Media Education Blog Post

In order to implement media education into our classroom, educators must delve into trying to understand just exactly how to deconstruct new media. Kress and van Leeuwen ensure us that it's not one critical lens that can be used when the material, the manner of production, affect the meaning (p. 216). We can not examine Facebook group focused on minimizing the affects of global warming, the same way we can examine an advertisement on television doing the same thing. The message and the material are intertwined. Along with method of production, culture also plays a large part in this; "different cultures have different meaning coded in material and production" (p. 217), thus when we talk about deconstructing media we are left with little models to follow, examining one creation and production at a time. Moreover, as tools of production continue appearing, developing, and advancing, these new semiotic resources lead ways to creating new worlds. Kress and van Leeuwen ask us to think about the transformation of the recording. Recording often presented a world of truth; however, with the introduction of CGI, new worlds are created and it alters our sense of reality and our understanding of it. We cannot just analyze the content of the film without thinking about the means of its production. The film is no longer a direct transfer of life, it is created, manipulated through new media. Thus, for educators media education has become more complex; I believe that media education deserves to be its own class, students should be able to understand the variety of media production, the elements involved in each, as well as critically discuss how the medium creates meaning. We cannot think about deconstructing new media the same, because new media is creating representations that have never existed before. In order to get our students to understand the power--both good and bad--of new media they must be able to speak the language.