Mass Communication Commons^™

Seeding Change: What Vvh Can Teach Us About Teaching And Learning In Digital Spaces, Michelle Ciccone

Journal of Media Literacy Education

In this essay, I reflect on a central question: “why did I experience something so profoundly different in Virtually Viral Hangouts (VVH) than I was able to help seed in my own district during the COVID-19 crisis?” I identify three key components of the VVH ethos that inspired new ways of thinking, namely: digital technologies free us from constraints to build something different, digital technologies are most effective when we use them to build community, and digital collaboration enables us to tap into the wisdom of the group. As we build better and more humane educational spaces, it is important …

Virtually Viral Hangouts: Reflections On The Role Of Community During Crisis, Lauren G. Mcclanahan

Journal of Media Literacy Education

In this essay, I reflect on two key aspects of my membership in the online community known as Virtually Viral Hangouts (VVH). First, I reflect on how membership in this group helped me professionally, providing important, in-time instruction as I learned to make the switch from in-person to remote learning in the early days of Covid-19. Next, I reflect on how membership in this group helped me personally, as I struggled to find my identity as a teacher through a computer screen. I conclude by reflecting upon what it means to be a member of a community and why such …

The Secret Sauce Of Online Community Of Practice During Covid-19 Pandemic: Nonviolent Communication, Yonty Friesem, Elizaveta Friesem

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The challenges of work-family balance while being asked to move to remote instruction and engage students creatively have affected us all globally on multiple levels - from our professional identity, to our own health, mortality and purpose in life. The idea behind Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is that as Rosenberg (2015/1999) put it, it is a language that celebrates life. Applying these practices in a community building initiative of the Media Education Lab during the COVID-19 pandemic supported our community not only for their professional needs, but also and most importantly in their social and emotional resiliency to keep positive their …

Hope Matters: How An Online Learning Community Advanced Emotional Self-Awareness And Caring During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Renee Hobbs

Journal of Media Literacy Education

For many educators with interests in digital and media literacy, the COVID-19 pandemic was an inadvertent opportunity to explore digital and media literacy through online learning and professional development. This paper describes how a diverse and multidisciplinary group of educators gathered each weekday in a Zoom video conference meeting for fellowship, emotional support, and sharing, building relationships which evolved over time to support emotional growth, technology skill development, learning, and reflection. Survey data shows that program participants had higher levels of optimism and emotional self-awareness as compared with a control group. Participants who had more exposure to the program were …

A Qualitative Study Of Early Adolescents’ Critical Thinking About The Content And Consequences Of Media Violence, Erica Scharrer, Yuxi Zhou

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Research shows that young people are likely to encounter considerable amounts of violence in the media they use. Some of those depictions trivialize the severity of violence. Past studies show that media literacy education can spur critical thinking regarding violent portrayals in media texts. But rarely do prior studies employ qualitative methods to understand how young media audience members reason through the key question of whether media violence is either surprising or concerning. In the current study, an in-school media literacy program is offered to 48 6th graders who provide data in the form of written responses to a number …

Higher Education Students’ Social Media Literacy In Ethiopia: A Case Of Bahir Dar University., Atinafu Behailu

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This study investigates the status of Bahir Dar University students’ social media literacy and how associated factors affect developing core competencies. A combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods have been employed in the study. Both descriptive and inferential statistics of means core, standard deviation, one sample t-test, independent sample t-test, correlation and multiple regressions were used to analyze data gathered from the quantitative design. Data gathered from FGD were analyzed qualitatively. Accordingly, the students’ overall social media level was found to be low. Female students perform slightly lower than their counterpart male students. Among the five skills of social …

A Local Lens On Global Media Literacy: Teaching Media And The Arab World, Katharina Schmoll

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The globalization and transnationalization of media use have facilitated access to voices from the Arab world. Students and teachers in Western higher education can make use of these voices within and outside the classroom to enhance students’ knowledge of the region and challenge Eurocentric imaginations of the ‘Other’. Yet to ensure students engage with these Arab sources in a meaningful way, media literacy is key. Drawing on and challenging a framework of global critical media literacy, this article argues that media literacy is grounded in time and space, meaning an effective teaching of global media literacy skills supposes an awareness …

An Approach To Creative Media Literacy For World Issues, Abduljalil Nasr Hazaea

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This article introduces an approach to creative media literacy for world issues (WIs) such as Covid-19. In so doing, the article integrates four positions on discourse and media as terrible facets of globalization in the context of critical discourse analysis (CDA). The objectivist position deals with WIs as neutral discourse shared among humanity and distributed through English as an international language and educational media. The ideologist position treats creative media literacy as relations of power between global and local identities in the form of competing discourses associated with WIs. The rhetorical position reveals the hidden strategies used in global media …

Media, Obesity Discourse, And Participatory Politics: Exploring Digital Engagement Among University Students, Tao Papaioannou

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Situated within research on youth, participatory politics, and media framing of obesity, this study examined how undergraduate students in a media literacy course engaged with obesity discourse as a nexus of civic participation. Twenty-nine students enrolled on the course identified frames of obesity in plus-size model Tess Holliday’s Instagram posts surrounding her controversial Cosmopolitan cover in 2018. Analysis of these frames – self-validation, injustice of fat-shaming and stigmatization, influences of Instagram celebrities on fat embodiment, and health stereotypes of obese people – enabled the students to critique activist responses to accepted body norms and moral values facilitating weight bias. In …

The Journey Of The Black Sports Journalist: Past, Present And Future, Gary Washburn

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

It took nearly 60 years for the mainstream audience to learn and digest the impact of the Black sports journalist on the American sports landscape.

In the Disney-movie “42,” detailing Jackie Robinson’s breaking of baseball’s color barrier in 1947, Robinson bonded with a journalist named Wendell Smith, who served as a guide, mentor and liaison for the baseball player during his travel journey with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Smith not only covered Robinson’s ground-breaking excursion into a sport that had proudly prohibited and disavowed Blacks from playing Major League Baseball, he became Robinson’s trusted colleague, gaining access to stories and insights …

Social Media Influencers (Smis) In Context: A Literature Review, Charles Alves De Castro, Isobel O'Reilly Dr, Aiden Carthy

Articles

This review focused on three main areas, "Social Media Influencers (SMIs) in Context, The Impact of SMIs on Adolescents, and Consumer Behaviour in a Digital Era – Generation Z in Perspective". This article aims to further the overall understanding of SMIs and outlines the impact of SMIs on adolescents‘ lives. Thus, the main objective of this literature review is to raise awareness within the marketing field about the influence of social media influencers on adolescents and how brands promote their products and content through social media influencers. The review comprised a regular search using electronic journal databases and secondary data …

Video 101: Video Production Basics, Visually Explained, Chris Flanery

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

As video becomes more prevalent in all aspects of life, the demand for competent video production skills continues to grow. Having the technical literacy to capture professional-level video is highly sought-after and begins with proper education and training. This project found the process for learning video production often fails to maximize on its full potential. Despite being a visual medium, most individuals surveyed and interviewed for this project who work in the video production industry report visuals are rarely used to demonstrate fundamental concepts in learning video production. These same individuals and additional research indicate visual aids help illustrate many …

Book Review: Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto, Benjamin Thevenin

Journal of Media Literacy Education

A review of Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto (2020) written by Kevin M. Gannon.

Using Critical Media Literacy To Create A Decolonial, Anti-Racist Teaching Philosophy, Alexis Romero Walker

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Media educators must address their personal teaching philosophies to adequately participate in anti-racist pedagogy. Using critical media literacy principles, educators can be aware of student’s bodies and performance in relation to reinforced systems of whiteness in the media classroom. This article proposes ways for higher education media educators to adjust their classroom content, and classroom environment, to adopt an anti-racist, decolonial pedagogy.

Teaching Beyond Verifying Sources And “Fake News”: Critical Media Education To Challenge Media Injustices, Jeremy Stoddard, Jonathan Tunstall, Leila Walker, Emily Wight

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Current popular media literacy programs overemphasize the verifiability, reliability, and expertise of sources over the analysis of how marginalized groups are represented. This analysis privileges traditional news sources – and a hierarchy of “objective” news. These same institutions have been historically responsible for producing and reinforcing stereotypes and media injustices toward marginalized groups. These media literacy programs lack emphasis on how issues of race, oppression, and politics are represented in factually accurate sources. We demonstrate how an alternative model of critical media education can attempt to address issues of representation and media injustice within the contemporary global media ecosystem. We …

Media, Making & Movement: Bridging Media Literacy And Racial Justice Through Critical Media Project, Alison Trope, Dj Johnson, Stefanie Demetriades

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This article offers a theoretically-grounded case study considering the role of Critical Media Project (CMP) as an educational initiative and intervention that sits at the juncture of media literacy and social justice. CMP fills key gaps in media literacy education by using a critical media literacy frame to foster critical consumption, critical creation, and cultural competencies around seven key social identities (race and ethnicity, gender, LGBTQ+, socio-economic class, religion, ability and age). In turn, through a media-rich website, curriculum and other programs, CMP helps youth imagine a better future with the requisite tools, resources and power to challenge dominant systems …

The Trauma-Informed Equity-Minded Asset-Based Model (Team): The Six R’S For Social Justice-Oriented Educators, Srividya Ramasubramanian, Emily Riewestahl, Shelby Landmark

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This paper describes the Trauma-informed Equity-minded Asset-based Model (TEAM) framework for social justice-oriented educators. We draw on trauma-informed approaches to illustrate how systemic racism as systemic trauma and normative whiteness as dominant ideology are embedded in the U.S education and media institutions. From an equity-minded perspective, we critique notions such as egalitarianism, colorblind racism, neoliberal multiculturalism, and abstract liberalism. Using an asset-based model, we urge educators to avoid deficit ideologies to frame marginalized communities. The TEAM approach offers the following “Six R’s” as strategies: (1) Realizing that dominant ideologies are embedded in educational systems, (2) Recognizing the long-term effects of …

Do Media Literacies Approach Equity And Justice?, Paul Mihailidis, Srividya Ramasubramanian, Melissa Tully, Bobbie Foster, Emily Riewestahl, Patrick Johnson, Sydney Angove

Journal of Media Literacy Education

It is often assumed that media literacy serves to protect and uphold democratic practice and that media literate citizens are the best safeguards for democracy. However, little attention is paid to defining this practice and its relationship to ongoing inequities within democratic societies. In this essay, we argue media literacy operates from three core assumptions; media literacy creates knowledgeable individuals, empowers communities, and encourages democratic participation. The first assumption draws out an individual’s skills and critical thinking in media literacy practices. The second assumption focuses on the community aspect of media literacy, specifically which communities are best served by media …

Encouraging Community Ownership During The Isolating Days Of A Pandemic, Cora Scott

eJournal of Public Affairs

Because of the pandemic, the future feels difficult and uncertain, and few of us have much control over it, beyond doing our best to keep ourselves informed and those around us safe. The result is a lot of unhappy people. Gallup survey data show that pessimism about the future of the pandemic in the U.S. is rising. This is infecting our general outlook. This article explains on how one local government and health department successfully communicated during the pandemic and even increased community engagement. This was done through encouraging a sense of community ownership.

Krnu: Expansion And Realignment, Kaci Richter

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

Terrestrial radio stations have undergone fundamental changes over the last three decades. The entertainment market has expanded to include more ways for content creators to reach audiences and more platforms for advertisers to promote and sell their goods and services. As listener habits have changed, radio stations have been forced to keep pace, adding owned media platforms like websites, apps and social media accounts to meet listeners where they are. This struggle is not limited to commercial radio properties. Listener habits are forever changed, and noncommercial stations are often under-resourced. 90.3 KRNU is one of those under-resourced noncommercial educational stations …

Critical Thinking As A Pedagogical Approach: Using Critical/Cultural Studies To Analyze Music Videos, Lukas John Pelliccio, Timothy Brown

Discourse: The Journal of the SCASD

Teaching undergraduate students how to critically analyze a text is an important experience. However, it is not easy to do this because readings are often dense, and the process of writing and presenting a critique can be challenging for some students. In light of this, we have developed an assignment where students critically analyze music videos for their ideologies. In the assignment, students select three specific overt or latent content pieces from a music video and explain how those manifestations influence a particular ideology in a paper. Then they are asked to show the music video to their peers and …

Visual Framing Effects Of News Coverage Of Police Use Of Deadly Force On Intergroup Relationships, Lucile Henderson, Riva Tukachinsky Forster, Leora Kalili, Simone Guillory

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

The study examines the effects of visual framing in news coverage of law enforcement use of lethal force. In a 2X2 online experiment, participants read one of four versions of a news story that included visual racial cues (images depicting a Black vs. a White victim) and a delinquent/normative frame—depicting the victim wearing attire that signifies either normative or delinquent behavior (regalia vs. a hooded sweatshirt). Both race and delinquency framing influenced the readers’ stereotype endorsement and feelings toward Black Americans. However, judgment of the police officer’s behavior solely depended on the victim’s race. These findings demonstrate the importance of …

Making Moves: Lateral Reading And Strategic Thinking During Digital Source Evaluation, Elizabeth Walsh-Moorman, Kristine Pytash

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Using screencasting videos as think-alouds, this case study explores the process three high school seniors used when tasked with evaluating digital sources. Drawing from dual level theory of literacy, the study explores the complexities involved when students are asked to conduct informal research of their source (a strategy called lateral reading) in order to improve their ability to uncover potential bias in digital sources. Results indicate that lateral reading encouraged healthy reader skepticism and slowed readers down in the review, but students lacked sophisticated online reading and research strategies.

Critical Media Literacy And Black Female Identity Construction: A Conceptual Framework For Empowerment, Equity, And Social Justice In Education, Petra A. Robinson, Ayana Allen-Handy, Kala Burrell-Craft

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This paper addresses the issues of knowledge production, which interrogate and disrupt dominant narratives that subjugate Black females related to their identity. We contextualize our discussion through the lens of critical consciousness and critical media literacy by exploring the role of popular media in identity development/imposition for Black females. We outline issues of Black female identity politics by framing them through the description of critical media literacy as a 21st century literacy, with Black Feminist Theory as our theoretical lens. Similar discussions have remained centered in the field of Media Studies and there has been inadequate attention to these issues …

Effectiveness Of Protection Motivation Theory Based: Password Hygiene Training Programme For Youth Media Literacy Education, Hee Jhee Jiow, Florence Mwagwabi, Anita Low-Lim

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This study adopts an experimental design to investigate the effectiveness of a password hygiene training programme. The password hygiene training programme adopted the Protection Motivation Theory’s framework in its development, and was delivered online to 84 students aged 13 to 16. Strength of password measures, such as time taken, and number of tries required, to crack the password, were administered pre and post intervention. The findings revealed that the password hygiene training programme was effective in changing actual password setting behaviour. This study also provided hints on which perceptual changes, based on the theory’s framework, was most influential in the …

News Media Literacy Challenges And Opportunities For Australian School Students And Teachers In The Age Of Platforms, Jocelyn Nettlefold, Kathleen Williams

Journal of Media Literacy Education

News media literacy competencies and motivation in teachers are critical to media education initiatives. This article draws on a survey of 97 primary and secondary school teachers conducted as part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and University of Tasmania’s national Media Literacy Project in 2018. The data reveals challenges in the implementation of media literacy in classrooms, highlighting a generational divide linked to Australians’ rising consumption of news from digital sources and social media platforms. While teachers overwhelmingly say critical thinking about media is very important for students, nearly a quarter of these teachers are not engaging with news stories …

Child Participation In The Design Of Media And Information Literacy Interventions: A Scoping Review And Thematic Analysis, Linus Andersson, Martin Danielsson

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The article presents findings from a review of scientific articles about media and information literacy interventions targeted at children and adolescents. More specifically, the review centers on the quantity and quality of child participation in the design of such interventions. The findings indicate that designs with high levels of child participation constitute a minority in the sample. Most of them aim at “behavior-relevant” outcomes, e.g., reduce smoking or obesity. Interventions aimed at “media-relevant” outcomes, e.g., helping children to become competent media users, seem less widespread. Based on these findings, we argue that top-down initiatives to the promotion of media and …

Why Do Some Americans Resist Covid-19 Prevention Behavior? An Analysis Of Issue Importance, Message Fatigue, And Reactance Regarding Covid-19 Messaging, Hannah Ball, Tayah Renea Wozniak

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Despite the rapid transmission of and death toll claimed by COVID-19, there is evidence of resistance toward behaviors shown to effectively prevent and slow the spread of the disease, such as mask wearing and social distancing. This study applies psychological reactance theory to examine COVID-19 message factors (i.e., message fatigue, issue importance) that may be linked to nonadherence to CDC recommendations via the experience of reactance. Participants (N = 268) were current U.S. residents over the age of 18 who completed an online survey about their perceptions of COVID-19 messaging in general as well as toward a specific COVID-19 …

Human-Machine Communication: Complete Volume. Volume 2

Human-Machine Communication

This is the complete volume of HMC Volume 2.

With A Female Vice President In Office, Has Media Gender-Bias Left The Presidential Campaign Trail? The Short Answer Is No, And The Reason Why Is Deep Rooted, Nora Tarte

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Professional Projects

An examination of treatment in the media of female vice presidential candidates—Geraldine Ferraro (1984), Sarah Palin (2008) and Kamala Harris (2020)—surfaces a trend of gender bias perpetuated by subtly sexist language in all three campaigns. While society has made strides in equality in the 36 years between campaigns, the media treatment of Vice President Kamala Harris is not that far removed from the treatment of Geraldine Ferraro. The bias exists both overtly and subtly with obvious sexist language and more subtle forms of sexist language in coverage doled out by top media outlets, but subtle sexism is what often flies …