The power of rap music as a vehicle for the voices of the disenfranchised is not limited to the United States either
Students can write their own rap modeled after "Grow Food" and "Why are Muslims So" addressing issues important to their cultural community.
challenges the media injustices
Goal: Use media literacy to challenge media injustices
post-truth, epistemic crisis, and fake news
Discussions of media literacy should also include terminology/vocabulary:
Engaging in critical media education practices with representation and race at the forefront, is key for all students to begin to recognize and challenge the injustices perpetrated by mass media and social media alike.
On the high school level, where does media literacy fit best within the curriculum? In a social studies class? In a language arts class? In advisory?
Why are Muslims So
Grow Food
hip hop graffiti/murals
Students can critically analyze murals and art, decide a message they want to perpetuate instead of a stereotype, and then design their own mural or artistic representation. Students can represent their own cultural or marginalized groups.
Dylan Roof
How was Dylan Roof portrayed in the media compared to people of color who commit similar crimes?
https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/09/us/dylann-roof-trial-charleston-video/index.html
counter story-telling
hip hop pedagogy
After using the framework for examining media injustices to analyze images, students can discuss any patterns noticed, emotions evoked, and their analysis of the motivating factors behind the portrayal (e.g., capitalism, racism, xenophobia).
Media Representations of Native Americans: https://journalistsresource.org/race-and-gender/native-americans-media-stereotype-redskins/
Common images, and patterns of images, connected with news associated with COVID-19 (especially citizens of China, as seen in Appendix D), and Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters
These particular images reinforce stereotypes of Asians, Asian Americans and African Americans. While including this context is important, teachers in New Mexico should also include an analysis of news stories depicting Latinos and Native Americans.
For example, Appendix B accompanies a story accusing Border Patrol officers of illegally deporting migrants and denying asylum, while portraying these immigrants with their hands behind their head as if guilty. Appendix C, a ship docking in Italy with migrants from Africa entering the European Union, portrays migrants reaching land – but in the background the words “rescue” on the boat and a crew member in full protective gear are shown.
Perhaps as part of this exercise, students could not only analyze why the photo doesn't fit the narrative, but instead draw (or use an image search) to find an image that does not reinforce negative stereotypes.
For this example, we focus on images in particular, as they often generate emotional responses for viewers. These emotional responses are desired by media companies as the images are designed to entice viewers to click on the linked story or share the story with their social network. We also focus on images as they can often tell a different or even divergent tale from that of the story itself.
Does the thumbnail image tell a different story than the news article itself? Does it reinforce the stereotypes of marginalized groups?
NESCO has put together a framework of media information literacy
narrative framing
Media Framing
https://mediatexthack.wordpress.com/category/media-effects/framing/
there is no critical component that teaches students to question the media’s role in maintaining hegemony.
Teach students to question the media's representations of marginalized groups.
Common Sense Media does have one activity focused specifically on representation in the media - specifically on gender stereotypes.
See activities referred to here: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/gender-stereotypes-are-messing-with-your-kid
actually put it on your nachos and eat it
Commentary about this news story: https://www.businessinsider.in/a-fox-news-guest-suggested-that-the-tear-gas-being-used-on-migrants-at-the-border-is-so-natural-you-could-put-it-on-your-nachos/articleshow/66817069.cms
How can individuals not view this type of rhetoric as derogatory?
Rap music
Article Relating to Rap Music Literacy: https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/jmle/vol7/iss3/5/
While mainstream mass media has historically supported stereotypical narratives, other media can be leveraged to challenge these representations of historically marginalized communities. Media forms that emerge from marginalized communities potentially challenge and counter the effects of mass media, and should be viewed through a critical lens.
What are all of the types of media that should be included in a culturally responsive media literacy curriculum?
nderstanding the role of emotions when reading content that news companies specifically designed to target user’s emotions is crucial to reading contemporary media.
Lesson activities about how media appeals to our emotions: https://www.middleweb.com/34145/how-media-appeals-to-our-emotions/
a core consideration for any critical media education approach should include a focus on the capitalistic interests of those involved, of which we also include here news organizations now driven more by their economic needs as well as their journalistic goals
Who buys the newspapers? Who consumes a particular type of social media? Considerations of audience and economics influence how marginalized groups are represented in the media.
burden of representation
The effects of media injustices by mass media - such as portraying Black men as violent, hypersexualized criminals - has been well known for decades
Recognizing (and debunking) media stereotypes seems critical. What are other common stereotypes perpetuated by the media?
Similar programs have emerged to combat misinformation campaigns in other countries with growing far right nationalist movements or fragile democracies in Europe, the United Kingdom and former Soviet Bloc Eastern European countries such as Ukraine (Mason et al., 2018).
Are these programs designed to solely combat misinformation campaigns in countries with far right nationalist movements? Are there other prevalent misinformation campaigns (social, political, ideological, etc.)?
Visual media influences understanding of news through implicit and explicit messaging, such as stereotypes fostered in photographs
Lesson on the power of images: https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/facing-ferguson-news-literacy-digital-age/power-images
overemphasize legacy news sources while engaging students in analyzing fake news and issues of representation without acknowledging issues of power
If legacy news sources don't present balanced news, where is the best place to get information?
historically marginalized and oppressed groups in particular have been treated unjustly in these same trustworthy journalistic sources
Media distorts the perception of minority groups. See this article" https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-981-13-0242-8_26-1
However, “fake news” can mean everything from misinformation and propaganda - to clickbait-focused stories to garner advertising revenue - to the weaponization of the term to attack the legitimacy of journalism in democratic societies