MEDIA EDUCATION

Marshal McLuhan made a number of observations and prophecies throughout the 1960s and 1970s as he observed the effects of media, television and predicted the effects of the electric age of information. I find many of his predictions amazing as we have seen recent evolutions of digital media and social networks utilizing the Internet, the evolution of Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, verifying his predictions to be true even though they were made over 30 years ago. One observation he makes is shown in a short video clip called End of Secrecy (1974). In this video clip McLuhan discusses how in the age of electric information there can no longer be any secrecy. He uses the Richard Nixon Watergate scandal as an example and also includes how it will be impossible to hide anything in politics. He also discusses the concept that there can be no more “monopolies of knowledge” where only certain people have certain knowledge and others who wish to learn that knowledge must go directly to them to get it. Today, both observations of McLuhan are proving true with digital media, television, and the Internet. Political scandals and corruption, both true as well as exaggerated, are hitting television and web sites daily. The overwhelming distrust and dissatisfaction people have in government is a direct result of digital news media, social networks, and mass media. We are also now seeing an overwhelming amount of “shared knowledge” applications with the use of the Internet for academic research, collaboration, and open courseware in education.

While McLuhan made these comments in the same two minute video clip, to me they are essentially two different outcomes, agreeable that they are derived from the same sources, but have different implications on education today. First, in terms of the secrecy factor, it is important to understand that not everything we are seeing as being “exposed” is completely accurate. In Toward Critical Media Literacy (Kellner and Share, 2005) the statement is made “Media do not present reality like transparent windows or simple reflections of the world because media messages are created, shaped, and positioned through a construction process. This construction involves many decisions about what to include or exclude and how to represent reality” (p.374). We have all seen this numerous times where news media, either on television, radio, or the Internet portray a situation or circumstance, usually political, in a way that is not completely accurate and is often times misleading. They leave out certain parts of the story, or exaggerate other parts of the story, and add in artificial visuals, sounds, music, etc to play with people’s minds and try to tell a story that is borderline fictional. Their motivations to do so are arguable and I do not wish to speculate on them in this blog, but there is common knowledge that it happens. As Kellner and Share point out, an understanding of this is the first step for students engaging in critical media literacy to be able to sort out everything and construct their own knowledge and make their own decisions (p.381).

In terms of Internet based research and open courseware in higher education, the issue of ethics becomes central to the discussion with application in many contexts.  Such contexts include intellectual property rights, copyright laws, and plagiarism (De Gagne & McGill, 2009, p. 3 – 10). These issues present a need and opportunity to incorporate ethics education into critical media literacy, both for students as well as teachers.

REFERENCES

Marshall Mcluhan Speaks – Centennial 2011, End of Secrecy (1974), Retrieved from http://marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/electric-age/1974-end-of-secrecy.php

De Gagne, J. C., & McGill, B. A. (2009). Ethical and Legal Issues in Online Education. Journal of eLearning and Online Teaching, 1(7). Retrieved from http://www.theelearninginstitute.org/journal_pdf/JeOT%20-%20Ethical%20and%20Legal%20Issues%20in%20Online%20Education.pdf

Kellner, D., & Share, J. (2005). Toward critical media literacy: Core concepts, debates, organizations, and policy. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education, 26(3), 369-386. Retrieved from http://one2oneheights.pbworks.com/f/Kellner_critical_media.pdf