The concept of literacy has expanded to include understanding and effective utilization of information, media, and technology. The Children's Internet Protection Act requires school districts to teach proper online use and behavior. The lack of a technology requirement in a rural, public school district in Northeastern Pennsylvania that meets the needs of 21st century learners and the conditions of the Children's Internet Protection Act was the rationale for the development of this project study. The study's conceptual framework stemmed from theories related to new literacies, multimodality, computer education practices, and millennial learners. The research questions examined educators' perceptions of topics and skills to include in a curricular framework that addressed the lack of a comprehensive technology requirement to improve 21st century digital literacy skills for all students. A qualitative case study design was selected and data from 40 open ended questionnaires, one 5-member focus group discussion, and two 6-member focus group discussions were open coded and thematically analyzed. Emergent themes relating to a digital literacy course framework included information access skills and the application of technology. Findings were validated through member checking and triangulated with 62 existing curricular documents. The project for this study consisted of a curricular framework for a 90 day 21st century digital literacy high school course that can be used by any school district to enhance the preparation of students for life after high school. Such use of the findings and culminating project may positively affect social change through a modern definition of literacy thus contributing towards the development of a positive and prepared 21st century citizenry.

Repeated exposure to media images that portray women as sex objects can have negative long-term effects on self-esteem beginning in preadolescence. Negative effects include decreased feelings of competence, increased focus on appearance, increased body dissatisfaction, and limited achievement in domains not related to appearance. There is a gap in the literature examining if media literacy training can mitigate the negative effects of exposure to sexualized media content. Festinger's social comparison theory and Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development provided the framework for this study. A quasi-experimental pre-post-test design was used to examine the interaction of media literacy training and time of measurement, on self-esteem and body-satisfaction in preadolescent girls. Archival data from 73 5th grade girls were obtained from a media literacy group with the addition of data from 14 5th grade girls collected to form a non-media literacy comparison group to control for confounding variables and bias. Two separate 2-way, mixed-model, factorial ANOVAs were conducted. The analyses failed to show a significant interaction between literacy group and time of measurement on self-esteem and/or body-satisfaction. However, the potential effectiveness of media literacy skills in neutralizing the negative impact of sexualized media imagery on preadolescent girls' self-esteem and body-satisfaction was observed in the between-group analyses. Positive social change may occur when society continues to identify and incorporate positive self-esteem influences and media literacy skills into the lives of preadolescent girls as to mitigate negative long-term effects of media sexualization.

Thesis (MEd. (Language and Education)) -- University of Limpopo, 2014 / Combating Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) among young people has been one of the most difficult challenges in the small communities of rural Mafarana in South Africa, which is only one area surrounded by many other similar areas beset by similar problems. One of the major obstacles that hinder television (TV) health messages from reaching the targeted market is the communication barrier, little or no information, misinformation or misunderstanding are amid many other reasons. The objective of this study was to research the discourse analysis of high school learners’ interpretation of HIV/AIDS TV health messages. The study examined three objectives, aimed at providing a clear indication whether advertisers consider the need for using direct and clearly understood language to meet the required level of education of the targeted audience. Meeting these criteria would result in HIV/AIDS education having an impact on rural people’s knowledge and behaviour.

Doctor of Education / This thesis is situated in the research field of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) in education and within a professional context of multiliteracies for academic purposes. The overall aim of the research is to provide a metafunctional account of multimodal and multisemiotic meaning-making in print and electronic learning materials in first year science at university. The educational motivation for the study is to provide insights for teachers and educational designers to assist them in the development of students’ multiliteracies, particularly in the context of online learning environments. The corpus comprises online and CD-ROM learning resources in biology, physics and chemistry and textbooks in physics and biology, which are typical of those used in undergraduate science courses in Australia. Two underlying themes of the research are to compare the different affordances of textbook and screen formats and the disciplinary variation found in these formats. The two stage research design consisted of a multimodal content analysis, followed by a SF-based multimodal discourse analysis of a selection of the texts. In the page and screen formats of these pedagogical texts, the analyses show that through the mechanisms of intersemiosis, ideationally, language and image are reconstrued as disciplinary knowledge. This knowledge is characterised by a high level of technicality in image and verbiage, by taxonomic relations across semiotic resources and by interdependence among elements in the image, caption, label and main text. Interpersonally, pedagogical roles of reader/learner/viewer/ and writer/teacher/designer are enacted differently to some extent across formats through the different types of activities on the page and screen but the source of authority and truth remains with the teacher/designer, regardless of format. Roles are thus minimally negotiable, despite the claims of interactivity in the screen texts. Textually, the organisation of meaning across text and image in both formats is reflected in the layout, which is determined by the underlying design grid and in the use of graphic design resources of colour, font, salience and juxtaposition. Finally, through the resources of grammatical metaphor and the reconstrual of images as abstract, both forms of semiosis work together to shift meanings from congruence to abstraction, into the specialised realm of science.

No description available.

<p>Titel: Media Literacy - En studie om mediepedagogik i forskning och empiri</p><p>Författare: Kristin Nilsson, Sofia Ridal</p><p>Antal sidor: 52</p><p>Abstract: In the society of today we are constantly exposed to media messages, and much research investigate people’s interest in the media. Whatever theory we choose to believe in, the facts remain: today the media is a major part of all people’s lives. During our teacher training we have encountered the concepts Media Literacy and Media Education and as future pedagogues of media we are interested in what research can tell us about them.</p><p>The main aim of this paper was to find out what researchers write about Media Literacy and Media Education and to empirically investigate whether or not teachers in the Swedish secondary school teach about, with and for media. It also aimed to learn what attitudes, thoughts and reflections these teachers have concerning media and learning in school. For these reasons, we decided to begin by conducting a profound research of the state of the art. Secondly, we accomplished qualitative interviews with a total of eight teachers from two secondary schools in a Swedish town.</p><p>The results of the interviews show that a majority of the teachers who were interviewed, the informants, mainly used media technology as a teaching aid – they taught with media. Furthermore, the results reveal that some of the informants saw the media as something quite frightening, unserious and difficult to understand. By contrast, we found an underlying tendency that the informants had a positive attitude towards media education in schools, and that they were somewhat curious (and eager) to learn more about it. Yet, as for today, the informants’ lack of knowledge of the subject, deficient resources and indistinct directive from higher authority effectively seem to obstruct the development of media education in the schools in our investigation.</p>

No description available.

Despite the prevalence and ubiquity of media in North American culture, educators still show reluctance to embrace media literacy as a necessary literacy. This study examines two media literacy activities using descriptive teacher research, and defining usefulness based on student response and applicability to composition objectives in the English 1101 classroom. Both lessons produce useful findings, with students rating the second activity as more useful than the first activity. This research lends sample assignments and confidence to instructors seeking to employ simple media literacy tactics in the introductory composition classroom.

This qualitative action research case study seeks to modify a Middle School Computer Science Course at a medium‐sized private school in North Atlanta, Georgia by examining the intersection of media literacy, technology, and adolescent teens. The main purpose of this project is to improve the course by incorporating media literacy skills into the curriculum. Guided class discussions, active participant observation, participant journals, and participant projects will be used to learn more about students’ experience with Media Literacy education. Centering on reflective practices, teacher‐student dialogue, and peer collaboration, this project aims to identify, engage, and explore issues critical to the effective implementation of a new Media Literacy curriculum. The findings from this completed project shall be made available to school administration and the larger community for the continued improvement of the Middle School Computer Science program.

¡@¡@¡@This study aimed to examine the third-person effect of product placement in the television news, for clarifying the effect of persuasiveness of news with product placement and comparing the assessment of the impact on others and themselves. The study also concerned about the media literacy if it can help the audience to identify the messages of persuasive intention, to evaluate the impact of product placement in the television news is greater on others than on themselves, and to support the government to prohibit product placement in the television news. ¡@¡@¡@In this study, the main research method was questionnaire survey, and the research participants were junior high school students from three sections in Kaohsiung. There were 476 valid questionnaires totally. Data were analyzed by methods of independent t-test, paired t-test, correlation and hierarchical regression analysis. The results found that product placement of television news would cause the third-person effect: messages of product placement of different levels would result in different intensities of third-person perception. Compared to implicit-style placements in the television news, obvious ones triggered strong media impact on others, but did not trigger third-person perception differential. It meant people tend to view product placement in the television news had impact on others as well as on themselves. ¡@¡@¡@Another focus of this study was personal media literacy ability. Analytic results showed that literacy ability was a better predictor of the third-person effect perception. The result of the study was similar to the findings of the past research: media literacy could assist in identifying the purpose of product placement in the television news, and could avoid the perceived effect of media messages on themselves (Cohen, 1982; Rucinski & Salmon, 1990; Wei, Lo & Lu, 2008). ¡@¡@¡@Most importantly, this study contributed to the growing literature on behavioral component of the third-person effect by demonstrating that the third-person effect perception was a great predictor of support for restriction of product placement in the televiton news than the third-person perception differential. The reason was that the third-person perception differential could not distinguish perceived effects of product placement in the television news on others as well as themselves (Wen-Hui Luo, 2000b). As research result of Xu and Gonzenbach on the behavioral component of the third-person effect, third-person perception differential was the most significant predictor of support for media censorship. Therefore, this study suggests that future research could probe into the mechanisms through which the third-person effect of product placement in the television news occurs.