Two quick requirements to start the course. First, all students need to take this brief survey to get a sense of your techno-profiles so we can be sure to customize the class to meet your needs & abilities.
Secondly, to help familiarize yourself with blogging and to build a community among the class, your first blogging assignment is to post a brief “techno-biography”: write a biographical account of some way that media technology had a direct impact on you. It can be a specific anecdote, a broader reflection on your technological use, or any other entry that serves to introduce you to your peers and might intersect with themes from our course. By class on Thursday the 14th, each student should read others entries and provide comments on at least two of them.
Additionally, here is the discussion question for Thursday’s readings. You’re expected to respond to readings at least 9 times throughout the semester, so might as well get started now! Just login and post a comment to this entry below:
How do you think Meyrowitz’s three levels of media (content / grammar / environment) apply to the models of literacy explored in Jenkins’s policy paper? How does participation and literacy operate at these different levels?
The section of Jenkins’ policy paper that most directly relates to Meyrowitz’s discussion of the theory of media studies is the section “Why we should teach media literacy: Three core problems.”
In my opinion the three problems Jenkins outlines can be equated to Meyrowitz’s three metaphors for understanding media. The “Participation Gap” can be equated to issues at the environmental level of Meyrowitz’s analysis. In this section, Jenkins discusses issues of accessing the information platform, environmental issues.
The second problem Jenkins outlines is the “Transparency Problem.” These problems are very much in line with Meyrowitz’s concept of the “grammar” of media analysis. In this section, Jenkins talks about the importance of teaching students to analyze the way information is presented (as seen in the Civilization 3 example).
Finally the “Ethics Challenge” in Jenkins’ analysis corresponds to Meyrowitz’s content section. Jenkins argues that students need to learn to approach different content ethically.
I do not see very many distinctions in the way that Meyrowitz’s three levels of media relate to literacy. Literacy is essential at all these levels of media. For example, one cannot interpret the grammar of a movie without understanding some of the basic ways in which films are made.
It seems that participation relates the most to environment. Participation does not seem particularly important on the grammar level of media analysis, for example.
On a more personal level, I thought both readings were interesting and seemed mostly correct. Meyrowitz’s thesis that one must consider media analysis holistically seems correct. Although a few of Jenkins’ policy recommendations (using games like civilization to teach history what-ifs?) seem a little overdone, his general thesis that we should work with the changing media and think of new ways to educate students seems right on. I particularly agree with the notion that if we do not help underprivileged students learn how to access the new platform, they will be left behind.
In Jenkins’s treatment of the skills that need to be taught to ensure literacy in our evolving technological world, he postulates that “students need research skills” (19). The ability “to access books and articles through a library” and “to grasp what kinds of information are being conveyed by various systems of representation” are a couple of highlights in his definition of research (19). Preoccupied as I am with a large research project, I became a little hung up on the concept of research as part of what we might call emergent basic literacy. Though content certainly plays a part in any successful fact- and opinion-search, I find the facility with which young people shuffle through the various environments and parse the grammars of the media and resources they choose a subtler fascination. Often, one starts with a text of some kind: a claim made in a forum, a strange phrasing in a sonnet, a word never before read in a chat or a novel. A sample investigation might flip between ten or twenty Wikipedia pages of varying levels of specificity until the researcher has enough basic knowledge to dig up articles on a system like J-Stor or to go sift through books and chapters at the library. J-Stor is online, easy to manipulate, and provides the depth of print with the speed of the web. The grammar of it, however, is print’s, and almost requires a search through bound indices and bibliographies to ascertain the true structure and “worth” of the source. One doesn’t necessarily know, for instance, whether one is reading Newman, semi-anonymous doctoral candidate in Michigan, or Newman, University Professor at Brown, until one has seen that Newman’s articles appear in almost every compilation on the subject and that she is quoted almost ubiquitously in contemporary work. The unconscious awareness of the necessity of shifting environment and language—how to shift, when to shift—is an enormous part of what must be considered my literacy as a young scholar. Perhaps my now less unconscious awareness gives me a shot at understanding what I mean when I call a film “literate.”
Under the heading “The Transparency Problem,” Jenkins notes that youth often fail to ask a basic question that Meyrowitz’s Media Content level asks: How accurately does media content reflect reality? Literacy, on this level, means developing what Jenkins calls research skills like how to access information in variety of media and, more importantly, the ability to distinguish between the facts and opinions contained in these sources. On a participatory level, games and simulations (such as Caesar III) or applications that are an enjoyable way for an individual to seek out information and. Performance based applications that allow individuals to adopt alternate identities allows them to reflect on who they really are as human beings. Other applications based on collective intelligence like like lijit.com or snopes.com allow individuals to help each other evaluate the validity of information. Networking applications themselves like socially based searched engines such as google.com or even Epinions.com are another way to access a variety of information.
Jenkins literacy model of appropriation functions more on the level of Media Grammar. Often the best way to learn about how something works (more specifically, how various elements of a particular medium express meaning) is to take it apart and reassemble it. Websites like My Pop Studio that allow individuals to re-edit a reality TV show, for example, will allow them to answer questions like how does the pace of the editing change the meaning being expressed and the viewer’s reaction? To be honest I’m pretty sure distributed cognition is related to learning about how a particular medium is structured, but I still don’t quite understand what it is.
In terms of medium analysis and focusing on implications of differences between media, Jenkins stresses Transmedia Navigation and Negotiation. Take Pokemon for example, which uses TV to give them information which they must use while playing the computer or card games – in doing so, the individual will notice how the information (content) and the way that information is expressed (grammar) differ between media. Negotiation, on the other hand, addresses the different social and cultural implications of various media. Again, I’m a little confused as to where this one would fit in – perhaps it has to with understanding differences between the beliefs or “contents” from perspectives various individuals/cultures. But does a culture qualify as part of what Meryowitz refers to as a media environment?
The core of Jenkins’ argument seems to be based in his statement that, “new media literacies should
be seen as social skills, as ways of interacting within a larger community, and not simply an individualized skill to be used for personal expression.” However, even from the beginning of his article, he affirms that the old forms of “literacy”–that is reading and writing, can never, nor should ever be replaced as they are essential steeping stones towards becoming “twenty-first century literate.” In this same way, Meyrowitz stresses that content, grammar, and environment are inseparable from each other as well as from older forms of media. He argues that “there is some content essence that can be transported relatively unchanged from medium to to medium” and that by studying the child who chooses to watch television instead of reading a book speaks not only about the individual, but about the environment created by that medium as well as the medium itself. I think the major message of both articles–which were sometimes as tangled as all of the mediums themselves–is that our “environment” (social, economic, political, gender issues) is undeniably affected by medium, but our understanding of its “grammar” and “content” (and as Meyrowitz points out, the importance of understanding them) shapes the particular effect it has upon our world as well.
It almost seems to have a “chicken or the egg appeal?” Is it our society that is changed by the media, or or is the media a reflection of society? And does media only have an effect if we are educated enough to manipulate it and decode its messages?
Evan’s Reading Response
Meyrowitz discusses how the three levels of media (content/ grammar/ environment) each offer individual “thrusts of influence” but are simultaneously involved as three dimensions of the medium. Jenkin’s policy paper defines twenty-first century “literacy” as both the textual literacy (based on the traditional literacy that evolved from print culture) and the expansion into new media literacy. The ‘new media literacy’ Jenkins defines incorporates the literacy of mass and digital media. As a ‘participatory culture’ based on community involvement, the literacy of Meyrowitz’s three concepts of media determine how new media is used. By understanding the three levels of media, literacy proficiency is achieved that in turn furthers the advancement, application and use of various media in society for various means. Through the ongoing accumulation of knowledge and literacy of new media, it opens up vast opportunities for media to expand into various avenues as we continue to study the effects and possibilities of media as Meryerowitz has in his analysis.
Meyrowitz’s levels of media best correlate with Meyers’s three concerns: participation, transparency and ethics. Upon examination, content requires an agreed upon set of ethics to regulate it — especially in the world of Web 2.0, where anyone can create content accessible to the entire world. To navigate the grammar of any medium, an understanding of the medium’s specific grammar is required. Finally, as the progress of technology hurtles forward, new and exciting media environments could possibly lead to unequal opportunity to access content.
Content: With respect to the Web — the least regulated and most accessible medium we have — ethics are loose at best, and the web is difficult to police, often relying on self-policing. But as an increasing number of children access and even create web content at younger and younger ages, ethics become increasingly important. Its not particularly nice, nor is it ethical to viciously attack users content with rude content of your own, but because the web is so anonymous, courtesies we might extend in person aren’t always translated onto the internet.
Grammar: Jenkins’s comment about how the appearance of rank or status of content leads us to very quickly accept it as true is a good one. It applies especially to those of us whose first media came from “accountable” sources such as network news, or newspapers. Its very easy to use the grammar of the medium to mimic respected sources, translating that respect onto yourself. But as I mentioned earlier, on the internet, its very easy to escape accountability. In the end, it all comes down to education — as Jenkins pushes. The schools need to — from the very beginning — educate students about the grammar of new media and how to detect when content is less than transparent or neutral.
Environment: As Web 2.0 grows and the internet reaches full saturation within American homes, participation will increase. While I agree with Meyrowitz’s characterization of multiple media environments, I suspect that the internet will (if it hasn’t already) become a macro-environment, providing a platform for all other media environments. This bodes well for the participatory culture as the tech progresses. Everyone will eventually be connected 24/7, with the world’s knowledge and content at our fingertips. But again, this must begin with education from day 1. We must train students to become informed and expert users, so they can harness the true power of what is still in its infancy.