ABSTRACT
Media education programs that teach about media in the elementary and secondary curriculum are a 20th-century phenomenon. The Canadian model provoked discourse about the assumed goals and purposes of media education and forced the United States media literacy movement to try to understand and resolve the competing ideologies in its ranks. Two approaches to media education in the US show promise in moving media education from a deficit model to an acquisition model. They are: media production as an arts-based approach and media education as a strategy for participatory democratic citizenship. Both position media literacy as an opportunity to increase and enhance the life chances of students. The San Francisco Digital Media Center carries on the tradition of literacy instruction outside formal educational bureaucracies. In 1996, the Center partnered with a corporate consortium called The Bay Area Multimedia and Technology Alliance (BAMTA). Those who practice media education from a critical perspective have an affinity with literacy and education theory bases.
