Responce to Reading (ch.1)

I personally believe that the media has an enormous control over everyone's life. In order to be successful today, it is vital to understand the ongoing phenomena. Our world is all about the media, between TV, movies, Google searching, and facebook, you can receive everything you would ever want and need through media technology. Living in a dorm as a first year student, I am able to do everything through my computer, whether it is watching all my TV shows, listening to my lectures, video chatting with my parents and friends, checking the weather, news reports, and staying connected with all my professors. There is hardly a need to leave my room, which is both scary and exciting. What is scary is that children are sometimes overtaken by the media and are not taught the harms and affects it can have. On the contrary, new technology is innovative and exciting, it allows you do explore and become much more informed.

As a person and a future teacher, I believe that media literacy is extremely important and should be a core class starting in early elementary school. There is so much more to media and technology than simply instant messaging and facebook, the Internet and different forms of media allows people to explore different ideas and problems, which face the world. To ignore the importance of media literacy is to completely ignore the world we live in. I personally don't have a protectionist view to media literacy education, although I do feel that proper media literacy must be taught to prevent abuse. If the media is used correctly, it won't be abused. The Media Arts Education approach is important, although I agree that it focuses too much on the self. Students need to learn to challenge the media, which will give them empowerment. Technology is an excellent way for both teachers and students to learn and understand different interpretations and viewpoints.

I also strongly agree with the point that media literacy is an excellent tool in the progression of democracy. The media shows people the importance of freedom of expression, especially the youth, whose ideas must be heard. Media provides "significant statements or insights about the social world, empowering visions of gender, race, and class" (17). Children need to find their own voice within the media and that can be done within the schools. With so much of our world revolved around technology, we can't ignore its vital place in schools.