Critical Media Literacy as Engaged Pedagogy

Given the escalating role of media and new media in our everyday lives, there is an urgent need for courses in Critical Media Literacy, at all levels of schooling. The empowering nature of these kinds of courses is demonstrated through a discussion of a Critical Media Literacy course taught at UCLA. Engaged pedagogy begins with the assumption that we learn best when there is an interactive environment. (hooks, 2010, p. 19) A radical pedagogy, which informs the theoretical and practical realities of progressive courses, aims to promote critical thinking and social justice. bell hooks, a leading scholar in a diversity of fields, asserts that engaged pedagogy ‘produces self-directed learners, teacher and students who are able to participate fully in the production of ideas’ (hooks, 2010, p. 43). She further reminds us that, as teachers, we have a responsibility to introduce and employ critical thinking in our classrooms, which is necessarily in opposition to the hierarchal power order and one-dimensional forms of communication which treat students as passive receivers. Instead, we must demonstrate that knowledge is not value-free, and that we need to explore the context in which it was produced, as well as how it is situated not only in theory, but also in praxis and experience. This, in turn, can provoke conversations between students and teachers which transcend the dominant stereotype, and too often the reality, of education as boring and irrelevant to everyday life. In this article, I will argue that there is a crucial need to teach courses in critical media literacy, especially given that we are immersed in diverse and sophisticated forms of media culture, from cradle to grave. I will go on to insist that one must distinguish between a critical media literacy perspective and those described as media literacy, which are more prevalent in schools that include media studies in their curriculum. Before expanding upon this distinction, however, it is most important to emphasize that there is a serious dearth of critical courses about our media environment, especially in the USA, at all levels of education, and that this lack contributes to escalating deleterious neo-liberal transformations of what was once considered a democratic system. It is in this sense that one of the most revelatory aspects of a critical media literacy is its concern for the politics of representation, which – briefly described – is how marginalized and dominant relations, including gender, race, class and sexuality, are represented in the media. In addition, a critical media literacy approach is mediated by social justice issues and activist concerns, which are all too rare in US schools. Hence, it is essential that educators become cognizant of the significance of critical media literacy courses, as well as advocate for them in all institutions of learning. I readily acknowledge, however, that this is often an unpopular position to take in terms of school policies, job security, emphasis on standardized testing and student resistance to this form of pedagogy. Moreover, this kind of participatory engaged pedagogy can also lead to ‘burn out’, which appears to have reached epidemic proportions given the demands related to so-called ‘No Child Left Behind’ legislation and the continued emphasis on publish or perish within the university realm. Yet the rewards, which