MEDIA LITERACY AND LANGUAGE TEACHING: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Knowledge Deepening / Consolidation

Students are expected to: • Creatively use a variety of media as sources of information and knowledge for the teaching of language. • Critically analyse, evaluate and reflect on the various structures and forms of media as sources of information. • Understand the content of the media messages as well as the broader institutional, economic and social framework which defines and influences the way they are produced. • Understand the ways in which media messages are addressed, received and interpreted by the students. • Develop a critical and exploratory attitude towards the media. • Cultivate basic communication skills and develop expressive-creative skills. • Understand the different kinds of mass communication, their characteristics, conventions and expressive/rhetorical means as well as the way in which they contribute to the transmission of specific political-socio-ideological perceptions/stereotypes. • Develop a personal, social and political perception. • Explore the ways in which communities may be associated with local media.

The course focuses on exploring both theoretical and practical issues. At the theoretical level, the course focuses on the study of (a) the history and technology of the media, (b) their institutional and economic existence, (c) their political and social function, (d) the idiological, ideological and aesthetic characteristics of their messages, (e) their ethics and freedom of expression, and (f) their reception and interpretation by students. At the practical level, the course seeks to enable students to design a thematic unit based on the principles of critical media literacy. At the laboratory level, the course seeks to familiarize students with practices of searching for and critically evaluating the content, reliability and usefulness of online media and information resources for the teaching of language in primary school. In particular, the content of the module consists of the following thematic areas: Thematic Area 1: Introduction – Concepts • The historical, social and economic context of media literacy. • The history of the evolution of media literacy. • Interaction with other literacies (information literacy, digital literacy). Thematic Area 2: Contemporary Educational Policy Guidelines for Media Literacy • UNESCO MIL curriculum for teachers. • The critical media literacy perspective. Thematic Area 3: News Critical investigation of principles, values and rules governing the configuration of news discourse in press and television (selection and prioritization of issues, ways of presentation and commentary of them, what is excluded and why, who are speaking or who are not and why, the function of the image and the role of 'experts', the impact of all these on child psychology, the political and social perception of the audience). • Comparative examination of different news media (print and TV), so as the ability for evaluating them to be developed. • Examination of the regulatory and ethical framework governing news discourse: issues of censorship and self-censorship, journalistic ethics and freedom of expression. • Production of alternative news discourse (e.g., making/constructing a front-page, writing/composing an online newspaper or a TV bulletin, conducting research and interviews aiming at producing a news reporting on a student's choice theme). Thematic Area 4: Advertising • Advertising as a composite genre, which combines image and speech/text, information and fiction, expressive brevity and meaningfulness, pragmatism and aesthetics, platitude (e.g., stereotypes) and innovation. • Advertising as a complex/composite cultural text: values, attitudes, social relations and roles, ethics and control issues. • Production of alternative advertising discourse, in the context of which the students explore/investigate issues such as the definition/determination of the target audience, communication strategy options, composition and aesthetics issues. Thematic Area 5: Cinema - Fiction Films • Cinema as a means for investigating, recording and interpreting the social environment. By using thematically appropriate movies, we analyze:  the way of narration (types of frames, visual angle and association with the scenes and their meaningful effects),  the way in which the heroes/characters are represented,  the ideological/interpretative view of the director,  the connection of the plot/topic to the social experience of the students. Thematic Area 6: Images of Reality – Photography, Documentary • The power and pitfalls of photographic/cinematographic testimony/ documentation, by using photojournalism (as it is found in the press, in news magazines as well as to relevant special editions) and documentaries (TV and or film) as the main types of study. The main axes of reflection that is needed to be developed here are the following:  Criticism of the 'naive' realism cultivated by both the plausibility of photographic technology and the rhetoric of the construction of documentaries.  Emergence of the role of ideological-interpretive perspective and photographic/cinematographic technique in the construction and the naturalness of photojournalism/documentary. References to the phenomena of propaganda and falsification of photographic evidence.  Examining the ability of the photojournalism/documentary to explore the historical and social reality and to emerge, reveal/uncover, denounce crucial issues/problems. Thematic Area 7: Internet • Basic concepts (Internet, World Wide Web, search engines) • Internet history and its commercialization • Personalized information and implications for education

media literacy, critical literacy, linguistic literacy

06-09-2024