Media Literacy and the Emerging Citizen

← vi | vii → DEDICATION

To Amy. Without her, this book would have not been possible.

To Emma and Mae. Who keep me working,
laughing and in constant amazement.← vii | viii →

← viii | ix → ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not have been possible without the help, support and guidance from a host of great friends, colleagues, mentors and students.

I’d first like to thank my colleagues at the universities that participated in the research for this book. Belinha De Abreu, Vanessa Domine, Chuck Fidler, Katherine Fry, Sherri Hope Culver, Susan Moeller, Moses Shumow, and Bu Zhong were all overly generous in both disseminating the surveys and allowing me to intrude on their classrooms to facilitate small group discussions.

I’m indebted to my colleagues and friends who read versions of this book along the way, from the initial chapters to the final product. Their eyes, ears, and constructive criticisms helped form the core arguments that I try to advance. In no particular order, I’m indebted to David Cooper Moore, Belinha De Abreu, Meg Fromm, and Eric Gordon for reading versions of this work and providing critical feedback. The theoretical developments early in this work, particularly in Chapter two, stem from some of discussions with Benjamin Thevenin, who I’m grateful to for being able to engage with in more substantial ways around critical media literacy and citizenship. I’ve sat many nights with Jad Melki, Moses Shumow, Roman Gerodimos, and Meg Fromm, talking about the ideas in this book, amongst many other things, that have all found a way to influence the work that follows. Many others contributed ← ix | x → to the shaping of this book in formal and informal ways, too many to name here. A few I would like to offer thanks to specifically for their support. Angela Cooke Jackson for our work on media and health literacy with urban youth; Sanjeev Chatterjee, Jochen Fried, David Goldman, Manuel Guerrero, Andrea Lopez-Portillo, Stephen Reese, and especially Stephen Salyer, and Susan Moeller, whom I already mentioned above, founded, and helped build the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change, which largely shaped my thinking about the models I provide in this book. David Burns and I sat one night in an office in Salzburg in 2007 and played around with the 5A’s model in its earliest stages. Without that night, I’m not sure I would have come to this point.

I wanted to extend thanks to the many students who helped develop the ideas found in this book. My media literacy students at Hofstra University, and later at Emerson College were crucial to my understanding of social media, young people, and civic life. Eivind Michaelsen, for the last two years at Emerson, has helped immensely in the transcription of this data, the creation of the figures and graphs in the book, in bringing the numerous examples you’ll find in the appendices to my attention, and in being a fantastic friend and graduate assistant along the way.

I would also like to extend a warm thanks to my editor, Mary Savigar, at Peter Lang, whom I’ve now had the pleasure of working with on multiple projects. Mary has been supportive, flexible and responsive to all my inquiries throughout this process. Thanks also goes to the staff around Mary, as well as the reviewers of this book, who played a central role in shaping the ideas found in this book, and in the final product that you see here.

Finally, of course, none of this would be possible without the support of my family. Amy, Emma and Mae have given me the time and leeway to make this possible. I think I owe them a year of dinners, Saturdays, and ice cream. I can’t wait to pay them back.

Paul Mihailidis, PhD

Emerson College, Boston, MA, USA

Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change, Salzburg, Austria

← x | xi → FIGURES

Figure 1. Social Media Terminology Chart.

Figure 2. The 5 A’s of Media Literacy Education.

Figure 2.1. NAMLE Core Principles of Media Literacy Education.

Figure 2.2. CML Five Core Concepts for Media Literacy Education.

Figure 2.3. Jenkins Core Media Literacy Skills.

Figure 2.4. The Nexus of Digital Media Culture and Citizenship.

Figure 3.1. Katchpole Petition Letter to Bank of America.

Figure 3.2. The C’s of Media Literacy Networks.

Figure 4.1. Social Media and News Habits.

Figure 4.2. Social Media and Political Habits.

Figure 4.3. Social Media and Perceptions of Friends.

Figure 4.4. Technology and Classroom Organization.

Figure 4.5. Social Media and Leisure Activities.

Figure 4.6. Social Media and Perceptions of Privacy.

Figure 6.1. Media Literacy Connectors.

Figure 7.1. The 5A’s of Media Literacy for the Emerging Citizen.

Figure 7.2. The 5A’s Continuum.

Figure 7.3. The Access Competency.

Figure 7.4. The Awareness Competency.

← xi | xii → Figure 7.5. The Assessment Competency.

Figure 7.6. The Appreciation Competency.

Figure 7.7. The Action Competency.

Figure 7.8. The 5A’s of Media Literacy Ecosystem.

Figure 9.1. The Nexus of Digital Media Culture and Citizenship.← xii | 1 →

·INTRODUCTION·

CIVIC LIFE IN DIGITAL CULTURE

We exist today between worlds. At home, in school, and in public, our physical interactions are determined by the constraints of proximity. We speak to those around us; we socialize within our direct circles, and extend our interactions based on our willingness or need to communicate. The communities that we have historically formed were limited by physical surroundings. We help around the house, we support our neighbors and neighborhoods, and we participate in communities based on their closeness to us. Sharing stories with others has always been a central and necessary component of this existence.

In mediated spaces, a new landscape continues to emerge. Supported by the growth of mobile and social media technologies, new digital platforms now encompass large, diverse, collaborative, and interactive networked communities. They are not limited by demographic or physical boundaries. Interactions in these spaces are many-to-many, sporadic, unscripted, and lack the need for intimacy or a present audience. In these spaces our personal relationships merge together with loose acquaintances and distant family members. In these spaces, the lines between news and entertainment, facts and fiction, truth and hearsay are less distinguishable. In these spaces, our virtual identities are self-crafted around our ideals and extend outward into the networks “in which we participate, opt into and create.

← 1 | 2 → The emerging landscape for dialog online is actively reshaping how we think about community and participation in the 21^st century. From how we understand privacy, expression, and identity, to how we negotiate relationships, social media technologies have exposed a need to explore new codes, rules, and regulations for dialog, voice, and connectivity.