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73
Schiller continues his definition of information as a commodity, noting that “a
commodity is a resource that is produced for the market by wage labor.”5 When
information is understood as a commodity produced by and for the market, it
becomes important to reproduce the need for the commodity at the same time as
producing labor for the market. Consumer citizenship, a way of understanding civic
participation through one’s identity and practices as a consumer, and new media
literacies, a set of skills for navigating new media environments,6 are two ways of
understanding and structuring participation that fulfill both of these needs.
Following a brief discussion of the concept of consumer citizenship, I turn to
the themes of consumption, literacy, and participation to look at new media literacies
as a “toolkit” for consumer citizenship. New media literacies shift the emphasis of
media education from protectionism or defensiveness toward mass media in the
service of training rational and literate citizens (in a political sense) to
communication and expression through commercial media (mass media and niche
media/technology) in order to train consumer citizens. Whereas previous models of
media literacy education have employed an understanding of kids as future citizens,
new media literacies begin from the assumption that kids are both already
empowered citizens through their use of media and technology and future citizens in
need of guidance and training to ensure their future success. Through its emphasis on
everyday practices of consumption and production in new media spaces, new media
literacies construct young users as a kind of “digital consumer citizen” who is able to
navigate and create digital media, participate in communities as a producer and a
Object Description
| Title | Kids as cultural producers: consumption, literacy, and participation |
| Author | Stephenson, Rebecca Herr |
| Author email | rherr@usc.edu; bhs@hri.uci.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Communication |
| School | Annenberg School for Communication |
| Date defended/completed | 2008-08-25 |
| Date submitted | 2008 |
| Restricted until | Unrestricted |
| Date published | 2008-10-17 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Banet-Weiser, Sarah |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Gross, Larry Seiter, Ellen |
| Abstract | This dissertation looks closely at the practice of digital media production within a group of special education students and their teachers. Using ethnographic methods of extended participant observation and semi-structured interviews with students, teachers, and parents, along with textual analysis of students' media projects, this work examines the types of learning that emerge from making media at school and the ways in which that learning relates to media and technology use in everyday life. Over the course of one school year (2005-2006), the students who are the focus of this dissertation undertook eight different multimedia production projects, ranging from designing PowerPoint presentations to digital video production and stop-motion animation. Through media production, the students found opportunities to practice traditional and digital literacy skills as well as to explore issues of identity and self-expression.; This dissertation provides empirical support for recommendations made by several media literacy scholars to include media production as part of critical media literacy curricula and contributes a unique case study -- one situated in special education -- to a growing body of work on digital literacy. Three interdisciplinary themes--consumption, literacy, and participation -- are used to organize the description and analysis of the students' media production activities. These themes connect the specific production that took place in the classroom to larger discourses about youth, media, technology, education, and access, working to complicate existing constructions of young people as either helpless victims of manipulative media or naturally savvy media and technology users. Instead, this research emphasizes that the relationships kids have with media and technology are complex, dynamic, intrinsically linked to their identities as consumers and participants in society. Media literacy is thus theorized as a tool for understanding and controlling consumption, participation, and the construction of young people as both current and future citizens. |
| Keyword | media literacy; media production; special education; middle school; digital media |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Los Angeles |
| Coverage date | 2005/2006 |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m1674 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Stephenson, Rebecca Herr |
| Repository name | Libraries, University of Southern California |
| Repository address | Los Angeles, California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Filename | etd-Stephenson-2393 |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume29/etd-Stephenson-2393.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 78 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | 73 Schiller continues his definition of information as a commodity, noting that “a commodity is a resource that is produced for the market by wage labor.”5 When information is understood as a commodity produced by and for the market, it becomes important to reproduce the need for the commodity at the same time as producing labor for the market. Consumer citizenship, a way of understanding civic participation through one’s identity and practices as a consumer, and new media literacies, a set of skills for navigating new media environments,6 are two ways of understanding and structuring participation that fulfill both of these needs. Following a brief discussion of the concept of consumer citizenship, I turn to the themes of consumption, literacy, and participation to look at new media literacies as a “toolkit” for consumer citizenship. New media literacies shift the emphasis of media education from protectionism or defensiveness toward mass media in the service of training rational and literate citizens (in a political sense) to communication and expression through commercial media (mass media and niche media/technology) in order to train consumer citizens. Whereas previous models of media literacy education have employed an understanding of kids as future citizens, new media literacies begin from the assumption that kids are both already empowered citizens through their use of media and technology and future citizens in need of guidance and training to ensure their future success. Through its emphasis on everyday practices of consumption and production in new media spaces, new media literacies construct young users as a kind of “digital consumer citizen” who is able to navigate and create digital media, participate in communities as a producer and a |
