With the changing media environment, media literacy education begins to be an emerging field in China. There are many studies showing the significance of media literacy education; however, few studies on school practices are presented. The existing studies are mostly based on the context of western discourse. Even the curriculum framework in this case is influenced by western scholars. There have been a few studies investigating media literacy education in the Asian context. It is still struggling for the foothold in schools in China compared with countries where it has been practiced for a long time. Based on this understanding, this study is to explore the entry and approaches of media literacy education in a Chinese primary school. It aims to shift media literacy education from an international context to its local setting, and offers a point of reference to enrich the theory and practice in the process of localization. The research questions are concentrated on how media literacy education was initiated in the context of the national curriculum reform, and two ways in which it implemented in the HZMHT primary school. It is a qualitative case study, using observation, interviews, focus groups, group meetings and document analysis as the main methods of collecting data in the field. The introduction of media literacy education in the HZMHT primary school is consistent with the national curriculum reform, which provides an opportunity for the development of media literacy education. Through the changes in management structure and curriculum standards, the HZMHT primary school gets officially support to promote its curriculum innovation through media literacy education. The school practice becomes a response to curriculum reform in return. In this study, the curriculum practice is a result of a collaborative effort between a university and a primary school. With the endeavor of teachers in the HZMHT primary school and the team members from BBU, media literacy education was exercised both as a school-based curriculum and as an integrated component of multiple subjects. In the curriculum practice of media literacy education, students’ media culture is brought into the classroom and they are encouraged to interact with a digital society from the perspective of constructivism and critical pedagogy. Students construct new knowledge and fulfill personal growth by interacting with teachers and peers in a student-centered dialogue. In addition, they become aware of media environment and their roles in a world with dominant media. Five conceptual understandings of media literacy education are practised in the school-based curriculum, while priority was given to achieving the objectives of the original subjects in the integrated curriculum, where media literacy education is integrated with moral education, math education, information technology and integrated practical activities in a constructivist approach. Students’ engagement and interactive activities indicate the effectiveness in the curriculum practice. The research gaps on the process of contextual adaption and pedagogical exploration for media literacy education are filled through this school initiative in this case study. First, the changing paradigm of school practice and moral cultivation of the curriculum in China enrich the theory of localization for media literacy education. Second, the school initiative of a curriculum innovation fulfills the pedagogical exploration for the promotion of media literacy education and its legitimacy in Chinese context. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

In a society consumed by ever-increasing media and technology, it is more important now than ever that public schools provide their students with the skills and tools necessary to analyze, interpret, deconstruct, and construct popular media images and messages. Consequently, it is the role of educators to engage with popular media in the classroom, not simply for the sake of student motivation, but for the purpose of supporting students in meaningful literacy practices. This study analyzes classroom dialogue and students’ written responses throughout a semester-long English elective course entitled, “Hip Hop Literature and Culture,” in a public high school in New York. This course was designed as a means to engage students in critical media literacy (CML) practices. Through this qualitative case study, the researcher sought to better understand how students are understanding and responding to the popular media that surrounds them, and how academic engagement with such media within a class context impacts their understandings of self, youth culture, popular culture and the social structures that ultimately impact their lives.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Education / Master / Master of Education

This study investigates media literacy curricula in upper-income and lower-income public schools. Twelve principals participated in a telephone survey by answering fifteen questions about their schools and districts.

The changing role of literacy in primary education, with its emphasis on the acknowledgement of the learner’s values, beliefs, culture, background and language is the focus of this study. The research was concerned with understanding the literacy practices of Foundation Phase Grade 3 teachers who are able to intentionally promote and mediate literacy acquisition among their learners. A qualitative design was used to describe the approaches of effective literacy teachers. The research study discovered that while the teachers made use of a number of teaching methods that underpinned a de-contextualised and constructivist approach, a socio-cultural approach to literacy was lacking. The results call for a broadening of the definition of literacy; one that acknowledges the socio-cultural background of the learners in developing a literacy disposition that prepares learners for a changing world. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Didactics)

This study combines analytical and narrative modes of historical enquiry with educational policy sociology to construct a history of media in education in Scotland. It uses the development trajectory of a single case, media education in Scotland's statutory education sector, to deconstruct and reconstruct a history of the institutional relationship between the Scottish Film Council (SFC) and the Scottish Education Department (SED) that stretches back to the 1930s. Existing literature describes media education in Scotland as a phenomenon located in the 1970s and 1980s. This study disaggregates media education discourse and dissolves chronological boundaries to make connections with earlier attempts to introduce media into Scottish education in the context of Scotland's constitutional relations within the UK. It employs historical and socio-cultural methods to analyse the intersections between actors and events taking place over six decades. The analysis and interpretation of the data is located in three time periods. Chapter 3 covers the period from 1929 until 1974 when, on the cusp of the emergence of the new texts and technologies of film, the SFC was established to promote and protect Scottish film culture and audio-visual technologies. During this time, the interdependence of teachers, the film trade and the educational policy-making community led to the production, distribution and exhibition of new and popular forms of text to national and international acclaim. By juxtaposing public and private documents circulating on the margins of statutory education, this chapter generates a new understanding of the importance of film and its technologies in Scotland in the pursuit of a more culturally relevant and contemporary model of education. It also describes how constraints upon Scotland’s cultural production infrastructure limited its capacity to effect significant educational change. In the 1970s, cultural, political and educational ferment in pre-devolution Scotland, created a discursive shift that gave rise first to media education and then to Media Studies. Articulating documents with wider discourses of educational and cultural change and interviews with key players, Chapter 4 describes a counter-narrative gaining momentum. The constraints of the practices of traditional subjects and pedagogies combined with the constraints on Scottish cultural production gave shape and form to the media education movement. Significantly for this study, the movement included influential members of Scottish education’s leadership class. Between 1983 to 1986, the innovative Media Education Development Project (MEDP) aimed to place media education at the centre of teaching and learning in Scottish education. This was fully funded by the SED, managed by the Scottish Council for Educational Technology (SCET) and the SFC and implemented by the Association for Media Education in Scotland (AMES). The MEDP overlapped briefly with another initiative in SCET, the Scottish Microelectronics Development Project (SMDP). During this period, Media Studies enjoyed rapid success as a popular non-advanced qualification in the upper secondary and further education sectors. Media education, however, did not. Chapter 5 explores the links between the MEDP and the SMDP through the agency of three central actors: SCET, the SFC and AMES in the context of a second term of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. This study concludes that between 1934 and 1964, the SFC was a key educational bureaucracy in Scottish education. The SFC’s role as an agent of change represented the recognition of a link between relevant and contemporary Scottish cultural production and the transformation of statutory education. Between 1929 and 1982 three iterations for media and education in Scotland can be discerned. In 1983, the MEDP began a fourth but its progress faltered. The study suggests that if a new iteration for media and education in Scotland in the twenty-first century is to emerge, an institutional link between media culture, technology and educational transformation requires to be restored.

The changing role of literacy in primary education, with its emphasis on the acknowledgement of the learner’s values, beliefs, culture, background and language is the focus of this study. The research was concerned with understanding the literacy practices of Foundation Phase Grade 3 teachers who are able to intentionally promote and mediate literacy acquisition among their learners. A qualitative design was used to describe the approaches of effective literacy teachers. The research study discovered that while the teachers made use of a number of teaching methods that underpinned a de-contextualised and constructivist approach, a socio-cultural approach to literacy was lacking. The results call for a broadening of the definition of literacy; one that acknowledges the socio-cultural background of the learners in developing a literacy disposition that prepares learners for a changing world. / Educational Studies / M. Ed. (Didactics)

This study centres on the psychological effects new digital media, like the internet and cellphones, have on adolescents. Although the internet has enormous benefits, it also poses a host of risks that can make adolescents vulnerable to victimisation and/or developing associated psychosocial problems. Characterisations of adolescents’ social relationships in the internet medium, as well as the investigation of the continuity between digital media literacy and online social behaviours, carry high relevance for developmental psychology. It is during the adolescent period that peer interactions arguably hold the greatest importance for individuals’ social and behavioural functioning. Using a logic model for evaluation, the researcher conducted an exploratory research study on digital media use among adolescent learners aged 13 to 15 years to determine whether schools could guide them to think critically for themselves about the entire realm of these new media. The data were gathered from school principals, teachers, parents and learners from three secondary schools in Gauteng Province, which were purposely selected to represent different socio-economic circumstances. A total of 230 people (n=230) participated in the research. Mixed research methods were employed in this study. The quantitative research methods supported the qualitative research methods. The literature review suggested that current media literacy education, which forms part of the Life Orientation curriculum, does not enable learners to think critically or make informed choices about their behaviour in the digital world – because it incorporates neither ethics nor responsibility. One of the main aims of the study therefore was to investigate the importance of expanding existing media literacy education, namely by incorporating two additional learning categories in the curriculum: Digital Safety and Security, and Digital Citizenship. These additional learning categories were introduced in the form of lessons by the teachers participating in the study. A think aloud strategy was used whereby learners verbalise what they were doing and learning while engaging in the digital media literacy lesson activities. The learners’ verbalisations were used to ascertain what learning was occurring in the classroom. The experimental group demonstrated an increase in critical thinking from pre- to post-evaluation. This research therefore proposes that the signature element of intervention strategies for inappropriate online behaviour be to create a “culture of critical thinking”. This implies greatly reducing the risks cyberspace pose, and at the same time enhancing adolescents’ abilities to use it in ways that create and deepen healthy relationships – in the digital as well as the real world. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

This study centres on the psychological effects new digital media, like the internet and cellphones, have on adolescents. Although the internet has enormous benefits, it also poses a host of risks that can make adolescents vulnerable to victimisation and/or developing associated psychosocial problems. Characterisations of adolescents’ social relationships in the internet medium, as well as the investigation of the continuity between digital media literacy and online social behaviours, carry high relevance for developmental psychology. It is during the adolescent period that peer interactions arguably hold the greatest importance for individuals’ social and behavioural functioning. Using a logic model for evaluation, the researcher conducted an exploratory research study on digital media use among adolescent learners aged 13 to 15 years to determine whether schools could guide them to think critically for themselves about the entire realm of these new media. The data were gathered from school principals, teachers, parents and learners from three secondary schools in Gauteng Province, which were purposely selected to represent different socio-economic circumstances. A total of 230 people (n=230) participated in the research. Mixed research methods were employed in this study. The quantitative research methods supported the qualitative research methods. The literature review suggested that current media literacy education, which forms part of the Life Orientation curriculum, does not enable learners to think critically or make informed choices about their behaviour in the digital world – because it incorporates neither ethics nor responsibility. One of the main aims of the study therefore was to investigate the importance of expanding existing media literacy education, namely by incorporating two additional learning categories in the curriculum: Digital Safety and Security, and Digital Citizenship. These additional learning categories were introduced in the form of lessons by the teachers participating in the study. A think aloud strategy was used whereby learners verbalise what they were doing and learning while engaging in the digital media literacy lesson activities. The learners’ verbalisations were used to ascertain what learning was occurring in the classroom. The experimental group demonstrated an increase in critical thinking from pre- to post-evaluation. This research therefore proposes that the signature element of intervention strategies for inappropriate online behaviour be to create a “culture of critical thinking”. This implies greatly reducing the risks cyberspace pose, and at the same time enhancing adolescents’ abilities to use it in ways that create and deepen healthy relationships – in the digital as well as the real world. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)