Becoming Media Literate

In today’s society, we are constantly surrounded by and interact with media of all forms. From the moment we wake up until we go to sleep, we are bombarded with a relentless stream of images, sounds, and technology of some kind, all of which have some kind of impact on our lives (Thoman, 2003). Even if you think you’re immune to the power of the media, you’re probably not. Take a look at this clip:

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Even though these men work in the world of advertising, working to manipulate people through their advertising using all the tricks they know, they’re still susceptible to the power of the media. If the media can have such a large affect upon people within the world of the media, imagine how heavily it influences people from outside of that sphere. This is why it is so important to prepare young people for life in today’s world by expanding the concept of literacy and teaching them Media Literacy, as its agenda is invisible, and its influence unconscious (Kellner & Share, 2005).

A person who is media literate is able to be discerning and challenge the media that they are presented with, not accepting it at face value, and creating a personal meaning (Thoman, 2003). This isn’t an innate ability, which is why the media literacy framework was created: so students can ask the right questions about that with which they are presented (Thoman, 2003).

In the New South Wales Higher School Certificate (HSC), students need to find supplementary resources to fit in with their Area of Study on the topic of Belonging (Board of Studies New South Wales, 2009). Students from all English levels (Standard, Advanced and English as a Second Language) must study this topic, exploring the way that the concept of belonging is represented in and through texts (NSW HSC Online, no date). I have chosen to focus on the website ReconciliACTIONnsw, as it suitably demonstrates the concept of belonging in a historical context, with a history of Indigenous Australians and their struggles, as well as showing the sense of belonging that can come from being part of a community of like-minded individuals, which the ReconciliACTIONnsw website attempts to create (ReconciliaACTIONnsw, 2010).

The reason I chose to do a close reading of a website is because the need for media literacy is especially important when dealing with the internet (Kellner & Share, 2005). There is so much information online, not all of it real or useful, that students need to be able to scrutinise and wade through the information, being able to question what they see and know which sites are relevant or what the hidden agendas are (Kellner & Share, 2005). In order to do this, the media literacy framework, consisting of five questions, was designed in order to guide students into becoming text analysts (Thoman, 2003).

Let’s look at the ReconciliACTION site with the framework:

1. Who created this message and why are they sending it?

The reason we need to ask ourselves this is because all media messages are carefully constructed, representing its own version of reality by including some things and excluding others (Kellner & Share, 2005). ReconciliACTION has a page dedicated to describing who they are:

Text:

Welcome to ReconciliACTIONnsw!
ReconciliACTIONnsw is a network of Indigenous and non-Indigenous young people who have an interest in reconciliation and Indigenous rights issues and those who are active in their communities.
ReconciliACTION was started in 2002 by a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous young people from metropolitan, regional and remote New South Wales. Since then ReconciliACTION has grown to become a national network which includes young people from across Australia, with autonomous partner groups in NSW, the ACT and Victoria.
Our aims include community education, advocacy, support for young people working to overcome racism in their local communities and skills and leadership development.ReconciliACTIONnsw is open to all interested people aged between 16 and 29 years.

What's really interesting to note about this site is that it is written by people who are young, many of whom are Indigenous Australians. In traditional media, such as television, print, and radio, the dominant culture prevails, with most coverage being about the dominant culture, as well as the dominant culture controlling the coverage and representation of any other cultures (Alia & Bull, 2005). However, minorities and other underrepresented people have found the internet has given them a public forum on which they can air their views and ideas (Thwaites, Davis & Mules (2002). In this case, the minorities are Indigenous people and young people, often seen as voiceless, but finding that they can give voice to their concerns online.

ReconciliACTIONnsw is aimed at other young people who either share their views or might be open to alternative views in the hopes of creating a community of people who are working towards a reconciled Australia. Yet we must remember that this site is just as constructed as any other. In fact, its construction is quite masterful, with the highlighting of positive notions of reconciliation, community and Indigenous Rights, without dwelling on the negative views or the arguments against reconciliation.

2. What techniques are being used?
The site's success lies in its simplicity: it is uncluttered, well-organised, consistent, with the same banner and background used throughout each page, and has only a few images, although these images are very effective. The site's message of reconciliation is reinforced by the images, with both the site banner and the picture on the main page repeating the image of hands:

Hands are an incredibly evocative image, especially when looking at it through the lens of semiotics. Hands can represent caring, helping, sharing, blessing, or healing. Holding hands is often a sign of peace and friendship, like shaking hands when meeting someone, or shaking hands in a Catholic church as a sign of peace. The position of the hand can also have meaning, with hands made into a fist having a completely different meaning to an open hand with the palm facing upwards. In the image above in particular, one could read that the two hands are coming together at one; one of the hands is darker than the other, so it could represent Indigenous and non-Indigenous people creating peace; and there is a white substance coming through the enclosed hands, possibly representing the paint that Indigenous people often wear on their body during ceremonies. However, this is just one interpretation out of a myriad of interpretations that could possibly be made - it all depends on who is viewing the image as to what they will glean.

3. What lifestyles, values, and points of view are represented in the message?

As Thoman emphasises that all media is attempting to sell something, be it a product, or a lifestyle, so too does ReconciliACTIONnsw (2005). The site works very hard to make the concept of reconcilliation and the overcoming of racism seem natural. They have set the site up to be mostly factual, giving a list of their Aims and Objectives, almost as if it were a political party setting up its platform. Reconciliation is a contentious issue, so it makes sense to try and sell the idea in a way that is non-confrontational to those people who may not agree with the idea. By presenting facts, rather than attempting to pull heart-strings with personal stories or anecdotal evidence, the argument for overcoming racism seems incredibly valid and reasonable.

Appealing to people's rational sides rather than their emotional ones also corresponds to the site's aim to inform young people about the issues, but then ultimately use this information to become active in their communities in addressing the difficulties Indigenous people face.

4. How might different people understand this message differently from me?

As discussed above, the site makes use of several images of hands, most likely to evoke positive personal meanings. But although the image of hands has been encoded into the dominant Australian cultural framework, we must also remember that not everyone will take away the same meaning from the same image, with every analysis coming from one's own cultural and personal literacy (Kellner & Share, 2005). With this in mind, the site needs to try and evoke the positive connotations associated with the images for those that will take that from them, but also ensure that it doesn't alienate anyone else, which may be the reason for only displaying a few images.

5. What is omitted from this message?

Just as choosing what will go into a website, the choice of what to leave out of a site is just as important in the construction of the message (Kellner & Share, 2005). In this site, the personal element of this message is missing, which is an interesting choice to make on the creator's part, and it is always a carefully planned decision (Thoman, 2005). Perhaps this site was created to appeal to people's rational sides rather than their emotional sides, which does tie-in with the site's Getting Active page.

You can see from just this short analysis, even a site that may seem as straightforward and innocuous as ReconciliACTIONnsw still has an agenda, with each page being carefully chosen and calculated. We all need to open our eyes and constantly question the images and information we're being presented with in order to ensure we are as informed as we can be, and make decisions that are right for us, not just some company's bottom line.

Works Cited
Alia, V., & Bull, S. (2005). Media and Ethnic Minorities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Kellner, D., & Share, J. (2005). Toward Critical Media Literacy: Core Concepts, Debates, Organizations, and Policy. Discourse; studies in the cultual politics of education , 26 (3), 369-386.

Thoman, E. (2003). Skills and Strategies for Media Education. Retrieved May 01, 2010, from Centre for Media Literacy: http://www.medialit.org/

Thwaites, T., Davis, L., & Mules, W. (2002). Introducing Cultural & Media Studies: A Semiotic Approach. New York: Palgrave.

Unknown. (2010). Retrieved June 01, 2010, from ReconciliACTION Network: http://reconciliaction.org.au/nsw/

Some Thoughts on Literacy

When I sat down to write about a memory from my literacy journey I had no idea what I could write about. According to my mother, I learnt to read at two and a half years of age having been taught how to by one of their hippy friends. Whilst this number couldn't possibly be right, I do know that reading is something that I've always been able to do and being able to escape into the world of books is something I've always loved to do. I did, however, know what being illiterate meant, or at least I thought I did. As a baby, my dad suffered a stroke and as such he has an intellectual disability. He could read and write with difficulty and a lot of effort when he was young, but after leaving school at the age of fourteen and years of not reading or writing anything at all, he lost that ability. Growing up, I've always been told that my father was illiterate because of the fact that he cannot read or write, compared to me who is considered literate because I can do these things. However, I now know that he isn't completely illiterate because reading and writing is just one form of literacy, although it is one that is more highly favoured by society (Cazden, Cope, Fairclough & Gee et al,1996).

The best example I can make of this is his ability to read maps and my complete lack of this ability. It's not just that my dad can read a map. When he sees this:

Image source.

he actually sees this:

Image source.

He is able to transform the various lines on the page and interpret the image into the solid, real world image. Whereas I look at the first image and all I see is:

Image source.

Maps make absolutely no sense to me, or at least, they make sense on the page, but then I am absolutely hopeless when it comes to translating this into reality. I look at maps and think I know how to get somewhere, but three hours later I will find myself in the middle of nowhere, unable to figure out where on the map I am. This is usually because I have gone so far in the opposite direction to where Im supposed to be that I am no longer on the map. I look at maps and think that Mr. Squiggle should be telling Blackboard that it's, "Upside down, upside down!"*

The thing is though, it wasn't until recently that I actually considered the fact that this "skill" that my dad has is actually a form of visual literacy, which has been defined as the ability to read and understand signs and is a form of critical literacy (Winch, Johnston, March, Ljungdahl & Holliday, 2004). He is able to look at the map and use the semiotic codes to construct meaning by translating the various lines and symbols that make up a map into landmarks and streets. This can be linked to the Four Resources Model of literacy.

The ability to understand what the various symbols on the page represent is part of being a code breaker (Santoro, 2004). For most people this would be quite a simple task as each map has a key or legend attached to it, showing that a red dot means a traffic light, an arrow on a street pointing a particular way indicating what direction the traffic must flow, or a black line with lots of little lines crossing it representing train tracks etc. For someone who can't read, like my dad, this makes learning the symbols quite difficult. Whether or not this knowledge was acquired or learned, he can now call upon this knowledge when necessary. It might seem that some of the symbols are obvious, like the train tracks or the house with the cross on top of it denoting a church, but it's really not that simple. In order for us to actually know what these mean we have to bring our cultural literacy into play and the knowledge that we bring with us in order to break the code of the symbols without being able to read the key (Hirsch, in Christie & Mission, 1998). For someone who has never seen a cross or any Christian iconography, that is simply a T on a house. Those train tracks could be anything. By bringing his cultural knowledge of the symbols to the map, dad is being a text participant and is a text user because he is able to break code and apply his knowledge in order to read the map and get to where he is going (Santoro, 2004). I am unsure about the last of the four resources model, that of text analyst. From my reading I understand that the text analyst is someone that understands that texts are not neutral and are able to gather this through crticial reading (Santoro, 2004). This may not be correct, but I think that being able to not only read a map and know how to get somewhere, but also how to find the shortest and cheapest way to get somewhere through the use of the map could be considered a form of text analyst. Yes, you are being a text user, but I think it goes further than just using the map but into actually interpreting it.

This is all well and good, discussing my dad's literacy and his map reading abilities, but what does it actually mean for me? In the last 20-something years, whilst I have broken the code and learnt what the symbols mean and how to read a map, and I participate by bringing the knowledge I have to the various symbols on the map, I'm still not very proficient in actually using the map, often heading the wrong way up the correct street, and needing to turn the map upside down so it's facing the way I am. Somehow I've never been able to make the connection between what is depicted on the page and what is actually in front of me. It's OK though, because I am also computer literate and able to access Google Maps. With their instructions, I don't need to be able to read a map, just street signs. (Although life would be much easier if I could properly work maps out - Google is often wrong.)

* You need a certain amount of cultural literacy in order to understand this reference. For those who don't get it, click here.

References

Cazden, C., Cope, B., Fairclough, N., Gee, J., et al. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66, 60-92.

Christie, F., & Mission, R. (1998). Framing the issues in literacy education. In F. Christie & R. Mission (Eds.), Literacy and Schooling (pp. 1-17). London, UK: Routledge.

Santoro, N. (2004). Using the four resources model across the curriculum. In A. Healy & E. Honan (Eds.), Text next: New resources for literacy learning (pp. 51-67). Newtown, NSW: Primary English Teaching Association.

Winch, G., Johnston, R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L., & Holliday, M. (2004). Literacy, Reading, Writing and Children's Literature (2nd ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press.