Media Literacy

Media Literacy is an established part of Ontario's literacy curriculum.

Why is media literacy important?
Every teacher would have noticed by now the sheer predominance of media technology in classroom discourse. It is used as a means of instruction and administration, of course, but beyond the classroom, it is the primary means through which everything gets accomplished or expressed. According to David Kamerer, “in 2009, the Kaiser Family Foundation surveyed children ages 8-18, and found that children engage with media an average of 10 hours and 45 minutes a day,” and he goes on to claim that "by improving our choices and better understanding the content that we consume, people can put all those hours of exposure [to media] to work in the pursuit of a richer life, family, and culture."

The Ontario language curriculum also asserts that "Understanding how media texts are constructed and why they are produced enables students to respond to them intelligently and responsibly. Students must be able to differentiate between fact and opinion; evaluate the credibility of sources; recognize bias; be attuned to discriminatory portrayals of individuals and groups, including women and minorities; and question depictions of violence and crime.Students’ repertoire of communication skills should include the ability to critically.

Directly from the syllabus

“Media literacy” is the result of study of the art and messaging of various forms of media texts. Media texts can be understood to include any work, object, or event that communicates meaning to an audience. Most media texts use words, graphics, sounds, and/or images, in print, oral, visual, or electronic form, to communicate information and ideas to their audience. Whereas traditional literacy may be seen to focus primarily on the understanding of the word, media literacy focuses on the construction of meaning through the combination of several media “languages” – images, sounds, graphics, and words.

Media literacy explores the impact and influence of mass media and popular culture by examining texts such as films, songs, video games, action figures, advertisements, CD covers, clothing, billboards, television shows, magazines, newspapers, photographs, and websites.3 These texts abound in our electronic information age, and the messages they convey, both overt and implied, can have a significant influence on students’ lives. For this reason, critical thinking as it applies to media products and messages assumes a special significance. Understanding how media texts are constructed and why they are produced enables students to respond to them intelligently and responsibly. Students must be able to differentiate between fact and opinion; evaluate the credibility of sources; recognize bias; be attuned to discriminatory portrayals of individuals and groups, including women and minorities; and question depictions of violence and crime.

Students’ repertoire of communication skills should include the ability to critically interpret the messages they receive through the various media and to use these media to communicate their own ideas effectively as well. Skills related to high-tech media such as the Internet, film, and television are particularly important because of the power and pervasive influence these media wield in our lives and in society. Becoming conversant with these and other media can greatly expand the range of information sources available to students, their expressive and communicative capabilities, and their career opportunities.To develop their media literacy skills, students should have opportunities to view, analyse, and discuss a wide variety of media texts and relate them to their own experience.

They should also have opportunities to use available technologies to create media texts of different types (e.g., computer graphics, cartoons, graphic designs and layouts, radio plays, short videos, web pages). The Media Literacy strand has four overall expectations, as follows;

Students will:

1. demonstrate an understanding of a variety of media texts;

2. identify some media forms and explain how the conventions and techniques associated with them are used to create meaning;

3. create a variety of media texts for different purposes and audiences, using appropriate forms, conventions, and techniques;

4. reflect on and identify their strengths, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful in understanding and creating media texts.

This strand focuses on helping students develop the skills required to understand, create, and critically interpret media texts. It examines how images (both moving and still), sound, and words are used, independently and in combination, to create meaning. It explores the use and significance of particular conventions and techniques in the media and considers the roles of the viewer and the producer in constructing meaning in media texts. Students apply the knowledge and skills gained through analysis of media texts as they create their own texts.

The specific expectations identify media forms and conventions that are appropriate for instruction in the given grade. These are not, however, the only forms and conventions that students may explore in that grade, nor are they exclusive to that grade. Teachers will continue to use their professional judgement to decide on the forms and conventions to examine in every grade, based on the identified learning needs of the students in their classrooms.

Works Cited

Kamerer, D. (2013). Media literacy. Communication Research Trends. 32 (1).

The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1-8 Language