "gets it" and has not been fooled again into making a purchase until he sees it in real life before hand. I have used this example many times on other things we see on tv so he already has that "question everything" mentality which I think will serve him well in his educational future as well as in life.
I think it's good to teach kids the tricks about media at a young age. Even if it's not 100% comprehended it gets the idea that the media is biased in kids heads. If you grow up believing it then you don't know better. When I was young I always assumed the news was all fact, it would make sense, but it's not the case.
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