Purpose 2: Protection
In 1997, for the third
year in a row, the Office of National Drug Control Policy
included media literacy as part of its overall war against
drugs. The document referred to "the pervasive power of the
media, which collectively affects young people through
words, actions, and narrative portrayal of specific
activities" (41). Further, it argued, "Youngsters need the
requisite skills to evaluate the messages they are receiving
. . . Media literacy teaches critical thinking . . . This
skill empowers individuals to modify their internal
environment by affecting the way they see . . . and hear"
(43). Nor is the ONDCP alone in
its belief that media literacy can help students recognize,
read, resist, and refuse potentially harmful media messages
and the techniques that make them appealing. The Carnegie
Council on Adolescent Development endorsed media literacy's
role in the protection process in their report, Great
Transitions: Preparing Adolescents for a New Century
(1995). Taking note of media literacy initiatives in North
Carolina and New Mexico schools, the Carnegie report said
such efforts "deserve widespread consideration in schools
and community organizations as an essential part of becoming
a well-educated citizen" (118). The relationship between
media literacy's agenda and the prevention community's
agenda, including both substance abuse and violence, was
explored in depth in an article in Telemedium: The
Journal of Media Literacy. "Sexuality, Substance
Abuse and Violence: The Role for Media Literacy in the
Prevention Process" not only addressed common concerns but
also looked at various models (Information Deficit,
Affective Education, Risk Reduction) and approaches to both
prevention and media literacy, whether dealing with drugs,
sexuality, or violence (Considine, David 1996). These
concerns are clearly evident in The National Health
Education Standards (1995). Media literacy was clearly
seen as a viable strategy by a national task force seeking
to address the problem of teen violence and school violence.
Safeguarding Our Youth: Violence Prevention for Our
Nation's Schools (1994) acknowledged the potentially
harmful impact of media messages, but also recommended "that
broad based media literacy education become a priority,
implemented through an interagency, interdisciplinary
approach" (93). This interagency approach
is alive and well in Washington State. The Teen Futures
Media Network from the University of Washington's Early
Childhood Teen Telecommunication Project was established in
1996. The primary goal of the network has been to support,
foster, and make use of youth-driven media projects as a
strategy for preventing teen pregnancy. Another of the
network's goals has been to promote media literacy as a
vehicle for addressing sexuality education issues. Working
with the Department of Health, the Office of the
Superintendent of Public Instruction, and the Division of
Alcohol and Substance Abuse, the network has presented
conferences addressing media influences on areas such as
suicide, violence, eating disorders, sexuality, and
addiction. Although the protection
model is increasingly endorsed in the United States and
increasingly evident in media literacy conferences with
experts in public health and prevention programs working
closely with media educators, it is not without its critics
from abroad. David Buckingham points out that since research
in the area has often been funded from the mental health
budget, "the issue is primarily conceived in pathological
terms" (1993, 11). Others suggest that however well meaning
these attempts may be, they function from naive outdated
communication models. Hypodermic theory or bullet theory
tends to imply a passive audience being infected by media
messages and images. The protection model they suggest sees
itself as a means of immunizing vulnerable children and
adolescents from toxic television and other infectious
imagery. Such concerns and
complaints should not be ignored by those engaged in the
protection process. Media literacy's credibility could be
damaged if its advocates overzealously promoted it as a
panacea for substance abuse, violence, or other social
problems. Partnerships among media literacy organizations
and Community Anti-Drug Coalitions, the Center for Substance
Abuse Prevention, and the Center for Disease Control have
already developed and are a necessary component of
designing, implementing, and evaluating protection programs.
While critics fear simplistic approaches, substance abuse is
by nature a complex problem involving the substance itself,
the host or individual engaged in the abuse, and the social,
cultural, and psychological context in which consumption
occurs. Cautious optimism might well be an appropriate
description of the growing relationship between media
literacy proponents and those who wish to provide children
with protection from potentially harmful media messages.
Fred Garcia, the deputy director of Demand Reduction, called
media literacy "one more tool for the drug prevention
community to put in their tool box" (Osborn
1995, 7). Studies that used media literacy training to help
elementary school-aged children reject alcohol messages
suggest that it is a tool that promises success. After
testing the program with third graders, researchers
concluded that "these results provide support for the value
of media literacy programs at the third grade level as a way
to minimize the effects of alcohol advertising" on the
development of alcohol expectancies and related behavior
among children" (Austin and Johnson 1997). Once again,
various state curriculum documents acknowledge the need for
these methods. Kansas says that students should recognize
advertising techniques that attempt to persuade them. In
Virginia, students are expected to critique the way the
media depict drug use, including advertisements for alcohol
and tobacco. The protection process is
not restricted to chemical consumption or substance abuse.
Many parents, teachers, citizens groups, and members of the
clergy express concern about the values contained in today's
media and seek to promote more positive values in
impressionable children by protecting them from media
values. Former vice president Dan Quayle was certainly in
this category in May 1992 when he criticized Murphy
Brown. "It doesn't help matters," he said, "when prime
time TV has Murphy Brown-a character who supposedly
epitomizes today's intelligent high paid, professional
woman-mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child
alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice" (1992).
In 1997 the Southern Baptist Convention condemned the Disney
Corporation for lacking family values and called upon
members to boycott the company and its programs, products,
and theme parks. Later that year, when Disney-owned ABC
premiered Nothing Sacred, the Catholic League
collected more than 500,000 signatures objecting to the
program's depiction of Catholicism and the
priesthood. Robert Bly has condemned
television and its content as a toxic technology. Calling it
"the thalidomide of the 90s," he said, "television provides
a garbage dump of excessive sexual material inappropriate to
the child's age, minute descriptions of brutalities, wars,
and tortures all over the world an avalanche of specialized
information that stuns the brain" (1996, 54). While such
language certainly attracts attention, it's also highly
possible that a blanket condemnation of the medium throws
the baby out with the bathwater and does not predispose
parents or teachers to seek examples of positive programs or
constructive ways to help children view television and think
about television. Though some think turning the set off
serves as a form of protection, it will not, as Richard
Riley suggests, give them "a clear awareness of how the
media influences, shapes, and defines their lives" (1995).
In trying to provide that awareness, teachers, particularly
those working with teenagers, need to be very careful how
they tackle the topic. For many teens, mass media is a
source of pleasure. Attacking and condemning it is likely to
render it forbidden fruit and hence more attractive in its
appeal. Many teens are also likely to reject messages that
seem more like preaching than teaching. Others quite simply
deny that they may need or want protection. Helping them
recognize and reject manipulative media messages, however,
can be made enjoyable. Adbusters magazine, published
in Canada is hugely popular with young people because it
offers a forum and venue for deconstructing well-known ads,
replacing them with satirical substitutes. By designing and
creating their own counter-ads, young people fight fire with
fire, turning the tools of the advertisers against them in a
way that is both entertaining and educational. While the process of
protection is highly popular among parents' groups, media
literacy advocates need to tread carefully in order to avoid
exploiting fears and creating a climate in which it becomes
impossible to develop the critical thinking and viewing
skills that are at the heart of media literacy. Helping
parents understand that they are both part of the problem
and part of the solution is a delicate task that requires
diplomacy. Properly managed, it results in a liberating
experience as parents examine their own role in using and
even abusing television and other media within their own
homes. One outcome may be more selective and accompanied
viewing, with parents and children watching together.
Another may be more active detection and rejection of
programs that contradict or undermine family values.
Potentially even more liberating are the realizations that
television, newspapers, magazines, and movies operate in a
marketplace; that consumption feeds production; and that the
creation of critical consumers may result in more
constructive and positive programs and publications. The
parent who contacts a network or publisher, who organizes a
petition, or who constructively criticizes bad programs
while praising and rewarding good ones not only provides
protection for the child, but also prepares that child for
responsible citizenship and responsible
consumerism.
Continued in
next column.