ABSTRACT
Teaching media literacy and using popular culture texts (e.g., television programs, magazines, videos, Wlms, newspaper advertisements) to enhance students’ language and literacy development has proven successful in Australian and Canadian classrooms (Desmond, 1997; Quin & McMahon, 1992). In the United States, there is a slowly growing movement toward implementing similar instruction. Advocates of employing media literacy and popular-culture texts to enhance students’ understandings in U.S. schools are highly diverse. They include educators across all subjects and levels:
community, health, political, and parent organizations; psychologists, counselors, and social workers; cultural critics and media producers. Their aims are also mixed. Some assume “protectionist” or “inoculationist” stances that seek to protect children from objectionable content and values in mass media (e.g., in television, Wlms, or music videos), or to “inoculate” them through education against the dangers of popular culture through education. Others employ media literacy education to further goals (presented earlier in this book) of connecting literacy proWciencies, and using varied print, electronic, and experiential sources; stress critical thinking and prepare democratic citizens (Considine, 1987; Considine, Haley, & Lacy, 1994); and promote self-empowerment or social action through analysis and production of multiple texts (Semali & Watts Pailliotet, 1999).
