One of the additional reasons I started this blog, besides documenting interesting new and mass media that intrigues and frightens me was to find resources for being critical of the media. At my job at a cable access TV station working with youth I have been looking around at different media literacy. I plan on keeping that up in the future but I wanted to share one really great resource. Manhattan Neighborhood Network Youth Channel has their media literacy training curriculum available online, free to download. You can find the curriculum in PDF form, and their presentation slides here.
The arc of the curriculum is great, it opens by asking students to identify different types of trees based on their leaves, all trees found around NYC. They then show the alphabet to the left, and ask students to identify what product each of the letters comes from (try it, its scary how easy it is). They then move into an explanation of media consolidation and some analysis of different texts (I think they include some sort of dated ads, which can easily be swapped out for new ads), and then conclude with a call to action. A call to be media producers, cultural producers, to go down to MNN and make something. I think thats probably a good idea, so check out Youth Channel’s curriculum and find out if there are any public access centers, pirate radio stations, community radio in your area. Or, start a blog, print a zine. Make some of your own media. (Thats my call to action…)
