In “Telling Stories, or How Do We Know What We Know?,” Gerbner argues that storytelling has become a form of marketing, dissecting the nature and history of its true intent. Over time, the main media has become broadcasting. Within this popular form of media, central content becomes tailored to fit society’s current political and social views and depends on a demographics “heaviest watchers.” Gerber emphasizes how storytelling has become part of an industry that profits off of misrepresentation that is determined by viewers. In Mirra et. al’s article about a new critical theory and practice of multiliteracies, the media is always seen as a controversy in education. On one side, technology is perceived as a distraction or access to inappropriate content and on the other side, it is a tool that can expand students’ ability to create (a great medium for students who strive for a change in their communities). Mirra et. al argues that technology should be understood as a tool to enhance “connected learning” where marginalized students, in society and in education, are provided with more opportunities for inventing and not just consuming/ producing. In “Art and Stories,” Halverson also emphasizes and argues that technological tools are what individuals need in order to communicate their stories and the meaning of their stories. If educators want their students to be creative and innovative, they need to provide all students with an equal form of tools for literacy, production, and citizenship (Halverson).
When reading Gerbner’s article I thought of all of the TV shows and movies that try to portray a certain culture, but end up focusing on stereotypes that Western individuals have of others. These stereotypes can sometimes be really negative depending on the kind of audience that producers are trying to target. I agree with Mirra et. al that technology is a privilege for most because it provides individuals (who can afford it) with more opportunities. I work in a classroom where students’ have computer privileges a few minutes a day and only work on multiple choice math or word problems. I think there should be a separate subject of instruction where students need to learn how to navigate and advanced program (of choice) by a certain grade level (will increase the complexity and their critical thinking) in order to prove that technology is useful in the classroom. In Erica Halverson’s TED talk, she states that a few students announce that they did not know what literacy really meant until they got to college and I experienced the same thing. The only form of literacy I learned about throughout grade school was the content I learned from textbooks. In grade school, my education was a structural, one-way interaction between student and textbook and occasionally a teacher. From kindergarten through twelfth grade, I was never given the opportunity to learn beyond a textbook but I was expected to excel beyond the average student when it came to getting into college, so I can agree that if educators want their students to be inventors and creative, there needs to be other methods of teaching that will lead to a more advanced way of learning and understanding.
How can educators find a more inclusive way to teach their students how to utilize the media?
Graciela Rivera 