Back in the day my parents were predominately skeptical about how much TV I watched with specific attention as to what I was watching. Parents and responsible adults these days have a bigger issue on their hands as MEDIA is accessible everywhere. On your TV, laptop, desktop, tablet and even in your pocket. Media is distributed in short form TV segments, long form movies, computer games, social media posts, its everywhere with no place to hide. Another huge factor in the times we live in, is the fact that anyone can be heard as it is so cheap to produce your own content. Whether its semi professional setup sat in front of a green screen, or a simple vlog post walking down the street recording on your cell phone, if you have a phone and connection to the world wide web, you a giant step closer to broadcasting to the world.
Having read through Critical Media Literacy: Research, Theory, and Practice – Alverman & Hagood (2000) one element that resonated with me was using “pleasure” in the classroom. If we can connect contexts from pop culture, movies, music and video games and spin them into teaching aids for the classroom I believe the students of today can relate to the content being taught. However, finding popular culture references in teaching tolls that pleases all within the classroom could prove to be a difficult task, take such a simple selection as Pepsi vs Coca-Cola half the students prefer red coke, with the others opting for blue. You can never please them all. So in saying that “pleasure” in the classroom would be an ideal solution as an onlooker such as myself, but as an educator if you kept popular culture outside the learning environment and stuck with traditional teaching content everyone starts with the same interest level. I too find that the mode of address is vital in order to connect with students. If the text is delivered in a vibrant and positive manner it is more generously received by the viewer/student. Combining a positive and vibrant projection of some pop culture themed instructional materials in my eyes would have a lasting impression that a dull and depressed projection of a chalkboard or formulas.
As I was reading some of the articles listed for this week I stumbled on Students have dismaying inability to tell “fake” news from real and was actually stunned at how easily swayed the younger generation can be. In all honesty we can all be hoodwinked with the methods and practices some people go in spreading “fake news”. This article in conjunction with Google frames how we see the world about hackers hacking the Google algorithm got me thinking about a digital internet license. Similar to that of a driving license, an internet passport perhaps which all users must obtain in order to post content online. I understand that this is something that is near on impossible to achieve but it would irradiate some much of the issues in the world. On UK social media for example, week in and week out Twitter users are being banned, arrested and even jailed for homophobic and racial slurs that they make on their platform. But those guilty parties are just a small minority of the offenders that get caught, the number that get away with their hatred is mind boggling. When you add into submitting content that is considered “fake news” into the World Wide Web that is another area that has been abused and it all has a terrible domino effect into society. A license or a way to officiate content that’s being submitted needs to be introduced. YouTube does have its own auto computer generated content supervisor which digitally scans content for offensive words, overuse of curse words etc., and it also relies on the honesty of the uploader (see video below) to verify the contents of any video that is uploaded.
Due to the freedom the internet brings us, an army of digital video police still could not monitor the content that is being uploaded daily. And I am sure a digital passport and an internet license would some how go against free speech or some ethical laws, but it will at least provide some restrictions which can prohibit the upload and posting of hateful and uncredited content. The internet and its wicked ways is one battle, but even mainstream over the air content is just as twisted. As a recently anointed US citizen having moved from the UK to the snowcapped wonder that is Pennsylvania back in 2010 it was not long until I realized that the news was broadcast differently on alternate TV stations. I even dabbled working in a news station in Altoona and saw the inner workings firsthand. Certain TV stations favor certain political agendas, and this has been happening for years. Certain news articles are spun in different ways in order to strengthen their own agenda, I found this crazy, and even a little deceitful. With the news companies supported by bigger entertainment industries behind the scenes I am sure this sort of swing politically goes beyond the news desk and into the movie theaters and living rooms. Its not until you start looking at things from a different unbiased perspective you realize how corrupt the media can be.
In the video clip How the news distorts our worldview it also showcases how much ACTUAL news we are being informed about. The global image of the amount of news from around the world that was shown to US residents was shocking. As a self-proclaimed man of the world, I have not been brought up in this environment, and maybe due to the itchy pants syndrome I have had all my life relocating every 2 to 3 years, I still like to know what’s happening elsewhere and not just on my doorstop. I too as an ex news producer can relate to what news is being broadcast. Fundamentally it’s a ratings war. Tragedy and drama sell, it gets bums on seats and If the news is not local it had to be groundbreaking. Over in the United Kingdom, we had a more diverse spread of news, traditionally the BBC lead with British based news branching out to major European affairs if it affected them in some regard. As for other areas of the world, if they were not covered in the prime time news slots, they major global topics were covered on BBC world news which predominately ran in the early hours of the morning or via its own independent station on satellite/cable television. But at its core the news has the same vibe, ratings are top priority, and what does the viewer want the most? To be kept up to date with stories that affect them, major entertainment news or outright disaster stories.
However, taking a different look at this video, you also need to understand how BIG a county the United States of America is. It may not have the population sizes of China or India but its situation in the global market is at the forefront. Again, as a newbie to the USA, I always felt that England and Europe combined had the same span as to that of the United States of America. The local news here stateside would be compared to the national news in England, whereas I foresee the national news in USA as like that of European news coverage back in Great Britain. Even this lighthearted video about some Americans trying to name a county on a map has its underlying concerns (except of course the showoff at the end).
I started to read and explore the other articles for this week’s blog post, and when reading Languages are dying, but is the internet to blame? It did get me thinking about the amount of badly written posts (mine included) from a decent sized portion of the users on Twitter and Facebook. I am not talking about the legitimacy of their posts that is of course a deeper rabbit hole to explore, but the grammar and punctuation of their written texts. I must goggle some words and abbreviations to see what they mean, and I consider myself “down with the kids”, but to honest, the grammar and wordings used in tweets, Facebook and Instagram posts have already bypassed me. It goes to show how quickly a language can alter, and at this rate with the amount of abbreviated gibberish I see online I wonder how frequent that gibberish enters the classroom.
Leave a Reply