ABSTRACT

Th e global predominance of multiple media cultures and systems that use audiovisual and nonlinear digital forms of communication challenge traditional schooling principles and practices, which are thoroughly based in print literacy. Today’s students are aware tacitly, and sometimes explicitly, of the value (economically, socially, politically) of audiovisual and digital media-especially as they are part of an image making system that relies on celebrities, branding, and other means of giving symbols power in the contemporary world. In this chapter, I briefl y review how schools have established print literacy development as the dominant purpose of schooling, as well as survey the presence and power of audiovisual and digital forms and systems of communication in the contemporary world. I locate adolescent understandings of commercial media as forms and systems within everyday social contexts and discuss the implications of their situated understandings. In closing, I call for educators and policy makers to teach students to create a new future for society by being critical media consumers and producers.