It is advantageous and in the best interest of students to institute Media Literacy 101 as a part of any curriculum which utilizes any media as part of the course. Neil Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, supports Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World fear that what we love will ruin us in addition to comparing and contrasting it with Orwell’s fear that what we hate will ruin us.
Though I cannot find who to attribute the idea to, the thought that who (or in this case what) we love the most has the greatest potential to hurt us reinforces Huxley’s theory.
A 2000 survey quoted in Walt Larimore’s article, “Obesity-Television, Video Games and Your Children's Health” on iMom.com showed that the average American child spends about twenty-five hours a week in front of the television.
Karen MacPherson’s Washington Post-Gazette article quotes a landmark study of American children as devoting thirty-eight hours to television watching, movies, videos, playing on the computer or reading on average over a seven day period. The same article also cites a Kaiser Family Foundation survey which surveyed more than 3,100 children (of a nationally representative population) -- or their parents, in the case of preschoolers stating, “children aged 2-18 spend an average of 5 1/2 hours a day "consuming" media, including two hours and 45 minutes watching TV. Kids 8 and older spend even more time in front of the tube -- nearly 6 3/4 hours a day.”
The Center for Media Literacy advocates a philosophy of empowerment through education. Its philosophy incorporates three intertwining concepts one of which is, Media literacy is an alternative to censoring, boycotting or blaming ‘the media.’ Media literacy does not promote partisan agendas or political points of view. The power of media literacy is its ability to inspire independent thinking and foster critical analysis. The ultimate goal of media education is to make wise choices possible.
This ability to make wise choices possible and to critically deconstruct the media’s messages is vitally useful in refining one’s ability to define the blurred line between reality and media creation. As entertainment as news increases in popularity, (i.e. American Idol and Survivor cast-offs as morning news program interviews) the lines of reality and the media’s composed version of reality melt together.
Postman’s book focuses on learners and viewers wanting to be entertained and having the ability to absorb information better when given in the form of entertainment. Because viewers would rather watch of learn something that is entertaining, I believe Huxley’s theory is clearly correct. People in the
Center for Media Literacy. “CML Media Lit Kit”. 10 Mar. 2008
Larimore, Walt. “Obesity-Television, Video Games and Your Children's Health”. iMom.
10 Mar. 2008 <http://www.imom.com/article.php?id=93>
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