Saturday, June 7, 2008
Race in Politics
I would have just posted this as a comment to Jason's post, but I feel this is a really important topic and should be on the main blog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWe7wTVbLUU
This is a very long speech, but I feel it was one of the most important speeches made within our lifetime. I feel that Obama is making the same case you are arguing about Jason: we should not talk about ethnic race in the sense it is being discussed in this political race or in other ways we talk about disaster (destruction in Katrina, etc).
I think the way this political race is being covered in the media today shows the need for the development of another literacy in today's classroom: critical media literacy. To me critical media literacy is anything “having to do with providing individuals access to understanding how the print and non-print texts that are part of everyday life help to construct their knowledge of the world and the various social, economic, and political positions they occupy within it” (Alvermann, 1). This is something I really focused on in my social studies classroom, during student teaching (and we continue to do so in the future). With technology and media sources seemingly multiplying endlessly the ability to read, analyze and understand how these source inform and misinform the public is paramount to me.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Thanks for sharing the Youtube video! I never actually was able to watch it on tv. What would life be without the internet or much less youtube?!?! To contribute to your idea of critical media literacy, I would strongly recommend being critical in all aspects of life. When information is given, why should it be taken as truth? It is important to know that there are always two sides to the story! I'm sure we can all empathize with having someone not believe our side of the story because that person heard someone else's side of the story first. As a result it makes it more difficult for the person to hear and value, in most cases, a completely different side of the story! SOURCES AND CREDIBILITY are MAJOR! Unfortunately in the U.S., as much as we would like to think our media is FREE due to "Freedom of Speech", I believe there are different points of view in the media but the majority of it IS regulated more than we want to believe. For example, while studying abroad in Spain last year there was news on a Pakistani girl was stoned to death and it was caught on a cell phone video. I was told that the United States did not show the video on T.V. In Spain, news coverage on the stoning and the cell phone video clip was shown on T.V. There are other examples but that was an important news coverage that I thought was interesting. So in the end, check your sources and your own beliefs. It's important to do your research!
Post a Comment