Practical Media Literacy

Media literacy educator Nick Pernisco's new book, Practical Media Literacy: An essential guide to the critical thinking skills for our digital world, is the perfect introduction to media literacy for young adults, teachers, and parents. Pernisco has distilled his years of teaching experience into a practical guide for learning the most crucial skills needed to be a digital citizen in the 21st century. This is a must-read for anyone interested in learning how to interpret the enormous amounts of information we are exposed to everyday, both in traditional media and online. The book includes an introduction to media and media literacy, explaining what media is, how it affects us, and why we should pay close attention to it. The reader is then presented with a framework that can be used to analyze any type of media. Once the basics are thoroughly explained, the bookfocuses on individual types of media and specific methods for analyzing each type. Readers will learn to analyze and think critically about movies, television, music, social media, advertising, news, video games,and more. Each section contains relevant exercises to help readers better understand the impact each type of media has on their lives. These exercises can be completed alone, or may be used as lesson plans in a classroom setting. This 2nd edition builds on the strengths of the previous version. * A stronger focus on the learner. The book explains media literacy from its most basic elements to some sophisticated topics of interest for all ages. This makes the book a perfect textbook for any K-12 classroom. * Expanded information on more types of media. Movies, TV, advertising, photography, social media, music, news, and video games each get their own chapter, each illustrating details about how to analyze each type of media and numerous activities that may be used as lesson plans. This book is perfect as a textbook for a course on media literacy, an introductory course about media, any class that uses media (tv, movies, music, the web) to convey information, forat home use by parents, and for curious minds trying to better understand their world.

Today’s educators are confronted on a daily basis with the challenges of navigating digital resources, tools and technologies with their students. They are often unprepared for the complexities of these challenges or might not be sure how to engage their students safely and responsibly. This book serves as a comprehensive guide for educators looking to make informed decisions and navigate digital spaces with their students. The author sets the stage for educators who may not be familiar with the digital world that their students live in, including the complexities of online identities, digital communities and the world of social media. With deep dives into how companies track us, how the Internet works, privacy and legal concerns tied to today’s digital technologies, strategies for analyzing images and other online sources, readers will gain knowledge about how their actions and choices can affect students’ privacy as well as their own. Each chapter is paired with detailed lessons for elementary, middle and high school students to help guide educators in implementing what they have learned into the classroom.

Includes CD-Rom ′Intriguing and timely...I whole heartedly recommend this text to teacher educators and their trainees, certainly across English and the Arts, but arguably to all engaged in considering critical pedagogy across the curriculum′ - ESCalate `This is a very timely book, firmly rooted in authentic, albeit visionary, classroom practice, that has much to offer to teachers of all subjects, but should be particularly welcomed by English and media colleagues′ - English Drama Media `Heaving with ideas...outstanding lesson ideas and inspiring work from students′ - The Secondary English Magazine `I really enjoyed working my way through this book...The book is accompanied by a DVD organised into chapters which correspond to those in the book, and it was great to see the ideas and schemes referred to in the text come alive. The schemes have been included which makes it even easier to adapt the work to fit the technology and resources available in your own school..All teachers of media would benefit from browsing this book′ - Learning & Teaching Update This book is for secondary English, Media, and ICT teachers who want to develop practical media work and media literacy across the curriculum. It is ideal for secondary English and media teachers and curriculum leaders in secondary schools, as well as ICT teachers and co-ordinators, PCGE English/Media students, and researchers working on media, English and ICT projects. A range of case studies are presented which show how digital media work, from video editing to computer game authoring, can be developed in schools, drawing on children′s own cultural knowledge. It also shows the benefits of such projects in terms of learning outcomes and increased self-esteem for a range of learners. The book comes with a CD-Rom of children′s work from the various case study projects, exhibiting the high standard of moving image work, animations and computer games that can be produced with the help of this text. With an integrated approach drawing together practice, theory and research, the book will help teachers to plan for and develop their own media projects in school. It offers advice on integrating media work across the curriculum (in English and media classes as well as in ICT and citizenship), and presents a model of progression which shows how learning can develop from the first years of secondary school through to GCSE level. In line with current government initiatives to open up curriculum boundaries, the book shows how to plan for longer periods of time for these projects.

The authors provide concrete, innovative ways to integrate media literacy across the curriculum. A companion website provides tools for analyzing all kinds of media.

Media literacy is often focused on evaluating the message rather than reflecting on the medium. Bringing together postphenomenology, media ecology, posthumanism, and complexity theory, Richard Lewis’s book offers a method for such a reflection and shows how our everyday media environments constitute us as (post)human subjects: one that is becoming and constitutes through relations – also with our media technologies. An original interdisciplinary effort – including for example the term 'intrasubjective mediation' – and a must-read book for everyone interested in how we become with and through technologies. Prof Mark Coeckelbergh, University of Vienna Technology, Media Literacy, and the Human Subject is a clearly and concisely written book that employs a fruitful transdisciplinary approach. It at once offers an excellent grounding in the literature, whilst simultaneously developing a useful tool for students to reflect deeply and critically upon their own engagement with media. Thoroughly recommended. Alexander Thomas, University of East London What does it mean to be media literate in today’s world? How are we transformed by the many media infrastructures around us? We are immersed in a world mediated by information and communication technologies (ICTs). From hardware like smartphones, smartwatches, and home assistants to software like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, our lives have become a complex, interconnected network of relations. Scholarship on media literacy has tended to focus on developing the skills to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media messages without considering or weighing the impact of the technological medium—how it enables and constrains both messages and media users. Additionally, there is often little attention paid to the broader context of interrelations which affect our engagement with media technologies. This book addresses these issues by providing a transdisciplinary method that allows for both practical and theoretical analyses of media investigations. Informed by postphenomenology, media ecology, philosophical posthumanism, and complexity theory the author proposes both a framework and a pragmatic instrument for understanding the multiplicity of relations that all contribute to how we affect—and are affected by—our relations with media technology. The author argues persuasively that the increased awareness provided by this posthuman approach affords us a greater chance for reclaiming some of our agency and provides a sound foundation upon which we can then judge our media relations. This book will be an indispensable tool for educators in media literacy and media studies, as well as academics in philosophy of technology, media and communication studies, and the post-humanities.

Leading authority on media literacy education shows secondary teachers how to incorporate media literacy into the curriculum, teach 21st-century skills, and select meaningful texts.

Inside, readers will find a wealth of intelligently crafted, ready-to-use lesson plans and activities designed to help promote critical thinking skills for K-12 students, making this a perfect teaching resource for school and public librarians, educators, and literacy instructors.