Effective Critical Media Literacy Pedagogy in Higher Education: Turning Social Justice Theory into Practice
Biographical Sketch
Nolan Higdon is a professor of English and Latin American and US history in the San Francisco Bay Area. His academic work focuses on nationalism, propaganda, and critical media literacy education. He sits on the boards of the Media Freedom Foundation and ACME. He has contributed chapters to Censored 2013, 2014, 2015, & 2016 as well as Stephen Lendman’s Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks World War III (2014). He has published articles on media and propaganda including “Disinfo Wars: Alex Jones War on Your Mind (2013),” “Millennial Media Revolution (2014),” and “Justice For Sale (2015).” He has been a guest on national radio and television programs and a frequent guest host for The Project Censored Radio Show.
Type of Presentation
Individual presentation
Brief Description of Presentation
This session discusses the main findings from the San Francisco State University Educational Leadership Doctoral Dissertation titled “Effective Critical Media Literacy Pedagogy in Higher Education.” The study identifies the components of effective critical media literacy pedagogy in higher education. The findings focus on six themes: Engaging and Inspiring Instructor, A Critical Perspective, Inequality And Oppression, Student Participation, Contemporary Content And Tools, and Resistance And Activism.
Abstract of Proposal
Critical media literacy education is a social justice-based pedagogy that seeks to engage and empower students for the 21st century political economy through developing a critical awareness of media. It can be a component of any course that adopts a critical view of media. Scholars have suggested that the outcomes of an effective critical media literacy education are increased student engagement, critical awareness of media, civic engagement, empowerment, and adoption of a social justice agenda. Yet critical media education is not widely offered in institutions of higher education. As a result, there are few empirical studies that investigate the extent to which hypothesized critical media literacy learning outcomes are actualized. Scholars therefore do not have a strong understanding of what constitutes effective critical media literacy pedagogy in higher education.
This mixed-methods sequential explanatory study will develop an understanding of what an effective critical media literacy education looks like and offer a strategy for its implementation by educational leaders in institutions of higher learning. This will potentially enable colleges and universities to produce educators who can in turn educate students to be equitable participants in the 21st century political economy. The study addresses two overarching research questions:
• What constitutes a satisfactory level of “implementation” for critical media literacy pedagogy?
• How are the desired outcomes of effective critical media literacy met in higher education?
The instrumentation for the study included student surveys and interviews, classroom observations, faculty interviews, and a review of course and campus documents. The study administered pre- and post-course surveys to students enrolled in courses that study media from a critical perspective. The surveys provided data to indicate whether the classrooms studied were generating any of the desired outcomes of a critical media literacy education. This data was then triangulated with the qualitative data—the observations, student interviews, faculty interviews, and document review—to identify how specific patterns of curriculum and pedagogies related to specific desired outcomes.
The data for the study derived from eight different US higher education institutions. The eleven courses who contributed data to this study were comprised of the following disciplines: Communication, Community Development and Applied Economics, Media Studies, History, Sociology, and Social Science. In all, eight professors were interviewed and observed. A total of 241 students completed the pre-survey and 177 students completed the post survey. A total of 38 students participated in telephone interviews.
The six main themes gleaned from the data in this study included Engaging and Inspiring Instructor, A Critical Perspective, Inequality And Oppression, Student Participation, Contemporary Content And Tools, and Resistance And Activism. The study reviews the relationship between critical media literacy educators’ goals and methods and student outcomes.
Location
Coastal Georgia Center
Start Date
2-25-2017 1:50 PM
End Date
2-25-2017 2:25 PM
Recommended Citation
Higdon, Nolan, "Effective Critical Media Literacy Pedagogy in Higher Education: Turning Social Justice Theory into Practice" (2017). International Critical Media Literacy Conference. 14.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/criticalmedialiteracy/2017/2017/14
Effective Critical Media Literacy Pedagogy in Higher Education: Turning Social Justice Theory into Practice
Coastal Georgia Center
Critical media literacy education is a social justice-based pedagogy that seeks to engage and empower students for the 21st century political economy through developing a critical awareness of media. It can be a component of any course that adopts a critical view of media. Scholars have suggested that the outcomes of an effective critical media literacy education are increased student engagement, critical awareness of media, civic engagement, empowerment, and adoption of a social justice agenda. Yet critical media education is not widely offered in institutions of higher education. As a result, there are few empirical studies that investigate the extent to which hypothesized critical media literacy learning outcomes are actualized. Scholars therefore do not have a strong understanding of what constitutes effective critical media literacy pedagogy in higher education.
This mixed-methods sequential explanatory study will develop an understanding of what an effective critical media literacy education looks like and offer a strategy for its implementation by educational leaders in institutions of higher learning. This will potentially enable colleges and universities to produce educators who can in turn educate students to be equitable participants in the 21st century political economy. The study addresses two overarching research questions:
• What constitutes a satisfactory level of “implementation” for critical media literacy pedagogy?
• How are the desired outcomes of effective critical media literacy met in higher education?
The instrumentation for the study included student surveys and interviews, classroom observations, faculty interviews, and a review of course and campus documents. The study administered pre- and post-course surveys to students enrolled in courses that study media from a critical perspective. The surveys provided data to indicate whether the classrooms studied were generating any of the desired outcomes of a critical media literacy education. This data was then triangulated with the qualitative data—the observations, student interviews, faculty interviews, and document review—to identify how specific patterns of curriculum and pedagogies related to specific desired outcomes.
The data for the study derived from eight different US higher education institutions. The eleven courses who contributed data to this study were comprised of the following disciplines: Communication, Community Development and Applied Economics, Media Studies, History, Sociology, and Social Science. In all, eight professors were interviewed and observed. A total of 241 students completed the pre-survey and 177 students completed the post survey. A total of 38 students participated in telephone interviews.
The six main themes gleaned from the data in this study included Engaging and Inspiring Instructor, A Critical Perspective, Inequality And Oppression, Student Participation, Contemporary Content And Tools, and Resistance And Activism. The study reviews the relationship between critical media literacy educators’ goals and methods and student outcomes.
