This book explores the power of using media education to help urban teenagers develop their critical thinking and literacy skills. Drawing on his twenty years of experience working with inner-city youth at the acclaimed Educational Video Center (EVC) in New York City, Steven Goodman looks closely at both the problems and possibilities of this model of media education. Responding to our national concern about adolescents, literacy, media, and violence, Teaching Youth Media: Describes the changes schools and after-school programs need to make in order to create a media education that empowers students to change their world; Explores the intersection of literacy and culture as youth learn to analyze information from a variety of sources, including television, newspapers, books, films, school, church, and lives outside of school; Features case studies of students and teachers engaged in making video documentaries at EVC and in an alternative high school; Illuminates the practical day-to-day challenges faced by professional developers and teachers working to change the way education is practiced in their classes and schools.

This book provides a practical and theoretical look at how media education can make learning and teaching more meaningful and transformative. It explores the theoretical underpinnings of critical media literacy and analyzes a case study involving an elementary school that received a federal grant to integrate media literacy and the arts into the curriculum. The ideas and experiences of working teachers are analyzed through a critical media literacy framework that provides realistic challenges and hopeful examples and suggestions. The book is a valuable addition to any education course or teacher preparation program that wants to promote twenty-first century literacy skills, social justice, civic participation, media education, or critical technology use. Communications classes will find it useful as it explores and applies key concepts of cultural studies and media education.

In an information age of youth social movements, Youth Media Matters examines how young people are using new media technologies to tell stories about themselves and their social worlds. They do so through joint efforts in a range of educational settings and media environments, including high school classrooms, youth media organizations, and social media sites. Korina M. Jocson draws on various theories to show how educators can harness the power of youth media to provide new opportunities for meaningful learning and “do-it-together production.” Describing the impact that youth media can have on the broader culture, Jocson demonstrates how it supports expansive literacy practices and promotes civic engagement, particularly among historically marginalized youth. In Youth Media Matters, Jocson offers a connective analysis of content area classrooms, career and technical education, literary and media arts organizations, community television stations, and colleges and universities. She provides examples of youth media work—including videos, television broadcasts, websites, and blogs—produced in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, and St. Louis. At a time when educators are increasingly attentive to participatory cultures yet constrained by top-down pedagogical requirements, Jocson highlights the knowledge production and transformative potential of youth media with import both in and out of the classroom.

When societies worry about media effects, why do they focus so much on young people? Is advertising to blame for binge drinking? Do films and video games inspire school shootings? Tackling these kinds of questions, Youth and Media explains why young people are at the centre of how we understand the media. Exploring key issues in politics, technology, celebrity, advertising, gender and globalization, Andy Ruddock offers a fascinating introduction to how media define the identities and social imaginations of young people. The result is a systematic guide to how the notion of media influence ′works′ when daily life compels young people to act out their relationships through media content and technologies. Complete with helpful chapter guides, summaries and lively case studies drawn from a truly global context, Youth and Media is an engaging and accessible introduction to how the media shape our lives. This book is ideal for students of media studies, communication studies and sociology.

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.

Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- 1 Youth and Media -- 2 Then and Now -- 3 Themes and Theoretical Perspectives -- 4 Infants, Toddlers, and Preschoolers -- 5 Children -- 6 Adolescents -- 7 Media and Violence -- 8 Media and Emotions -- 9 Advertising and Commercialism -- 10 Media and Sex -- 11 Media and Education -- 12 Digital Games -- 13 Social Media -- 14 Media and Parenting -- 15 The End -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z