University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Policy and practice: United States and European Union media and technology education

(USC Thesis Other)

Policy and practice: United States and European Union media and technology education

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content POLICY AND PRACTICE: UNITED STATES AND EUROPEAN UNION MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION by Jennifer Ann Rosales ________________________________________________________________ A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (CRITICAL STUDIES) August 2012 Copyright 2012 Jennifer Ann Rosales ii Dedication To my grandparents. iii Acknowledgements I am ever grateful to the people that helped make this dissertation possible. I am especially thankful to the chair of my dissertation committee, Curtis Marez, who helped me conceive of this project and guide me through the screening process, qualification exams, and dissertation writing, while staying with me all the way through my last revisions and oral defense even though he relocated to San Diego. His problem-solving skills and close reading of my dissertation helped me streamline my argument and articulate both large and small ideas. I am also grateful for Aniko Imre, who helped me to maintain an international perspective on media education through her European media literacy connections and knowledge of the subject matter. She contributed to a long chain of emails and discussions about how best to frame my dissertation and supported me through productive discussions on each and every chapter. Doe Mayer, my outside committee member, played a major role in the formulation of the dissertation topic so that it was one that could have practical applications. As a practitioner who uses media for social and cultural change, her understanding of media education has helped me to write a dissertation that can hopefully not only be of interest to academics but also to educators, administrators, and policymakers that are invested in educating youth with and about media. I am also thankful to both Kara Keeling and Ellen Seiter who took part in shaping my dissertation subject matter through their help during my semester of qualifying exams. I am grateful to Howard Rosenberg for taking an interest in my dissertation iv and setting in motion my investment in media education policy. David James also had a huge impact on my decision to pursue a PhD at USC. His guidance through my early years in the program and the connection he made with the Echo Park Film Center had lasting effects on my dissertation and interest in media education practice. Thank you to Mike Dillon for continuously keeping me on track with my studies and writing, and Lindsay Cope for keeping my knowledge of various institutions up to date. I would also like to thank Taylor Nygaard for going through the graduate process with me from Masters orientation, through classes, qualification exams, and dissertation writing. Lengthy phone calls, carpool conversations, and neighborly chitchats made even the toughest parts of the process manageable. I want to thank the institutions and people who shared their contributions to the field with me and enriched the case studies of this dissertation. Richard Caloca and Suzanne Thomas were especially instrumental in helping me make contacts with the Silicon Valley organizations. I am so grateful to Sheena Vaidyanathan for sharing her sincerity and enthusiasm for her work with me. Her excitement and energy about digital education encouraged my own energy and excitement about my dissertation. I would also like to thank Lynda Greene and Leslie Goodyear for revealing their information and knowledge about Adobe Youth Voices to me. Their openness about the program further proved what a special and inspirational organization AYV is. I am at a loss for words when it comes to the Echo Park Film Center. The directors of the organization, Paolo Davanzo and Lisa Marr, have showed me nothing but kindness since I first entered the EPFC in 2007. The v directors and the teachers and students of the “Origins” class allowed me to witness how special and stimulating media education can be and that media education is about more than simply teaching tools but about community building and youth gaining understandings about their world. The experience I had in observing the 12- week course at the EPFC will be with me always. I would also like to thank Zsuzsa Kozak and Matteo Zacchetti for sharing their work and contributions to European media literacy with me. My parents, to whom I am indebted for a lifetime, were supportive of me throughout the whole process and for that I am incredibly grateful. My grandparents were also so influential in teaching me from a very early age the love of reading and movie watching. It is from their love of culture that I developed my interests in media and education. Lastly, I am so very thankful to my husband, the cleverest writer I know, for his love and support during graduate school. This project could not have been done without him and our beloved bulldog Humphrey, who always demanded just enough playtime to even out the workday. vi Table of Contents Dedication ii Acknowledgements iii Abstract vii Chapter One: Introduction: Youth, Media and Schools: The New 1 Digital Divide Chapter One Endnotes 40 Chapter Two: U.S. Media and Technology Education Policy 45 Chapter Two Endnotes 97 Chapter Three: E.U. Media Education Policy 103 Chapter Three Endnotes 164 Chapter Four: Institutions and Media Education 172 Chapter Four Endnotes 213 Chapter Five: Media Education at the Echo Park Film Center 218 Chapter Five Endnotes 272 Chapter Six: Conclusion: Media Education, ‘What’s it worth to you?’ 276 Chapter Six Endnotes 289 References 290 vii Abstract “Policy and Practice: United States and European Union Media and Technology Education” examines the steps policymakers take to employ media literacy legislation and how such policies are often at odds with the strategies and methods practitioners and scholars promote. I compare the U.S. and E.U. education policies and practices, specifically for media and technology, over the last 50 years. Analyzing the historical context, I provide a lens with which to better understand the U.S. government’s current focus on globally competitive technological literacy, as opposed to the European Union’s more comprehensive media literacy policy. I argue that media and technology literacy as an outcome is discussed as a neoliberal policy strategy in which the individual must learn to self-regulate his or her media intake due to government deregulation and also learn a digital skillset to compete in the global workforce. However, the process of effectively teaching media and technology literacy does not comply with education policy strategies that focus on individualism and standardization. Instead such practices reinforce collaboration, experimentation, and critical thinking. This dissertation addresses the political-economic and institutional support that often gets taken for granted when studying media literacy. A top down perspective of how media education is being addressed at the international and national policy levels and the various networks of private sector support corresponds with a bottom up perspective that emphasizes how a single teacher or small nonprofit viii organization can have an impact on not only how media education gets taught but also the political-economic system that supports such an education. I demonstrate how effective media and technology education is taught and defined through an observational study and interviews in order to ultimately provide recommendations for United States and European Union policy and practice. 1 Chapter One: Introduction Youth, Media and Schools: The New Digital Divide The United States is a leader in producing and distributing media and digital technology around the globe. Moreover, digital technology and media have become a major part of youths’ lives and a major part the global work environment, yet media literacy continues to be a peripheral part of the classroom experience in the United States. Media literacy scholars and advocates in Europe have pursued legislation in the European Union, which recommends that all member states include media literacy in their curriculum requirements. In the United States, scholars and practitioners teach media literacy and create programs that specialize in this type of education, yet there is no policy regarding media literacy…or is there? A schism exists between media literacy scholarship and education policy, but media literacy is not necessarily left out of education policy. It has assumed a different name— technological literacy. While at first glance it is apparent that these two concepts have separate meanings, further investigation proves that they are very much intertwined. Technology literacy implies a much more practical hands on definition than does media literacy. Technological literacy has been the term used by U.S. Presidents, policy initiatives and political advocates to encompass a large and somewhat vague subject area that primarily deals with learning how to use digital technology. This includes understanding technology for expression, communication, 2 innovation and the accumulation of information. Components of media literacy can be identified in this conception of technological literacy; however, media literacy scholars understand the field to be more complex than the way it has been conveyed in U.S. policy discussions, documents and plans. Comparing U.S. policy initiatives to E.U. policy initiatives reveals that the former lacks much of the detail and comprehensive research that strengthens E.U. media literacy policy. Media policy scholarship demonstrates the intrinsic relationship between media corporations, government and nonprofits. Media companies often create relationships with nonprofits to enhance their public image and obtain tax breaks. 1 Governments determine regulations, tax rates, labor restrictions, copyright laws, patents and airwave control. 2 Nonprofits reach out to governments and corporations for resources and funding. 3 Many scholars have written about the global and transnational power struggles over media control. 4 Due to the neoliberal practice of deregulation at transnational, regional and national levels, media companies have multiplied in size, crossed territorial boundaries, controlled production, distribution and exhibition in-house and merged various types of specialized media firms into conglomerates. Most of the major conglomerates are based in the United States but do business all over the world. My dissertation demonstrates how these major institutions play a role in media literacy policy and practice in the United States and European Union. Neoliberal strategies and ways of thinking have impacted how government, corporations and nonprofits interact. David Harvey provides an explanation and 3 analysis of neoliberalism as a theory and practice, particularly paying attention to the inconsistencies and frictions when the theory is adapted to global and national political-economic structures and practices. He states, “Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade.” 5 The state’s role changes from maintaining the welfare of its citizens to ensuring the economic “freedoms” of market participation and private property ownership by supporting the value of money and market safety, through military, police and legal policies, laws and practices. However the state must otherwise deregulate its control of public enterprises (which become private businesses) and market constraints (which results in free trade). 6 Yet as Harvey argues, neoliberalism in practice has proven that the market cannot guarantee the betterment of humanity nor the welfare of the majority, but instead restores upper class power. Without regulations, the market becomes an uneven playing field in which those with economic power monopolize the competition leaving little space for the underprivileged to get ahead. 7 Because state supported programs have been dismantled or privatized, the state cannot compensate those with insufficient access to the market. Harvey writes: Privatization and deregulation, combined with competition, it is claimed, eliminate bureaucratic red tape, increase efficiency and productivity, improve quality, and reduce costs, both directly to the consumer through cheaper commodities and services and indirectly through the reduction of the tax burden. 8 4 The theory places an emphasis on individual accountability, privatization and entrepreneurship, which is compatible with historic American ideology and rhetoric about individual freedom. 9 The responsibility is then placed on the individual, instead of the state, to ensure a person’s well being, and therefore, provides rationalization for cutting down on state supported programs and enterprises. Neoliberalism plays an important role in thinking about media literacy because in many ways teaching people how to regulate their own media use and consumption frees the government from creating more regulations on media conglomerates. At the same time teaching young people how to use and create with media technologies furthers their competitive leverage on the global job market, and thus aligns with neoliberal rationale that places the market at the center of society. Both U.S. and E.U. policy and government-supported research possess neoliberal rhetoric as motivations for media and technology literacy. While there is a strong focus on civil participation in the E.U. policy rhetoric, I argue both regions promote media and technology for neoliberal reasons. At the same time however, practitioners and researchers endorse a way of teaching media literacy that challenges neoliberal ideas, therefore, creating a chasm between policy and practice to a much greater extent in the United States than in Europe. I argue that the reason for this is two fold: first, the United States is slower in adopting media education policies because its own media industries dominate the domestic markets, while the European Union is very aware of the cultural and economic media influences from other parts of the world, primarily the United States, and therefore wants youth to be 5 critically aware of their media consumption and gain the skillset necessary to compete in the global media markets. Second, because the European Union does not have the patriotic support that exists within nations and is therefore trying to create a central European identity for member states’ citizens to promote solidarity on economic, political and socio-cultural measures, it is more inclined to focus on media literacy’s civic participation appeal. Scholars and practitioners have promoted media literacy as the primary way to educate youth and concerned adults about the structures behind media making, media’s relation to society, its language, and its plural meanings and messages. Instead of protecting citizens from exposure to media, media literacy provides them with the skills necessary to confront, deconstruct and actively engage with the material in this transnational corporate age. Because of the dynamism of media and technology and the social and cultural contexts in which they are created and used, media literacy scholars acknowledge the flexibility of media literacy’s definition. Scholars often rely on the 1992 USA National Leadership Conference on Media Literacy’s conception of media literacy. 10 The report states that a media literate person has “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and communicate messages in a variety of forms.” 11 As defined by media education scholar, David Buckingham, media literacy combines critical thinking and practice for students to learn not only how to be critical consumers but also to become producers of media and communicators with media. 12 As a result, the combination of these processes—hands on application and critical thinking about media—help youth to become active and 6 engaged citizens. Considering U.S. production, distribution and consumption of media, it’s astonishing that media education is not required nor encouraged in the educational curriculum; however, as my dissertation will prove, the neoliberal education system in place makes such an education challenging. Buckingham refers to this as the new digital divide, in which youth exist in media rich environments outside of school but lack interaction with media within schools. 13 Media and Youth Youth today are commonly referred to as the “digital generation” due to their consumption and use of multiple media platforms. 14 Sonia Livingstone contextualizes children’s use and attraction to media within historical shifts in childhood. Historians and sociologists have witnessed young people’s expanded childhood in industrial countries. In other words, youth enter the workforce later, stay in school for more years and depend on parents longer. Livingstone surmises: These historical changes over the past century or more have themselves been shaped by a series of profound social changes, in notably but not only, the structures of employment, the education system, increased urbanization, relations between commerce and the state, the growth of affluent individualism, the transformation of gender relations, the ethnic diversification of national populations and the reconstruction of household and family. 15 These changes result in a period in which youth are no longer children but not yet adults and therefore they have more time and independence for leisure pursuits, and consumption. 16 7 Media play a major role in youth’s social and cultural endeavors during their years of quasi-autonomy in which they are allotted these freedoms but still financially dependent on their parents. 17 Livingstone explains: Since not only the conditions of childhood but also communicative environments are changing in late modernity, so too are the contexts or development of identity. Identities are increasingly defined through transient markers of lifestyle and media practices rather than the traditional, typically stable markers of age, gender, ethnicity and place. 18 In a previous work, Livingstone unpacks two trends occurring with youth and their relationship to media. First, through empirical research, she proves that since the introduction of new media and information technologies, media play a larger role in children and young people’s lives “whether measured in terms of family income, use of time and space or importance within the conduct of social relations.” 19 Sleeping aside, children spend more time with media than they do engaging in any other activity. 20 Secondly, media permeate children’s lives to the degree that leisure penetrates most other avenues of young people’s everyday activities and aspirations. 21 While media scholars acknowledge the importance of media for youth, they are wary of such totalizing conceptions of the digital generation because of the complexities embedded in the relationship between youth and media. Though youth use more media and have integrated it into their lifestyles, they are by no means all digital savvy nor do they all have access to media. Socio-economic factors still play a major role in youth’s access and usage of media. Buckingham explains that most children’s Internet use is not typified by “spectacular forms of innovation and 8 creativity, but by relatively mundane forms of information retrieval.” 22 According to him, most children use the Internet to communicate with local peers, download music and movies, shop online and visit fan websites. 23 A very small minority of young people has access, support and the desire to keep up with the newest media technologies that the digital generation rhetoric implies, and often these youth are ostracized or dismissed as “geeks” by their peer groups. 24 Likewise, Buckingham is hesitant of arguments, such as Don Tapscot (1998) and Seymour Papert’s (1996) that “regard technology as a force of liberation for young people – a means of new, autonomous forms of communication and community.” 25 These technological determinist viewpoints suggest that media instruments autonomously cure youth disenfranchisement and social ills ignoring the economic, political, social and cultural contexts behind technology creation, dissemination, and use. Many media scholars make arguments for the importance of understanding children and media within economic and social contexts to avoid both technological determinism and the assumption that children have special powers that make them digitally savvy. Livingstone argues that the problem with the theory of technological determinism is threefold. First it is theoretically unclear because technological innovation and use are social processes that include human interaction. Technology cannot be conceived of or exist outside of human contexts. Second, she contends that technological determinism is empirically insufficient because it ignores the social processes that affect how and why people interact with technology in their everyday lives. Lastly, it has a negative effect on policy “for it positions technology per se, 9 rather than the institutions that design, fund and shape the technology and its implementation in children’s lives, as the solution to social problems.” 26 This policy problem will be addressed further in Chapter Two about U.S. technological literacy policy. Mizuko Ito’s main argument in Engineering Play corroborates Livingstone’s argument in the sense that she too comprehends technological innovation, distribution and use within the institutional, commercial and social contexts in which they exist. Ito contends that technology must be investigated and understood through the collaboration and contestation of these contextual forces. 27 Buckingham summarizes how technology relies on many factors that often interact in complex ways. He writes: These factors range from ‘macro’ factors such as social policy, commercial strategies and different forms of institutional provision, right through to ‘micro’ factors such as the physical placement of computers, the number available and the ways in which teachers and students can gain access to them. 28 This dissertation will address these various micro and macro factors that affect media literacy policy and practice in the forthcoming chapters. The convergence of media and technologies complicates how people use and conceive of media and thus plays a role in the conception of media education. Henry Jenkins defines convergence as the circulation of content across multiple media platforms including both audiovisual and digital media. His definition includes the social, cultural, political and economic factors that play a role in convergence, including the media industries that join together to spread and exhibit content on 10 various platforms and the people who interact with various forms of media. He cautions: I will argue here against the idea that convergence should be understood primarily as a technological process bringing together multiple media functions within the same devices. Instead, convergence represents a cultural shift as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content. 29 For Jenkins, convergence happens both in individuals’ minds via their own personal consumption and creation and also by way of socialization. Due in part to their interactivity of new media technologies and resources, consumers are able to “archive, annotate appropriate and recirculate media content in powerful new ways,” which Jenkins terms participatory culture. 30 Through convergence and participatory culture, both new and old media circulate to and from industries and consumers that provide individuals greater chances to participate. Though he cautions that not all participants are equal and corporations still hold the majority of power, especially as the concentration of media ownership across platforms and industrial processes grows. 31 Livingstone reaffirms that new media allows for this type of participatory culture that makes it more challenging for nations and parents to control youth consumption and creation. She specifies four trends ushered in with the new media environment: firstly, people’s ownership of various media content and forms has multiplied; second, media is “diversifying in form and content”, locally and globally; third, the convergence of technology corresponds with a convergence of social boundaries, such as work and home and information and entertainment; and fourth, 11 one-way mass communication has given way to interactive communication. 32 Though Buckingham admits that new media has changed the landscape of how media can be used and understood, he points to how new media practices build upon old media use. He writes, “New media typically build upon existing forms of children’s and youth culture, rather than eclipsing or displacing them, and as such, it makes little sense to discuss ‘new’ media in isolation from ‘older’ media.” 33 He explains that new media does not supersede old media but adds to the choices available. Television continues to be the most popular media among youth even while they take part in the emerging new media culture that exists. An article in New Age Media states, “Media stacking is also becoming the norm, with TV watching, Internet browsing, Facebook chat and texting all happening at the same time.” 34 The article goes on to warn media industries, “Cross platform campaigns are therefore increasingly important to reach kids, the report suggests, and broadcasters should harness this viewing behavior on their own-demand platforms.” 35 So while the convergence of media and the emergence of new media platforms have created more ways for youth to participate, most of the time the participation occurs through consumption practices. Children and youth have become a major target market in the last few decades. Livingstone and Buckingham both discuss how fears of the outside world encourage parents to keep children sequestered in the home for play and leisure activities, at the same time that media penetrates the domestic space, opening it up to the market. 36 Buckingham writes: 12 Children’s leisure activities are becoming steadily more privatized and commercialized. More of their time is spent in the home or in supervised activity of some kind; while the cultural goods and services they consume increasingly have to be paid for in hard cash. Family expenditure on entertainment media (both software and hardware) has been growing exponentially over the past decade, both as a global figure and as a proportion of household income. 37 Children express their lifestyles and identities through their consumption habits, and media industries strategize how best to target this audience. As demonstrated earlier, media industries campaign across different media platforms to garner youth’s attention and one of the ways they do this is through branding. Kathryn Montgomery explains, “Branding has become a pervasive and dominant theme in the digital media, used not only to market products, but also as a descriptive and organizing principle for all aspects of media culture.” 38 She and Ellen Seiter both explain that in new media platforms and interfaces, it becomes difficult for youth and children to decipher the difference between content and advertising. 39 Therefore a major thrust for media literacy constitutes teaching youth awareness and critical thinking when it comes to media consumption practices. As Buckingham admits, though children may be empowered to consume through the various shopping forums and contents that are available to them, media has not quite reached a level in which it empowers children as citizens. 40 Montgomery sums it up: The new digital media—with their powerful ability to engage children in active learning, to foster community, and to enable children to become creators and communicators instead of just passive recipients—could also play a significant role in helping to develop thoughtful, active citizens. 41 13 Part of the problem continues to be the lack of school’s investment in incorporating media as a subject matter. 42 Media and Schools As Buckingham explains, media use in schools exists in a neoliberal framework: The use of computers in education has often been justified in terms of increasing ‘efficiency’ and providing students with ‘skills’ for employment; but it has also frequently been aligned with a much broader ‘liberatory’ discourse. Technology, it is argued, will free students to follow their own individual interests and learning paths and free teachers from routine tasks of assessment and management, allowing them to engage with students in a more natural and authentic way. 43 Nonetheless, older media forms such as radio and television were often incorporated into the classroom before the emergence of neoliberalism, and they tended to be promoted for similar progressive qualities, such as providing students innovative and alternative ways to learn. Buckingham unpacks the early writings on the introduction of radio and television in the classroom in the United Kingdom to demonstrate how computers suffer from many of the same challenges of earlier media integration. Similar to computers, older forms of media were understood as neutral devices providing experiences and information outside of the teacher’s purview and often by commercial interests from the top down. However computers do have specific neoliberal qualities that give them staying power in education reform, such as the computer’s ability to provide personal and individualized educational experiences. Governments and corporations thus heavily invest in integrating computer hardware and software into the classroom. 44 14 According to Buckingham, the fact that technology integration in the classroom comes from governments and corporations and not from the teachers, presents a major challenge in properly integrating media into youth lesson plans in meaningful ways. He writes, “Reformers have largely ignored the institutional constraints of schooling, the professional imperatives of teachers, and they need to adapt change to local knowledge and needs.” 45 Larry Cuban likewise contends that teachers run their classrooms, prioritize material and influence what gets taught, and therefore, they should play a larger role in the implementation of technology. However, teachers are constrained by other forces when using technology. He concludes that the historical and social context combined with teachers’ control within the classroom have greatly impacted the slow penetration of proper technology use into school curriculum. 46 According to Buckingham the contextual constraints that teachers must deal with include financial planning, due to expensive equipment expenditures and the need to continually upgrade as software and hardware change. 47 Buckingham discusses the challenges in keeping up with and choosing appropriate software, “Here again, the government has placed the emphasis on stimulating commercial industry rather than enabling teachers themselves to become involved in the design and production of appropriate software.” 48 Similarly, being able to obtain information about the various software programs proves difficult for teachers without guidance. 49 Also, the amount of money and effort spent on technology training tends to be low and the time spent on learning more than 15 technology operations, such as how to integrate it into curriculum, tends to be minimal. 50 Certain education proponents criticize the incorporation of corporate culture in the classroom that comes with the integration of new technology. Ellen Seiter’s Internet Playground includes two case studies in which she creates computer journalism after-school classes in two middle schools in San Diego. One of her main findings consists of realizing the saturation of advertisements in youth computer games. She writes, “The World Wide Web is a more aggressive and stealthy marketer to children than television ever was, and children need as much information about its business practices as teachers and parents can give them.” 51 She is particularly struck by how “educational” games, created or supported by corporations and special interest groups, move under the radar of youth as neutral transmitters of learning and information. Henry Giroux, likewise, criticizes corporate investment in schools because corporations permeate the system in a way that goes beyond the products and financial support they provide. He writes: The commercial logic that fuels this market-based reform movement is also evident in the way in which corporate culture targets schools not simply as investments for substantial profits but also as training grounds for educating students to define themselves as consumers rather than multifaceted social actors. 52 Giroux explains that corporate integration in the public school system brings with it a corporate culture that promotes certain neoliberal qualities, such as standards and increased efforts to measure outcomes. 53 Cuban concurs by straightforwardly explaining that technology-in-education proponents seek out neoliberal goals 16 through neoliberal education strategies that incorporate technology. He writes, “Driven by economic motives, many technologically inclined reformers seldom have looked beyond linking standard-based curriculum, test scores, and accountability to increasing economic productivity and the Gross National Product.” 54 Computers can personalize learning for youth, yet computers also provide a standardized way of learning that has large societal impacts. In Seiter’s case studies of computer learning she concludes, “Instead of promoting challenging, complex forms of knowledge and thinking in schools, computers have in the opinion of many educators, encouraged simplistic models for learning.” 55 For example, she analyzes SuccessMaker, a software educational program, coveted by parents and administrators in the wealthier public school she observed. She finds the program to be an expensive digital replication of simplistic worksheets provided to students in hard copies in the past, with one great advantage, monitoring results for parents and school administrators. She further connects computer-measured outcomes to the importance of productivity in the school’s social and economic context, arguing that: In Southern California, as in upscale markets across the United States, these kind of aggregated data on student performance relative to grade level are widely publicized so that prospective residents can gauge the precise level of achievement of each neighborhood—and high performing schools can drive a widely inflated real estate market. 56 Giroux also points to how the standardization policies that accompany technology integration in schools designate poor and minority students and their schools as failures because the districts do not have the financial or supportive resources that 17 public schools in upper class neighborhoods have, and therefore, have a more difficult task of meeting those standards. 57 Access to technology resources and funding varies by state, school district and school and huge discrepancies exist between schools throughout Europe and United States. Seiter explains that within the United States the gap in access to digital technology is widening. Though governments in the United States and Europe have worked vigorously to set up Internet access in classrooms for rural and urban schools and rich and poor, quality of access differs. In her case studies, Seiter explains that though both the rich and poor schools had computer facilities, they were vastly different. At the poor school, the computers were older, less likely to have Internet access and more often than not unusable. 58 “Far from being a leveler of class differences by opening access to information,” Seiter writes, “adoption and dispersal of the Internet has deepened social divisions along the lines of class, race and ethnicity, and it has done both within and among countries.” 59 Access to technology use is also more complex than simply having the available resources. Training, experts, and time impact how technology can be used. Cuban argues that technology reformers make two related assumptions with regard to technology access. First, reformers deduce that access to technology will solve major education problems, yet infrastructural, funding, health and staffing problems within rural and urban schools have little to do with technology access. Second, technology’s ability to bring quicker and increased amounts of information will make students more knowledgeable. He writes, “Critical awareness, reasoning, and judgment are basic 18 skills that transform information into knowledge. No cheaply and swiftly acquired information can substitute for these critical faculties.” These assumptions fit within a neoliberal belief system in which efficient schools with standardized curriculum and measured outcomes will position youth to competently compete in the global workforce, negating the complexities inherent in the social, cultural, economic and political contexts that these schools and students reside in and wrongfully assuming that access to information equates critical understanding. In Allison Butler’s case study of a themed-based media education school in New York, she concludes that the students were not successfully taught a thorough media education but instead provided technology with no proper instruction, guidance or infrastructure to support the disadvantaged youth attending the high school. She writes, “Upon graduation, students are not equipped with complex media analysis skills and have encountered an education in technology inclusion at best, not media education.” 60 Her final argument is for more than access since she believes that fundamental change of the school system is necessary to incorporate a proper media education that does not fit within the guidelines of a neoliberal standards-based education system. 61 Like many media scholars, she finds the integration of technology into the classroom frustrating due to the neoliberal restraints and understands effective media education as a process that cannot exist within those constraints. Brian Goldfarb argues that because of the rigidity of the school system, students often have a better chance learning about and with media and technology in after-school and extracurricular programs. In a comparison between New York 19 public schools and a nonprofit program, he explains that there is more autonomy for the nonprofit program. Jenkins, like Butler, calls for a paradigm shift in schools to properly incorporate media education into the curriculum. He agrees with Goldfarb that after-school programs tend to be the best ways for students in the United States to take advantage of a well-rounded media education. He writes: After-school programs may encourage students to examine more directly their relationships to popular media and participatory culture. After-school programs may introduce core technical skills that students need to advance as media makers. In these more informal learning contexts, students may explore rich examples of existing media practice and develop a vocabulary for critically assessing work in these emerging fields. 62 The comprehensive study Ito et al. conducted about youth and new media further emphasizes Buckingham’s digital divide in and out of the classroom by purposely choosing to examine youth experiences with media in social and recreational spaces outside of school. The authors conclude, “In this, our approach is in line with a growing body of work in sociocultural learning theory that looks to out-of-school settings for models of learning and engagement that differ from what is found in the classroom.” 63 The digital divide has now widened to the point that scholars are looking elsewhere for ways of understanding how youth use media to learn. In this dissertation, I will examine the neoliberal policy and school conditions that make it challenging for youth to learn with and from media and technology in schools and also provide examples of how such an education is possible. 20 Media Literacy Becoming media literate occurs through a media education, both formal and informal, in school, in the home and out in the world, virtually and physically, amongst peers, parents and alone. For the sake of this dissertation, I will specifically be referring to media literacy or education programs in schools and after-school programs, whose aim it is to teach about media through media. Therefore, while some of these programs may be considered informal in opposition to school as formal, the programs I am discussing are all formal in the sense that they are set up with proper funding, resources, and professional support to teach about media. Learning about media is not just happenstance nor a result of interacting with media but the actual motivation behind these programs. Most media literacy scholars define media literacy as the ability to incorporate, access, analyze, evaluate and communicate in multiple forms. 64 Scholars, such as Sonia Livingstone and policymakers, such as the European Commission have expanded upon this definition by clearly articulating what each ability means and providing examples of the necessary skills each ability requires, for various audiovisual and digital media. 65 Access does not only include being able to obtain a computer but also being able to turn it on and figure out how to search online for specific information. A person must be able to analyze the material she or he reads online, understand where the information comes from, what is means and what it intends to say. He or she must also evaluate the material, figuring out whether or not the information comes from a legitimate source, weighing different sources and taking into account the way that 21 the material was retrieved. Lastly, a computer literate person should be able to communicate and create media to get his or her voice heard. Just as a print literate person must be able to read and write, a media literate person must be able to retrieve and understand information, while also being able to produce one’s own media. Buckingham provides four conceptual frameworks for media literacy that can be applied to all types of media and can be incorporated into each of the abilities listed above. A media literate person should be able to access, evaluate, analyze and communicate the representations, language, production and audience of the media he or she is using and creating. 66 In terms of representation, Buckingham suggests that all media represent some type of interpretation of the world with particular values and truths implicitly and explicitly emphasized. The second factor, language, must not only be used but also understood. Buckingham writes, “This is partly a matter of understanding the ‘grammar’ of particular forms of communication but it also involves an awareness of the broader codes and conventions of particular genres.” 67 Therefore understanding how to retrieve information on a website means one must understand how it is structured and designed. Production, the third aspect of Buckingham’s media literacy framework, does not only mean a media literate person can produce and communicate but is also aware of “who is communicating to whom and why.” 68 Lastly, the fourth factor of the framework, audience, defines one’s knowledge of the intended audience or user of certain media and is conscious of what affect the user or audience has on the product and the way it is perceived. Throughout my dissertation, I will examine the ability of media literacy policies and 22 programs to emphasize and teach these conceptual factors, particularly in Chapter Five, because as I will demonstrate this type of media education does not fit within the current neoliberal school system in place, and therefore, is best found in an alternative nonprofit organization that tries to create a media education that upholds this framework. The main reason this type of media literacy cannot be taught in a neoliberal school system is because this type of education requires a social and interactive experience that goes against a rigid standards-based and measured outcomes curriculum that focuses on individual achievement. Jenkins’s emphasizes the participatory nature of media literacy. He argues, “Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from individual expression to community involvement.” 69 He defines participatory culture as one in which people are easily able to engage in this culture for artistic expression and civic participation, with a strong support system for creating and sharing work and knowledge with others that they feel matters. 70 He focuses on a large list of skills that are necessary for a person to be considered literate in the current new media environment, and while they will be discussed in more detail in the dissertation, specifically in Chapter Four, I will review three competencies that particularly focus on the social emphasis of media education; collective intelligence, networking and negotiation. Building on Pierre Levy’s notion of collective intelligence, Jenkins explains that today people create communities through common interests and within these groups no one knows everything; instead people have specific skills and knowledge and when the group comes together, they 23 pull their resources. 71 Jenkins writes, “These knowledge communities change the very nature of media consumption—a shift from the personalized media that was central to the idea of the digital revolution toward socialized or communalized media that is central to the culture of media convergence.” 72 This type of intelligence goes against the individualized “generalist” intelligence measured and graded in schools because it is one in which group work and knowledge from the community trumps a single individual’s achievements. Because of the lack of available technology resources in schools, group work becomes a good way for youth to interact with media, not only to learn about the media being used but also to learn how to interact, trust and communicate with others for a common goal. This type of practice becomes more prevalent in after-school programs in which grading and assessment are not paramount. The second skill, networking, “involves the ability to navigate across different social communities…to search for, synthesize and disseminate information.” 73 Networking includes being able not only to make the proper connections to retrieve information but also to analyze and evaluate the information received. This skill further emphasizes how retrieving and distributing information is a social process when using media, and therefore, more complex than simply locating an objective answer from a magical black box. Jenkins writes: It involves understanding the social and cultural contexts within which different information emerges, when to trust and when not to trust others to filter and prioritize relevant data, and how to use networks to get individual work out into the world... 74 24 Negotiation works in tandem with networking because it refers to the ability to access information and content from multiple perspectives from diverse social communities and to understand these different views and the context from which they are coming from. He writes, “In such a world, it becomes increasingly critical to help students acquire skills in understanding multiple perspectives, respecting and even embracing diversity of views, understanding a variety of social norms and negotiating among conflicting opinions.” 75 He argues that this component of media literacy takes on greater importance now because of the number of youth that are communicating and producing public work and so it is not only about critical understanding but also about youth engaging thoughtfully and knowledgeably in a public dialogue with and about those from different backgrounds. 76 Educational media often replaces media education. Buckingham argues, using media (watching TV or surfing the web) is a social and cultural practice and media and technology are not simply tools. 77 Frederic Antoine contends that because of the economic ramifications of educational media, the concept of media education often gets tied to using media for educational purposes. 78 However, media industries are not concerned with the critical components of media education, and therefore, their involvement in the classroom through the dissemination of their products often results in educational media standing in for media education. This results in an emphasis on achieving a technical skillset as opposed to critical understanding about media and its contexts. He writes, “From the point of view of the industry, any questioning of the medium as object carrier or content has no direct interest because 25 at least at first glance, it does not contribute to the expansion of its hegemony.” 79 The user must be able to engage with the technology in order to desire more resources to advance his or her usage, furthering the revenue stream for media industries; hence, industries rely on schools to teach technological skills. He writes: The industry’s expectations vis-à-vis education are obvious: to obtain the design of effective learning procedures in order to enable as many people as possible to manage their relationship with the medium positively, and, once this is achieved, to create the incentive for acquiring the medium, and finally to exploit as much as possible all the variations, extensions and types of content the medium offers. 80 Media literacy cannot exist without access to technology and access to technology cannot exist without influence from media industries, therefore, tensions between industry and media literacy scholars, supporters and practitioners over the conception of a media education exist in policy and practice. I will spell out those tensions in the dissertation and provide examples of ways certain programs overcome industry influence and examples of certain strategies that are heavily influenced by industry involvement. Just as educational media and media literacy are different, digital literacy and media literacy, though aligned, have two different sets of meanings and implications. 81 Buckingham explains that digital literacy is not the same as media literacy because it usually refers to providing students with an education that will help them become digitally competent. 82 He argues that the main perk of digital literacy is that it promotes an inclusionary discourse. 83 Digital literacy, according to Buckingham, “is frequently measured as a ‘life skill’—a form of individual 26 technological competence that is a prerequisite for full participation into society.” Because the actual skills promoted in digital literacy tend to be theoretically simplistic, such as information retrieval without evaluation, he proposes that digital literacy be taken up as part of the media literacy discourse. Media literacy does not discriminate between old and new media, stresses both critical engagement and creation, and has a flexible but structured framework. However, he does recommend that media literacy incorporate the participatory goal of digital literacy that encourages civic engagement in addition to gaining knowledge and skills. Livingstone admittedly sets an ambitious agenda for media literacy that addresses three main purposes: “equality of opportunity in the knowledge economy”; “active participation in a democracy”; and “human rights and self-actualization”. 84 First, access to media literacy for all will end the digital divide so that everyone has an equal opportunity to partake in the global workforce. Second, “media and information-literate citizens gain informed opinions on matters of the day and are equipped to express their opinions individually and collectively in public, civic and political domains, thereby supporting a critical and inclusive public sphere.” 85 Third, media literate individuals can take part in personal fulfillment, enlightenment and expression. 86 In the current mediated global society, Livingstone’s goals express how media plays a large role in the economy, civic discourse and individual social and cultural endeavors, bringing to the fore issues of what it means to be a citizen. According to Toby Miller, citizenship can be separated into three categories: 27 - The political (the right to reside and vote) - The economic (the right to work and prosper) - The cultural (the right to know and speak) 87 Each of Livingstone’s media literacy goals can be attributed to these three types of citizenships, emphasizing the importance of understanding and communicating about and through media to engage in society. Media literacy scholars often refer to active citizenship as an ideal goal for the discourse in opposition to passive consumerism. Though most likely unintentional, these scholars advocate for a citizenship that is reliant on the nation-states and thus exclusionary to those that do not have legal status or proper documentation. Even with legal status, Mai Ngai and Renato Rosaldo argue that there is a difference between first-class citizens, usually men of European descent and second-class citizens, usually women and people of color. 88 Therefore, when I argue for media literacy programs and initiatives that teach and actively encourage citizen participation, I am not referring to media literacy programs and initiatives solely for U.S. and E.U. legal citizens; instead I am arguing for media literacy programs and initiatives that promote cultural citizenship. Rosaldo explains: Cultural citizenship refers to the right to be different and to belong in a participatory and democratic sense. It claims that in a democracy, social justice calls for equity among all citizens, even when such differences as race, religion, class, gender or sexual orientation potentially could be used to make certain people less equal or inferior to others. 89 Cultural citizenship is particularly appropriate when discussing youth because unlike adults they do not usually possess legal rights and independent means to engage politically and economically. However, they do possess the “rights to know and 28 speak” and media education helps them take advantage of those rights. Due to neoliberal constraints, the digital divide continues to exist in which certain regions, nations, localities and people have more access to human and technological resources than others in the global economic-political sphere; therefore, I argue against this system that prevents such goals from being actualized and I argue for media literacy policy and educational programs that challenge it. Media literacy acts as a strategy for political-economic inclusion for a cultural citizenship that does not discriminate but instead provides people with the necessary critical and practical skills to participate in diverse communities through various forms. Policies in favor of media literacy need to reflect the various strategies practitioners and scholars have promoted in order to help train youth to be multifaceted, open-minded, active participators in the world. Chapter Breakdown My dissertation is divided into four chapters to demonstrate how the neoliberal motives and rhetoric behind media literacy policy contradict the media literacy practices that scholars and practitioners promote. In Chapter Two, I compile and intertwine media and education policy from the last fifty years in the United States to prove that in this contemporary neoliberal environment, media literacy has been replaced by technological literacy due to the latter’s emphasis on requiring support from media industries and learning productive skills that can be translated into the global workforce. By tracing media policy in the United States, I demonstrate how neoliberal deregulation policies support and propel media 29 industries to grow vertically (owning production, distribution and exhibition) and horizontally (across multiple media platforms). Corporate interest replace public interest as the FCC’s paramount concern, except for cases, which involve children’s media, but even then the lenient measures the FCC takes to ensure a place for children’s television benefit media industries. The FCC, does, however, oversee the E-Rate program that provides support for schools and libraries so that they can afford Internet connections. Nonetheless, the program relies on telecommunications companies to set the price and ultimately the quality of the services for schools and libraries, demonstrating the close relationship between media policymakers and media industries. The deregulation of media industries and the lack of government support in ensuring that the public’s interest remains a priority furthers the rationale for a media literacy policy that teaches people how to self-regulate their own media intake. This reasoning ultimately fits within a neoliberal framework that advances notions of individuals relying on themselves to be responsible for their own consumption decisions. Yet, media literacy is more complex than simply teaching critical capabilities so that people can become empowered consumers. As I argue against neoliberal media and education policies, I also argue for a complex media literacy policy that equips youth with the media literacy skills necessary to be cultural citizens so that they can thoughtfully engage in society about and through media. I transition from media policy to federal education policy, to better understand technological literacy and why it supersedes a media literacy policy that promotes cultural citizenship in public schools, where students are supposed to learn 30 about civic engagement. In the last fifty years, the federal government has taken on a greater role in education, which has historically been the responsibility of states and local districts. The rise of federal involvement in education has been matched by the integration of technology in schools. Both movements have been strongly supported by industry and big business lobbying groups because the former helps ensure a more globally competitive generation of new workers, and the latter contributes to that same aim while also generating a new revenue stream. In a neoliberal system, corporate interests have infiltrated public interest media and public schools, making it challenging for youth to find a space to critically think about and create media. In Chapter Three, I move from the United States to the European Union to provide a comparative model of media literacy policy to the neoliberal technological literacy that exists in the United States. I trace the E.U. media policy in place to create a context for the initiation of a specified media literacy policy and find the roots of the policy in a protectionist agenda that tried to elevate and safeguard European media from U.S. dominance. Simultaneously, the E.U. struggles to create a pan-European citizenship from its member states’ citizens in order to garner support for the neoliberal political-economic policy measures spanning across participating nation-states. Media literacy, as a policy, set up particularly for youth in schools, becomes an ideal way to create a common bond and European identity by promoting European prestige films and critically examining U.S. and other non-European products. However, through the promotion of “Europeanness”, immigrants and non- Europeans are identified as outsiders that do not belong. By taking a close look at the 31 studies completed by European Union and the policies passed, I highlight hints of anxiety about maintaining a sense of cultural and economic control of media and technology in opposition to the United States as outsiders and immigrants as insiders. I also examine how the conception of media literacy, according to the European Union has changed over the years to position Europe as viable competitor in international media and technological markets and a guardian of cultural heritage. Through a closer look at the United Kingdom and Hungary, I posit some of the problems that crop up in translation from policy to practice due in part to the European Union’s emphasis on European cultural heritage and surpassing world competitors through a focus on technological competency. Nonetheless, these complex motivations have led to ambitious, innovative and comprehensive media literacy legislation and studies, placing the European Union’s policy at the forefront of the field, though not without complications. The U.S. and E.U. policies regarding media and education differ greatly though both regions are affected by the same neoliberal globalizing processes that promote free market policies. U.S. media industries control the majority of the country’s own domestic media market and play a significant role in producing and distributing media content around the world. Because of the U.S.’s dominant role in media business and its history of privately owned and operated media companies, newer neoliberal deregulation policies have not caused as much alarm as they have in the European Union. This region has a history of combined privately-owned and publically-owned media control strategies, therefore even though the European 32 Union and member state governments have succumbed to deregulation and privatizing policies, policymakers continue to keep public interest in mind. The European Union is also in the process of promoting a shared E.U. identity and affinity for cultural products coming from within the Union. As of yet, U.S. programming and content continue to usurp other European content and programming for second place in E.U. countries that uphold their own nationally made media as their first preference. 90 Therefore the European Union has been more proactive in protecting public interest and European owned media industries against U.S. media pervasiveness. Taking into account these factors, the European Union has advanced a media literacy policy agenda that promotes critical thinking, cultural heritage and citizen participation. The United States, on the other hand, has been more concerned with making sure youth are equipped with technological skillsets necessary to compete for jobs in the global workforce. U.S. technological literacy policy pays little attention to an education that includes old media forms and content, and instead it prioritizes computer skills that can be applied to workforce productivity. This U.S. policy tends to rely on a technological determinist rhetoric that proposes technology will solve all educational ills. Though in recent years, the European Union has emphasized the importance of technological competency, the European Union’s media literacy policy carefully explains the human and institutional support necessary for technology to be used and studied for educational purposes. European Union policymakers have relied on support and collaboration from media literacy scholars, nonprofit and corporate interest groups, and educators 33 to create and promote the policy and keep it relevant as media and technology continue to change. United States policymakers have not created the same collaborative studies, dialogue or conferences for different invested parties and therefore the promotion of technological literacy in the United States tends to differ greatly from the media literacy strategies promoted by U.S. media scholars. In Chapter Four I trace the social and cultural ramifications of government deregulation in the United States. Due to neoliberal policies that prevent the government from being able to ensure the welfare of its citizens, the United States relies on corporations and nonprofits to support programs that aid in the survival and well-being of people. While corporate and nonprofit support are welcomed by most, the independence of these organizations and thus the lack of checks and balances make such support suspect at times. Also, the selectivity and small reach of many of these organizations make it difficult for them to effect transformative societal change. Instead they provide individualized support that fits within neoliberal thinking that privileges individuals as opposed to communities. Nonetheless, these programs often try to challenge the neoliberal system by providing support for those disenfranchised from society. Media and digital technology programs, in particular, defy the system because they support media literacy strategies that often question the status quo and give the support necessary for disenfranchised to speak and be heard. I investigate two different media and digital literacy programs in California’s Silicon Valley, a media-saturated area in the United States that tends to have access to technical and human resources and tends to be more clued into the need for such programs. 34 Institutions from at least two of the three sectors—government, corporate and nonprofit—collaborate through these media education programs. I investigate a public school digital art class in the Los Altos School District and Adobe Youth Voices, the software company, Adobe System’s corporate social responsibility program (CSR) that specializes in youth digital production. I argue that these media education institutions exist within a neoliberal system that supplies the necessary technologies and funding to keep them afloat. Nonetheless, these programs also tend to challenge the status quo to varying degrees in different ways because of the emphasis on youth empowerment and media creation. I demonstrate how these programs both advance and subvert the current neoliberal structure through their operations and educational strategies from two different institutional perspectives. In the Fifth Chapter I complete an in depth case study of the Echo Park Film Center, a Los Angeles media-making nonprofit organization. The EPFC has more autonomy than the previous case studies because it is not reliant on a specific financial supporter. I examine the spaces, technology, and day-to-day operations, while also getting to know the teachers, administrators and students through an observational study of a single course taught by four teachers to two different groups of students. I argue that this nonprofit organization most effectively teaches the media literacy strategies discussed by media literacy scholars, which tend to be at odds with the neoliberal pedagogical practices in schools. Unlike schools, with rigid standardization, measured outcomes and individual accountability, the EPFC supports collaboration, experiments, and critical dialogue. Through my study, I 35 conclude that media literacy scholarly frameworks can translate into practice; however, this organization’s private independence allows it to teach and promote a media education curriculum that specializes in nonmainstream media and overlooks a critical engagement with popular culture. The institution’s background greatly affects the operating structures, teachers who work there and students who join, ultimately creating a learning experience that is very different from what these youth receive in school. Therefore the process of teaching media literacy effectively does not fit within a neoliberal framework but one that actively challenges it. My findings in both Chapter Four and Five emphasize how important the institutions supporting media education are in constructing the definition, space and teaching strategies for the subject matter and reiterate the complexity of translating such strategies to the U.S. public school system at large. I conclude the dissertation by summarizing the broad points of the chapters. I then supply my recommendations for a stronger media literacy policy in the European Union and United States. My recommendations for the European Union include suggestions to make the E.U. policy more accessible to non-Europeans. My suggestions for U.S. policymakers include generating more collaboration from media education scholars and practitioners. Lastly, I make suggestions for certain ways the practices in this dissertation’s case studies can be applied to school curriculums and classroom settings. In order to carry out this dissertation I have employed different methodological approaches. Through critical political economy and cultural studies 36 lenses, I examine media and education policy and strategies. I analyze policy documents, legislation, studies and public relations information in order to piece together a recent history of U.S. education technology policy and E.U. media literacy policy. Using education, policy, institutional and media scholarly writings as support, I produce an interdisciplinary examination of policy that exists at a juncture between media and education with involvement from the government, corporate and nonprofit sectors. I studied the public relations materials and curriculum, while also conducting interviews with people involved from my three institutional case studies. I also took part in an IRB-approved onsite observational study of an EPFC course that lasted twelve weeks. Through this case study, I created surveys and conducted interviews to supplement the observational study. The diverse methods I employed gave me a well-rounded examination of media literacy policy and practice in a neoliberal context within the United States and European Union. I examine both the top-down strategies (Chapters Two and Three) and the grassroots practices (Chapters Four and Five) that occur in different programs motived by media education in order to demonstrate a need and desire for this type of education, while also addressing the structural barriers to media education in a neoliberal system. My dissertation matters because it highlights the paradox in the United States in which media literacy as an outcome is discussed as a neoliberal policy strategy in which youth must learn to self-regulate media consumption and obtain productive technological skills. However, the process of an effective media education often contradicts neoliberal education strategies. This research contributes to media 37 education studies, because not only does it address curriculum, but it also examines the various institutions that influence and structure media education curriculum. While media literacy scholars come up with effective strategies to teach media literacy and test these strategies on youth in temporary programs, they rarely study already established media education institutions. As I demonstrate in this dissertation the institutions that support media education play a major role in how media education gets defined, taught and learned and their specific motivations, resources and support heavily influence the subject matter at hand. I take into account the current model of government, corporate and nonprofit interrelationships that contribute to education in the European Union and United States. Understanding how these institutions work separately and together illuminates how and why the United States has been slow to bring media education into the classroom. I examine both the macro, through E.U. and U.S. policy initiatives and the micro, though specific youth projects at the EPFC to create an interdisciplinary dissertation. I draw attention to media education as a top down model in which government policy and large media conglomerate technologies and money play a role in media education at the same time that parental pressure and grassroots nonprofit programs also have a hand in practice and policy. In my interdisciplinary study I alert media literacy scholars in the United States to the structural barriers of practicing effective media education at the same time that I compile a recent technological education policy history to introduce media literacy scholars to how technology and media are being 38 discussed in policy, hopefully promoting more participation in initiative research and implementation. My project examines the relationship between policy and practice at the transnational (European Union), national (United States, United Kingdom and Hungary) and regional (Los Angeles, Silicon Valley) levels. Education and media cannot be studied without the acknowledgement of numerous local and global influences. Media education practice and policy should account for the various geographic influences. My dissertation also alerts the United States to a more comprehensive media literacy policy established by the European Union without glorifying the problems that the European Union must sort out, with regard to how the policy reinforces an exclusionary citizenship. This dissertation also infuses the education discourse with media literacy scholarship. While education policy and technology scholars tend to discuss the integration of technology into schools as technical literacy, I provide insight from communication and media studies discourses about how technology should be treated as more than simply instruments through which youth learn. I also demonstrate why media should not be treated as magical objects that can transform the education system without human or institutional support. The social, economic, political and cultural landscapes in which these technologies and media exist play a major role in innovation, dissemination and use. I hope this dissertation proves useful for media, education and policy scholars, policymakers, and media education 39 administrators, practitioners and teachers; furthering a comprehensive media education that ultimately spreads an open-minded and active cultural citizenship. 40 Chapter One Endnotes 1 Toby Miller, Cultural Citizenship: Cosmopolitanism, Consumerism and Television in a Neoliberal Age (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2007). 2 See Des Freedman, The Politics of Media Policy (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2008); Dan Schiller, How To Think About Information (Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2007). 3 See Toby Miller and George Yudice, Cultural Policy (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004). 4 See Toby Miller et al, Global Hollywood 2 (London, UK: British Film Institute, 2005); David Morley, Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000). 5 David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005), 2. 6 Ibid., 2-3. 7 Ibid., 79-80. 8 Ibid., 65. 9 Ibid., 7, 65. 10 Brian O’Neill and Ingunn Hagen, “Media Literacy,” in <kids online> Opportunities and Risks for Children, eds. Sonia Livingstone and Leslie Haddon (Bristol, UK: Polity Press, 2009), 229. Sonia Livingstone, Children and the Internet (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2009), 84. Allison Butler, Media Education Goes to School: Young People Make Meaning of Media & Urban Education (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2010), 4. 11 Patricia Aufderheide in Livingstone, Children and the Internet, 184. 12 David Buckingham, Media Education: Literacy, Learning and Contemporary Culture (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2003). 13 David Buckingham, Beyond Technology: Children’s Learning in the Age of Digital Culture (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), 96. 14 Ibid., 87. 15 Livingstone, Children and the Internet, 5. 16 Ibid., 6. 17 Ibid., 6. 18 Ibid., 12. 19 Sonia Livingstone, Young People and New Media: Childhood and the Changing Media Environment (London, UK: Sage Publications, 2002), 3. 41 20 Buckingham, Beyond Technology, 75. 21 Livingstone, Young People and New Media, 3. 22 Buckingham, Beyond Technology, 92. 23 Ibid., 92. 24 Ibid., 92-93. 25 Ibid., 87. 26 Livingstone, Children and the Internet, 23-24 (italics in the original). 27 Mizuko Ito, Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children’s Software (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2009), 3-4. 28 Buckingham, Beyond Technology, 73. 29 Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2006), 2-3. 30 Ibid., 3, 17. 31 Ibid., 17. 32 Livingstone, Young People and New Media, 19-20. 33 Buckingham, Beyond Technology, 78. 34 “Media Habits: Kid’s Talk,” New Media Age (February 24, 2011), 18. 35 Ibid. 36 Livingstone, Children and the Internet, 6. Buckingham, Beyond Technology, 82-83. 37 Buckingham, Beyond Technology, 83. 38 Kathryn C. Montgomery, “Children’s Media Culture in the New Millennium: Mapping the Digital Landscape,” The Future of Children 10, no. 2 (Autumn-Winter 2000): 157. 39 Ibid., 157, and Ellen Seiter, The Internet Playground: Children’s Access, Entertainment, and Mis- Education (New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, 2005), 100. 40 Buckingham, Beyond Technology, 92. 41 Montgomery, “Children’s Media Culture,” 160. 42 Buckingham, Beyond Technology, 93-97. 42 43 Ibid., 32. 44 Ibid., 52-56. 45 Ibid., 64. 46 Larry Cuban, Oversold & Underused: Computers in the Classroom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 175. 47 Buckingham, Beyond Technology, 57-61. 48 Ibid., 61. 49 Ibid., 61. 50 Ibid., 60. 51 Seiter, Internet Playground, 100. 52 Henry Giroux, Stealing Innocence: Corporate Culture’s War on Children (New York, NY: Palgrave, 2000), 95. 53 Ibid., 88. 54 Cuban, Oversold & Underused, 191. 55 Seiter, Internet Playground, 6. 56 Ibid., 5. 57 Giroux, Stealing Innocence, 88-89. 58 Seiter, Internet Playground, 8. 59 Ibid., 13-14. 60 Butler, Media Education Goes to School, 122. 61 Ibid., 178. 62 Henry Jenkins et al., Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21 st Century (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009), 109. 63 Mizuko Ito et al., Hanging Out, Messing Around, And Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010), 12. 64 Patricia Aufderheide in Livingstone, Children and the Internet, 184. 65 Ibid., 186-189. 43 66 Buckingham, Beyond Technology, 154-156. 67 Ibid., 155. 68 Ibid., 155. 69 Jenkins, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture, 6. 70 Ibid., 5-6. 71 Ibid., 71. 72 Ibid., 73. 73 Ibid., 93, 91. 74 Ibid., 96. 75 Ibid., 99. 76 Ibid., 99. 77 Ibid., 21. 78 Frederic Antoine, “Media Industries and Education: What Mutual Interests, and for What Purpose?” in EuroMeduc: Media literacy in Europe: Controversies and Challenges, ed. Patrick Verniers (Brussels, 2009), 48. 79 Ibid., 51. 80 Ibid., 49. 81 Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, The Council, The European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, “A European Approach to Media literacy in the Digital Environment” (Brussels, 2007), 1-9. 82 David Buckingham, “The Future of Media Literacy in the Digital Age: Some Challenges for Policy and Practice”, in EuroMeduc: Media literacy in Europe: Controversies and Challenges, ed. Patrick Verniers (Brussels, 2009), 13-23. 83 Ibid., 17. 84 Livingstone, Children and the Internet, 202. 85 Ibid., 202. 86 Ibid., 202. 87 Miller, Cultural Citizenship, 35. 44 88 Mae M. Ngai, “Birthright Citizenship and the Alien Citizen,” Fordham Law Review 75, no. 5 (2007): 2523. Renato Rosaldo, “Cultural Citizenship and Educational Democracy,” Cultural Anthropology 9, no. 3 (1994): 402. 89 Rosaldo, “Cultural Citizenship,” 402. 90 Jeremy Tunstall, The Media were American (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008), 274. 45 Chapter Two U.S. Media and Technology Education Policy Do you think that having access to the computer makes all children believe they are equal, that they can have equal aspirations because it is an equalizer across income, isn’t it? — U.S. President Bill Clinton 1996 1 Neoliberal thinking and strategies deeply impact media and education policy in the United States. Since the 1980s, the U.S. government has repealed many of the laws that controlled corporate media ownership. Because of this, media viewers and users have been urged to self-regulate their own media consumption and use. This type of thinking helps promote forms of media literacy to equip citizens with the necessary faculties to be their own regulators and less reliant on the government. Neoliberal reasoning advances media education in Europe, for example, where there is anxiety about maintaining a sense of cultural and economic control of media against globalization processes, such as migration and free trade. The United States, on the other hand, worries less about citizen protection from media corporations, since most of its industries are domestically based, and instead directs its media policy toward helping corporations maintain a dominant position in media and technology ownership and control around the world. In order to accomplish global access to consumers, media corporations must be “free” to own and control the production, distribution and exhibition of multiple media platforms. In this chapter I trace the deregulation of media policy in the United States and how it benefits private corporations at the expense of public interest. 46 Neoliberal rhetoric for individual freedom also conflicts with notions of equality in public education. President Bill Clinton’s quote above will be addressed in more detail later in this chapter but it sets the tone for how technology is referred to in a neoliberal utopian fashion in U.S. education policy and calls attention to the tension between neoliberalism and equality. Technology, as discussed by U.S. policy officials and policy documents, becomes a way to individualize public education. While media literacy scholars emphasize the importance of communal and participatory engagement when studying media and technology, policy rhetoric focuses on how it can be used to make the classroom more efficient in terms of standardization and make students more proficient in technical skills. At the same time public schools become major markets for media and technology companies to sell their products. Therefore, instead of media literacy, the United States focuses on a more practical technological literacy policy that allows for the integration of technology products in schools and that also trains younger generations with the necessary faculties to compete in the technologically-dependent global workforce. Education and media policy have operated within two separate spheres in the U.S. government. Education has primarily been the responsibility of states and local governments with some help from the federal government through the cabinet-level Department of Education. Media policy and regulations have been the primary focus of the Federal Communications Committee (FCC), an independent government agency whose commissioners are appointed by the President. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice have also played a role in media 47 trade and antitrust policy issues. 2 These government institutions are deeply influenced by the current President’s political strategies and congressional rulings. Also, major corporate and public influences impact the policies that are enacted by these agencies. I will examine the last 50 years of education policy and media policy in the United States to further understand why technology literacy has made more strides than media literacy in policy discussions and how media literacy gets incorporated or left out of technological literacy. In order to do this, I will track two different areas of policy in the United States. First, I will examine the unraveling of media regulations by the FCC to demonstrate the government’s complicity in allowing the market to determine how media can be used for educational purposes. Second, I will analyze the federal government’s increasing role in education policy in general and in promoting the incorporation of technology into the education system in particular. At the same time the federal government has had to exercise caution in not taking too much power away from states, especially in a neoliberal context opposed to big government. Neoliberal policy and ideology with regard to media and technology have led to the deregulation of media corporations and the infiltration of the market into public schools. Ultimately, I argue that U.S. neoliberal media policy requires citizens to regulate their own media use as the government deregulates media business. Deregulation of media’s business policy furthers a need for media literacy in youth curriculum, yet public education is also under scrutiny by neoliberal proponents who argue for a technological literacy that furthers corporate expansion into the classroom for the purposes of selling their products and supplying 48 youth with the technical competence necessary to eventually compete with global peers in the job market. Throughout the dissertation, I advocate for a media literacy plan not confined by neoliberal objectives. Giroux argues against the incorporation of neoliberal strategies in schools because he explains, “The upshot is a rising indifference toward those aspects of education that foster critical consciousness, engender a respect for public goods, and affirm the need to energize democratic public life and reinvigorate the imperatives of social citizenship.” 3 These components of public education get incorporated into a comprehensive media education curriculum that promotes socialization, critical thinking and active citizenship through youths’ access, analysis, evaluation, communication and creation of media. Mae Ngai identifies the problem of promoting active citizenship. According to her, legal definitions of citizenship constrain the term to embody only those that have proper documentation to exist in the state, while those termed undocumented immigrants “comprise a caste that lives and works outside of citizenship.” 4 Therefore the promotion of active citizenship further prohibits undocumented immigrants from inclusion in a democratic society. When referring to the promotion of active citizenship within this chapter, I am specifically referring to the promotion of cultural citizenship. Anthropology scholar, Renato Rosaldo defines cultural citizenship as “the right to be different (in terms of race, ethnicity, or native language) with respect to the norms of the dominant national community, without comprising one’s right to belong, in the sense of participating in the nation-state’s democratic process.” 5 A comprehensive 49 media education promotes cultural citizenship because it provides youth with an education that helps them grasp media from diverse people and places and produce media to share their own thoughts and opinions so that they can speak and be heard. Part of media education, includes the consumption of media and technology. Media education does not prevent people from taking part in media consumption but instead helps youth to better understand the media that they consume. Garcia Canclini explains how consumption practices can be incorporated into an understanding of citizenship. He writes: …When we recognize that we consume we also think, select, and reelaborate social meaning, it becomes necessary to analyze active modes of participation than those that are grouped under the label of consumption. In other words we should ask ourselves if consumption does not entail doing something that sustains, nourishes, and to a certain extent constitutes a new mode of being citizens. 6 Media education teaches youth how to be aware of these practices and the contexts in which they exist. At the same time it instructs youth how to translate the pleasure and knowledge gained from consumption into ways of communicating and creating within society. In this chapter, the promotion of active citizenship from a comprehensive media education does not discriminate based on legal notions of state citizenship, nor does it only refer to political action in opposition to consumption, instead it exists as a way for youth to take part in a globalized and media-saturated society for their political, economic, social and cultural purposes. 50 Media Policy in the United States The United States maintains a dominant position in media consumption and production around the globe. U.S. media industries play a major role in the U.S. economy and consequently are a major force in both domestic and international policy. Since the emergence of the Hollywood film industry, media industries have sustained close relations with Washington D.C. Today film, television and new media industries including the Internet and mobile technologies companies continue to invest in policy discussions. The government determines tax breaks, labor restrictions, copyright laws, patents and airwave controls that may either impede or boost industry profits. Therefore companies and business lobbying groups spend a significant amount of time, money and resources to sway policy. Media industries have greatly benefited from the neoliberal polices that have been implemented in the last 30 years. Due to the loosening of transnational, regional and national regulations, U.S. media companies increased in size and centralized power, through vertical and horizontal mergers of various media platform companies at the production, distribution and exhibition levels. 7 Jennifer Holt credits deregulation, globalization and market concentration at the end of the 1980s with the creation of media empires, and I will provide further historical evidence of the ways that media policy has long been intertwined with economic interests. Nonetheless, in recent years, officials have become even more attentive to private interests at the expense of the public interest, which media policy was initially set up to protect. 51 Maintaining diversity on the airwaves has been one of the fundamental goals of the FCC since its inception. The goal was to set up a plethora of content offerings for viewers to retrieve information and seek entertainment. Originating from The Federal Radio Commission, the FCC was established in 1934 to structure the airwaves while ensuring that it acted in the public interest. However, according to media policy scholar Mara Einstein, beginning with the enactment of the 1912 and 1927 Radio Acts, the government handed over control of the airwaves to a few large corporations. 8 The Acts mandated that a very small percentage of the spectrum could be used by the public, which was then monopolized by the three networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC that continue to be the national networks of broadcast television today. State regulations ensured that the networks that could garner the advertising revenue to financially support themselves could continue to maintain control of the broadcasting licenses. The initial structure set up by the FCC in which only three networks distributed content to consumers was thus a far cry from the ideals of a democratic public sphere in which citizens could communicate and share diverse views. 9 Since then, the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules (fin-syn) and Prime Time Access Rules (PTAR) have tried to guarantee source and content diversity for viewers. Fin-syn was developed in 1970 by the FCC to keep broadcast networks from creating or owning their own prime-time programming. They were restricted from receiving syndication revenues from aired programming as well. Fin-syn was modeled after the 1948 Paramount Consent Decrees that permitted studios to control 52 production and distribution but forced the major studios to dispose of their exhibition wings. 10 This decree dismantled the vertical integration model, allowing smaller studios without exhibition wings a more equitable chance at showing their films at third party theaters and thus enhancing the diversity of creative material. 11 PTAR also transpired in the 1970s, as a way to promote local and independent programming by sanctioning off one hour of prime time television programming for local stations. 12 According to Holt, these rules helped independent producers get their content on the air but it also helped the film studios by keeping networks from creating their own programming. She writes: The fin-syn rules essentially solidified a balance between two powerful economic forces: the film studios and the broadcast networks. The net result for the film industry was a secure position as the largest supplier of television shows as well as what looked to be permanent, guaranteed access to this all- important market. 13 Therefore, while these laws were set up with public interest and antitrust intentions they also benefitted the private interests of the major studios. During the last 30-years in accordance with the emergence of neoliberal state strategies, the FCC has loosened many of its restraints on media companies, doing away with or modifying the broadcast ownership restrictions and regulations in favor of big business. Major deregulation commenced with the Reagan presidency. According to Holt, the notion of “public interest” has always been somewhat ambiguous which “allowed regulators a great deal of latitude over the years, but the loose interpretation of the notion ‘public interest’ was particularly beneficial to private interests during the 1980s.” 14 President Ronald Reagan appointed Mark 53 Fowler chairman of the FCC in 1981. Fowler’s main objective was to undo as many media laws as he could during his tenure. Fowler subscribed to the notion that an open market would produce content diversity and public interest. 15 According to Holt, Fowler “reviewed, changed or deleted 89 percent of the agency’s approximately 900 mass media rules…fifty years of regulation ended up on the chopping block when he arrived in office.” 16 For example in 1985, the “rule of sevens” which declared the number of television and AM and FM stations a company could own was changed to the “rule of twelves.” And by 1985, the Paramount Consent Decrees no longer had credibility thanks to J. Paul McGrath, Reagan’s antitrust chief, who refused to use resources to formally do away with the decrees but instead invalidated them in a Justice Department statement. The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 transferred the authority of cable restrictions from local and state officials to the federal government. This maneuver set the stage for further federal deregulation down the line. It also reaffirmed that telecommunication companies could not compete with cable companies by offering cable services to consumers. According to Holt, “The thrust of the act was toward less regulation and more weight given to the ‘market’ for important decisions, consistent with the administration’s overall tenor.” 17 The deregulation of the 1980s continued through the 1990s and beyond furthering the creation of large media conglomerations. In September of 1995, the FCC decided unanimously to do away with the fin-syn rules. Broadcast networks could produce, syndicate and program their own content. They could also broadcast 54 as much of their own programming as they chose. For example, in 1995 networks owned 40 percent of their programming and by 2000, CBS owned 68 percent of its programming and Fox owned 71 percent. By 2009, “twenty-two out of thirty-two new shows were produced and owned by the network on which they aired.” 18 The same conglomerate could own film studios and broadcast networks because fin-syn was repealed. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was the final straw in the creation of media empires, according to Holt: The new bill would lift ownership reach for TV stations from 25 percent to 35 percent, remove all limits from radio station ownership, allow broadcast networks to own cable system, allow telephone companies to enter the cable delivery business, and permit the further consolidation in local television markets. 19 Media conglomerations were now allowed to own media assets vertically and horizontally. For example, News Corporation owns Fox Broadcasting Network and also owns National Geographic and FX, two cable channels (among others). Along with other entities both domestic and international, the conglomerate also owns television and film production and distribution companies, magazines, newspapers and publishing companies. Such leniency on the part of the FCC has allowed companies such as News Corporation to vertically integrate, shutting out the competition from smaller companies that specialize in only one of the three areas. This type of ownership greatly reduces the diversity offered not only on television but across multiple media platforms due to horizontal ownership of multiple types of media companies such as video game, television, film, newspaper and software businesses. The market, though offering many choices of mediated material, still 55 falls short of supplying diversified content and sources that meet the public’s best interest, because it only takes into account consumption practices. The Internet has become the model medium for generating diverse content and supporting debates over public interest, according to many scholars. At the same time others complain that the marketization of the medium has limited its potential to be a contemporary public sphere. Schiller explains that from the Internet’s inception, like radio and television, the government allowed the Internet, along with other informational and communication technologies (ICTs), initially used for military and government research, to be privatized for commercial use. 20 Beginning in the 1960s, regulators understood computer networks to be outside of the telecommunications structure (though these networks were highly dependent on the existing structure), and therefore, new and less regulated entities could be addressed on a case-by-case basis: On the telecommunications side of the line, the existing rules of public service would continue to apply. However on the computing side, established exit, entry and price controls would be relaxed and progressively abandoned. So long as network applications were categorized by regulators as data- processing services, they could be pursued freely. 21 As stated above, eventually the telecommunications regulations would loosen, but as Schiller points out, unlike the telecommunications industry that eventually developed from the New Deal public service regulations, the Internet has had a much less rigorous history of regulation and has therefore been even more open than other media to private interest influence and manipulation. 22 56 The U.S. government has played a crucial role in ensuring the marketization of old and new media through various policy and regulation (or deregulation) strategies. The one exception to this has been the government’s role in guaranteeing educational media programming and access for children. Though, much like its education policy, media policy focuses on technical aspects and media for educational purposes as opposed to media literacy. Also, two of the three major FCC policies that impact youth have positive benefits for media industries as well, demonstrating how government intervention can be beneficial to business. In the next section, I will examine how the government employed regulations to benefit children’s education. Media Policy and Young People Beginning in 1969, advocacy groups criticized the media industry and the FCC for not attempting to provide children’s educational television programming and for not regulating inappropriate content available to them. 23 Proponents of educational programming used the Communication Act of 1934 to prove that corporations must keep the public’s interest as a priority, in order to maintain airwave licenses. After years of advocacy group and parental protesting, Congress finally passed the Children’s Television Act in 1990, which was to be interpreted and applied by the FCC. 24 However, the FCC was slow to adopt a definition of educational programming. They chose a loose definition stating that content must “further the positive development of the child in any respect, including the child’s cognitive/intellectual or emotional/social needs.” 25 Shows such as “The Jetsons,” 57 “G.I. Joe” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” were deemed educational by the networks at this time. According to some stations “The Jetsons” taught important lessons about future technologies. 26 It was not until 1996 after pressure from President Clinton that the FCC finally adopted more clearly defined guidelines for educational programming, demanding 3.4 hours of children’s programming a week and also requiring a public record of each station’s educational programming. 27 In 2000, University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center conducted a three-year evaluation of media industries’ adherence to the Children’s Television Act in Philadelphia. They found that about three-quarters of educational programming proved to meet their evaluation standards. 28 Most network programming fulfilled emotional/pro-social standards. 29 Emotional/pro-social shows are easier to disguise as entertainment because they tend to deal with relationships and interactions as opposed to facts and school-like material. However an increase in network diversity occurred from 1999 to 2000. In 1999, 77 percent of educational shows dealt with pro-social themes, whereas in 2000, this number went down to 58 percent, meaning more shows fulfilled traditional academic criteria. 30 Parents, however, found it difficult to know exactly what programs were deemed educational and when these shows would be aired. The programs were not scheduled regularly, making it challenging for children and parents to consistently watch them. 31 Media industries have tried to avoid promoting shows as “educational” because it detracts from the networks’ entertainment allure. 32 Big business fought and/or ignored this regulation because educational programming had little attraction to advertisers, who prefer a 58 more lucrative market than one that comes with children’s educational programming. However, the FCC did come through with pressure from advocacy groups, congress and the President to ensure that media industries addressed the interests of children and their parents. U.S. media industries have become the primary protectors and enforcers of intellectual property laws, which they deem one of the only subjects worthy of media education. These laws provide the protection of the material manifestation of ideas and separate what is public and private by defining creative materials as private property. According to Toby Miller et al., intellectual property laws “deal with the essential contradictions between free expression [public sphere] and free market.” 33 In the United States, media companies own films, television programs, songs, and video games created by individual employees, and consequently they devote a lot of resources toward prohibiting the duplication and re-sale of products outside of their control. 34 The film industry in the United States has taken extra precautions to provide school children with media education lessons on piracy. In 2003 it was reported that volunteer businessmen and women were sent to 36,000 classrooms across the country to teach 900,000 students that piracy is illegal and unethical. 35 The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) supplemented these lessons with contests for the best anti-piracy essays, which came with awards such as movie tickets, DVDs, CDs and all expense paid trips to Hollywood. 36 Companies share their resources and employees to teach students a particular type of media education when it is in big business’s interest. 59 The FCC has become involved in directing a service to enhance technological literacy—administering discounts on Internet and telecommunication services for schools through the E-Rate portion of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It was established so that schools could receive broadband access at a cheaper rate and hence be more willing to invest in technological improvements. This initiative was part of the Clinton Administration’s attempt at “ending the digital divide” by ensuring every school in the United States possess access to the Internet. At the time 36 percent of wealthy schools had Internet connections, while only 14 percent of poor schools had access. Only 13 percent of schools with large minority populations had Internet access while 37 percent of schools with mostly white populations had access. 37 The Telecommunications Act authorized the creation of a Joint Board made up of bipartisan federal and state officials on Universal Service, which in turn made recommendations to the FCC on implementing universal service for schools and libraries. On May 7, 1997, the FCC unanimously voted in favor of enacting the E- Rate program. This program provides K-12 schools and public libraries with discounts of up to $2.25 billion a year for telecommunications and Internet services. As of 1997, only 27 percent of classrooms had Internet access 38 but by 2010, 97 percent of schools had “basic Internet access.” 39 In line with neoliberal free market rhetoric, the FCC stated: We adopt the Joint Board’s recommendation, supported by many commenters, to provide schools and libraries with the maximum flexibility to purchase from telecommunications carriers whatever package of commercially available telecommunications services they believe will meet their telecommunications service needs most effectively and efficiently. 40 60 Therefore schools and districts could choose from unregulated competing telecommunications companies for the best deals, relying on their own expertise to navigate through various offers instead of benefiting from the government to act as a watch dog that oversees the transactions. The FCC agreed with the Joint Board’s recommendation to allow schools and libraries “maximum flexibility” when choosing service packages taking into consideration cost, quality and efficiency. 41 Once schools and districts choose the package that best suits their needs from telecommunication carriers, they apply to the government for discounts. By using the term “discount” the government maintains market rhetoric and avoids being accused of giving handouts. The government however makes a specific effort to help those who have the most difficulty accessing Internet service. The FCC provides discounts ranging from 20 percent to 90 percent of the service packages depending on the wealth of the school and whether or not the service is in a high cost area (usually a rural location) or a low cost area (usually an urban area). 42 Schools in need are more likely to receive the discounts and at greater rates. Nonetheless, by providing discounts, the government allows the market to determine the fair price for public schools and requires the schools to be prudent consumers of a product that is very new to them. In 2010, the FCC commissioned Harris Interactive Inc. to conduct a survey of broadband usage among the schools participating in the E-Rate programs. According to the survey, though most schools in the United States had Internet service, 80 percent of the respondents reported that their Internet connections did not fulfill their 61 needs. Over half of the respondents, 55 percent, said that the speed of their broadband connection was unsatisfactory while 39 percent of the respondents argued that the cost of service was their main problem and 27 percent argued that the cost of installations was the biggest setback. This survey was used to ascertain what changes would be applied to the E- Rate program when the Joint Board and FCC made modifications to the program in 2010. Though the government could not guarantee that commercial telecommunication carriers were providing affordable services since they relied on the market to determine competitive packages, however, they modified the rule so that schools and libraries could choose dark fiber as an affordable and fast option for their broadband connections. Schools could purchase this from non-corporate entities, including nonprofit providers. 43 The government had to intervene to improve service when the market did not provide the best quality and cost effective solution for public schools. 44 This modification demonstrates the government’s attempts to keep up with the changing technology. By forcing the companies to compete with nonprofit providers, the government allows more freedom to schools. Nonetheless, schools are still treated as consumers that must rely on the market to determine which services are most effective. Neoliberal deregulation policies force people and public entities, like schools, to be more aware of their media choices and consumption. Media literacy becomes the neoliberal answer to self-regulation policies because it provides citizens with the necessary skills and knowledge to control their own media usage and navigate the 62 market. However, media literacy provides more than consumer-oriented skills, a comprehensive media education also teaches youth how to be active cultural citizens. Media policymakers do not partake in the creation of policies that would promote such literacy. Instead, they tend to create legislation that promotes the use of media for neoliberal pedagogical practices, which, in the case of the E-Rate program, can be beneficial to technology companies as well. Likewise, federal education policy depends heavily on the same media companies and business advocates that prosper from neoliberal media policy. Together, federal education officials and media and technology companies have conceived of technological literacy and the legislation to administer it. In the next section, I will examine how technological literacy has come about and how the rhetoric that surrounds it fits within neoliberal thinking that promotes the use of technology for the promotion of skills that can be measured and marketed in the global workforce. U.S. Education Policy Education policy in the United States differs from most other nations because no centralized education system exists. States possess the majority of control over the K-12 public education system because they supply the bulk of the funding, with local governments coming in second. The federal government contributes the least amount of financial support and thus retains the least amount of influence on the system. However, since a federal-funded assessment was published about U.S. education in 1983, A Nation at Risk, which focused on the inadequacies of public K- 12 education in the United States, the federal government has gradually increased its 63 role in education. Examining how the relationship between federal and state governments has changed in the last fifty years will provide a context for the gradual shift to a more centralized system of education standards. Centralized government has been widely criticized by state’s rights activists whose arguments for individual and private freedoms align with neoliberal thinking that promotes less federal government interference. The racism associated with state’s rights within the U.S. federalist infrastructure provides a clearer picture of the complicated equity issues in a state-controlled public school system. According to David Brian Robertson, federalism, particularly the role of states to create their own laws, outside of the purview of the national government, has contributed to racist policies. 45 Slavery resided in the Southern states until the national government outlawed it in 1865, which resulted in the passing of the Jim Crow laws that lasted from 1876 to 1965. These laws permitted Southern states to keep African Americans out of white places, such as schools and restaurants, by deeming them “separate but equal”. Jim Crow laws proved unequal, eventually leading to Brown vs. Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court ruled that African American students could attend white schools. To this day, discussions of states rights, often continue to have racist undertones of unequal treatment for minorities. 46 Robertson writes: New more active government efforts to incorporate blacks into the mainstream have yielded very uneven results, with strong protection for voting and employment rights, but continuing disadvantages for minorities in sharing in American prosperity. Federalism remains an important battlefield for efforts to deal with the consequences of America’s racial history for employment, housing and education. 47 64 Though the federal government’s role in nationalizing education practices and standards is an attempt to promote equality among minority and lower class students, many factors obstruct this goal. Often times, the federal government relies on neoliberal rhetoric of choice, individualism and privatization as a way to not only lure corporate support for their education policies but also state officials and states rights advocates opposed to big government. Though the federal government tries to promote equity through national education policies, lack of cooperation from states, reliance on the market, and neoliberal rhetoric and decision-making tend to be at odds with equality goals. The stronger federal role in education has coincided with the incorporation of technology and media into the classroom. As technology and media become more and more ingrained in the everyday lives of youth, keeping them out of schools becomes even more challenging. Certain scholars have argued against the incorporation of media and technology into the classroom because with these devices comes commercialism and distraction. Henry Giroux argues that corporations use schools as “training grounds for educating students to define themselves as consumers rather than multifaceted social actors.” 48 The integration of technology into the classroom brings the market into the public education system. Companies such as Apple provide computers at lower costs and companies such as Discovery Communications (Discovery Channel, Animal Planet) provide learning software to schools, while also selling their brand and products to the students. Giroux argues that it is often underserved schools with less resources and support that take the 65 handouts or deals from corporations, which further positions these schools at a disadvantage due their newfound reliance on corporate support. He writes, “The version of citizenship presented in this commercial education system debases public life and privatizes learning by removing it from noncommercial values and considerations.” 49 Corporate support for education fits within neoliberal thinking that supports the privatization of education and further dismantles the civic role of public education. Nonetheless, because technology and media play such an important role in the twenty-first-century globalized world and students’ social and cultural lives, they should be incorporated into the classroom. However, technology and media must be taught as subject matter and not simply just used as tools to acquire materials. After examining the policy and use application of technology in the classroom, I believe it is not possible to keep the market out of the classroom, which makes a stronger case for the need to include media literacy within the curriculum since the government relies so heavily on technology and media companies to aid in the integration of products into classrooms and curriculum. Because of reliance on neoliberal practices, such as the contribution of corporations in promoting media and technology literacy, and because of neoliberal theoretical notions, such as the promotion of individualism, personalization and privatization, “getting ahead” with technology use supersedes goals of critical thinking about media and the civic functions that such an understanding can foster. 66 Elementary and Secondary Education Act The federal government’s role in education policy struck a turning point in 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The original ESEA contained six titles that allowed the federal government to intervene in the state-controlled public education system. The legislation was set up primarily for promoting equality amongst schools with disadvantaged students (i.e., minorities, poor children and students with disabilities). Until ESEA was replaced, Title I was the focal point of the legislation, which reported that the federal government could aid schools with a large population of low-income students. Title II granted funding for instructional materials, including technology. Title III provided federal funding for additional educational services such as, counseling and remedial or advanced programs. Title IV included funds for educational research. Title V helped provide grants for improving state education agencies, and Title VI was set up to assure states that they were still in control of their education systems and that the federal government was not trying to overpower them. 50 These titles play an important role as the basis of all federal involvement in education, specifically with regard to how technological funding in classrooms is interpreted and dispersed. The ESEA gets referred to, amended and interpreted continuously throughout the next 50 years as the federal government takes on a stronger role in the education system. In 1979 the federal government created the Department of Education under President Jimmy Carter’s leadership after Congress spent the first half of the 67 twentieth century enacting over 50 bills to institute a federal department for education. According to education policy scholar, Paul Manna, the establishment of the Department of Education was not as major of a breakthrough as the ESEA because though the department was established, no clear policy changes or specific objectives for the department were accomplished. He argues that the department was setup purely as part of Carter’s re-organization strategies. Therefore, this was more of a federal structural change than a federal attempt to garner more control of education. The Senate Committee stated in its report when considering the bill in 1979 that the new Department of Education “should not directly…improve American education. It is not intended to do so because that is really the province and duty of States and localities.” 51 Federal involvement in educational policy was considered a taboo subject because education remained in the jurisdiction of the states. Upon entering office, President Ronald Reagan promised to do away with the Department of Education and withdraw the federal government’s newfound involvement in education. However, his education secretary, Terrel Bell had a different plan. When Bell was not given permission to set up a presidential commission to examine the education system in the United States, he organized his own department commission known as the National Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE). This commission comprised of state and local government appointees, academics, and people from the private and nonprofit sector—no federal officials took part in the commission. In 1983, the NCEE published their findings in 68 a report titled A Nation at Risk. This report received major press attention and wide circulation for its critique of the American education system, which is evident in the report’s title and in passages such as, “We have in effect been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral education disarmament.” 52 The U.S. school system was compared with other “advanced nations.” 53 The fear of being surpassed by global competition materializes in this report as well as the foresight to take digital technology seriously. It states, “Knowledge, learning, information and skilled intelligence are the new raw materials of international commerce and are today spreading throughout the world…learning is an indispensable investment required for success in the ‘information age’ we are entering.” 54 The report suggested that computer science become a new core field for young people to study. According to the report, in order for students to be competent in the subject matter they had to gain an understanding of the new machines and be able to use them in school subjects, as well as “understand the world of computers, electronics and related technologies.” 55 The world encompasses an education that goes beyond a technical or practical training to one that includes a critical and contextual understanding of technology. Manna, however, argues that the commission’s report had much more of a “symbolic” role than a practical policy one. While it legitimized the Department of Education and federal involvement in education, doing away with Reagan’s promises of cutting back federal investment in education, the federal government’s role in education policy became much more involved in the nineties. 56 Nevertheless, U.S. 69 policy’s awareness of global competition and the need for an inclusion of digital education was apparent almost thirty years ago. In line with neoliberal thinking, the Republican Party in the United States has predominantly opposed federal government involvement in matters historically considered under state jurisdiction, such as education. President Reagan’s initial opposition to the establishment of the Department of Education aligned with his party politics. President George H. W. Bush, on the other hand, openly tried to play a role in education by attempting to re-structure of the scattered state education system. His campaign went as far as to call him “The Education President,” though he was unable to accomplish many changes in his four-year term. According to a Forbes article, he missed the chance at spearheading federal efforts to promote the integration of educational software into classrooms. 57 However, he did administer federal and state cooperation for education, with the help of The Business Roundtable. Established in 1973, The Business Roundtable was composed of the chief executive officers of the largest corporations in the United States and acted as a dominant political advocate for big business. 58 Bush launched a summit in Charlottesville in 1989 to gather the governors together to discuss education ideas and goals, bringing state officials into conversation with the federal government and interested businesses concerned about the future of education. The meeting spawned the birth of the National Education Goals Panel (NEGP), an institution that lasted from 1990-2001. The NEGP panel was made up of state governors and federal officials. According to Manna, practically speaking, the panel was in charge of 70 charting overall national and state education progress. They did this by retrieving yearly reports on progress, procuring researchers and analysts to examine the most productive education strategies, and distributing the yearly reports to those invested in education interests. 59 Symbolically speaking, this organization furthered state- federal collaboration and teamwork among states signifying a movement towards a centralized investment in education and the promotion of a nationalized education system by big business. The NEGP was dismantled in 2001 but its efforts to convey federal support of state collaboration laid the groundwork for federal encouragement of the NGA’s most recent policy initiative. Improving America’s Schools Act As a senator, Bill Clinton played a major role in promoting the creation of national education goals during the summit meeting in 1989 and continued to keep it a top priority once he became president, furthering objectives and standards from a federal position. In 1994 with Goals 2000, President Clinton enacted the Improving America’s Schools Act (IASA), which was the reauthorization of the EASA. IASA added modifications to Title I in order to broaden the scope of children the federal government was concerned with supporting. Title I was renamed by Congress, “Helping Disadvantaged Children Meet High Standards.” No longer was federal policy only concerned with specific groups of disadvantaged youth, but the federal government made it clear that it wanted to be involved in making sure all students met particular standards in education. Title I became synonymous with high standards though each state was in charge of setting and regulating its own standards. 71 The legislation explained that it was the state’s role to create, maintain and provide children with the opportunities to attain their particular standards. 60 President Clinton had success in passing his federal education policy not only because the Congressional majority was Democrat but also because he continued to use the support of The Business Roundtable and other successful business advocates to help counteract any opposition to stronger federal involvement in education reform from Republicans. Business groups realized the importance of a strong education system to foster a resilient and competitive workforce for the future. Clinton urged business leaders to speak out for standard-based reform when Republicans in Congress opposed it. According to Manna, business leaders saw how federal policy could ensure that states were held accountable for enforcing standards and education reform. 61 President Clinton fiercely promoted the integration of technology into the education system at the same time as he also played a major role in deregulating the media market. After the Telecommunications Act passed in 1996, President Clinton proposed a plan to enact the Technology Literacy Challenge with the goal of helping all young people become technologically literate by 2000. He purported that the federal government would spend $2 billion dollars over five years to make this goal a reality. The policy does not clearly define what it means to be technologically literate but the rhetoric focuses on student access and skills to employ computers and learning software. The administration used various studies from the nineties that ultimately concluded that technology in the classroom is the most efficient and 72 cheapest way to improve student performance, particularly with low performing students and students with disabilities while it also brought teachers and students closer together. 62 Clinton’s plan included four “pillars” that would eventually lead to a technologically literate student body. These four necessities included proper teacher training, software development that could enhance learning, Internet connections and access to computers. States had a lot of flexibility in coming up with proposals to promote technological literacy in the classroom. State school officials needed to create a plan that would make it possible for every school in the state to meet the four pillars; they had to create a strategy to assess their efforts and make those assessments publicly available; plus they needed to demonstrate how the private sector would match the federal funds to initiate their plans. Towards the end of a roundtable discussion on technology and education the Secretary of the Department of Education made it clear that Department of Education’s role is “leadership” and “support” and then “getting out of the way” because its role was not to over step the state’s authority in education matters. 63 In order to apply for a federal grant for technological literacy, states were required seek help from the private sector. Clinton’s decision to promote technological literacy through private sector partnership opened another avenue of infiltration for media companies after he further deregulated the media market through the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Both the deregulation of the media market and the regulation of public school federal funding in favor of media 73 industries are motivated by a neoliberal pro-market agenda. Clinton established a roundtable to discuss his interest and plan of integrating technology into the education system by applauding two schools and a particular school district in New Jersey for their forward use of technology in the classrooms. During the roundtable discussion Vice Chairmen of Bell Atlantic (now incorporated into Verizon), Jim Cohen, explained the role his company played in providing Internet access to Columbus High School. He represented his firm and the private business sector in general during this meeting to emphasize the importance of private-public partnerships. He also cited the President’s Telecommunication Act as the next step in furthering the work that has been done in this school to other schools. The Vice President stepped in at this point to clarify that Cohen was referring to the E-Rate part of the Act, which makes it possible for schools to receive broadband access at a cheaper rate. 64 Both the E-Rate program and this current initiative demonstrated Clinton’s reliance on corporate support for the incorporation of technology in education. Other types of media and technology companies supported Clinton’s programs. Within the supporting documents of the initiative, major players in the media industry spoke out in support of this program including, Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft, Jerry Levin, CEO of Time Warner and Michael Eisner, CEO of Disney. Eisner states, “I share everybody’s enthusiasm for a public-private partnership to enhance education, enhance education tools and create exciting new curriculum for our schools.” Media and technology corporations promoted the integration of technology into the education system because of the major payoffs they would 74 receive for including schools in their clientele lists. By incorporating their products into schools, media and technology companies also potentially impact curriculum and the skills students learn and ultimately bring to the workforce. The positive business rhetoric surrounding technology was also strongly supported by Clinton and Gore. During this discussion Clinton coaxed a teacher to say that when students use technology to learn, they feel more equal and have more fun. Clinton fed a teacher this question mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, “Do you think that having access to the computer makes all children believe they are equal, that they can have equal aspirations because it is an equalizer across income, isn’t it?” She responded that she believed he was correct. 65 The discussion does not address possible problems or complications that technology might add to the classroom. This roundtable was set up to celebrate the Telecommunication’s Act, E- Rate initiative and the Technology Literacy Challenge. Vice President Al Gore even compared Clinton’s announcement of his literacy goal to President Kennedy’s historic speech that soon the United States would send a man to the moon. 66 . However, helping every child become technologically literate by eighth grade has proven even more challenging than sending a man to the moon and has continued to be sought after by the following administrations. Though Clinton was able to successfully pass federal education legislation and emphasize the importance of national standards, federal policy still relied on the states to carry out the federal agenda. In 1998, revisions to the IASA required that states define student standards so that states could develop student testing to meet 75 new guidelines in 2000-2001. Federal officials did not enforce the time limits they had imposed on the states, so by the time Clinton left office in 2001, only eleven states had met the standards and testing requisites of IASA. 67 Manna argues that the lack of success was a result of the federal government’s dependence on the states to carry out federal policy initiatives. Federal funding, though important to education reform, is the smallest contributor to state education budgets, hence, the federal government has less leverage in making national policy a priority for individual states. 68 Clinton’s celebration and support for technology integration into the classroom through corporate support and the promotion of technology literacy clearly establishes a literacy that is geared towards computers and digital technology. Internet connections and software development were his primary concerns. His promotion of technological literacy was less about thinking critically about the media consumption in society or the ways such an education can promote civic participation and more about keeping up with the skills necessary to stay connected in the information age at the same time that he hoped the integration of digital technology would produce a more efficient education system. These two goals: technology for the sake of supporting traditional educational skills and technology for the sake of practically navigating oneself through the information age are the two main objectives that are repeated in technological literacy legislation henceforth. Trying to add a critical element to thinking about media and digital technology becomes difficult when the federal government becomes so reliant on corporations to 76 carry out their plan in a neoliberal system. It also becomes difficult when such a utopian outlook on how technology can positively affect education, clouds the realities of the necessary institutional and human support it takes to enact such an education. No Child Left Behind President George W. Bush continued to follow Clinton’s cue for modifying the ESEA by incorporating high standard levels and testing assessments, this time in the form of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001. According to Manna: Despite good intentions to improve disadvantaged student’s academic prospects, NCLB supporters saw several weaknesses with past implementation of the ESEA. Previous efforts to incorporate explicit mechanisms to hold schools accountable for student performance were done without much thought and generally unsuccessful. 69 According to NCLB plan, student testing in reading, math and science determined schools’ progress. The schools were then measured based on Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). States determined the fraction of students that should achieve proficiency based on the tests for a specific year. By 2014, NCLB aimed for 100 percent proficiency. The consequences for schools and districts that did not meet the AYP goal depended on how many years they missed AYP. 70 NCLB furthered federal involvement in education by trying to hold states accountable for enacting the new policy in the timeline put forth by the legislation. In order for states to receive more funding they had to follow strict guidelines. Education policy scholar, Patrick J. McGuin argues that Bush used compassionate conservatism to promote his federal education agenda among Republicans, whom 77 primarily believed that education was within the states’ realm of responsibility. He writes, “Bush’s credible commitment to educating all students had permitted him to argue that he was pro-education even when he opposed funding measures or criticized the existing public school system.” 71 Bush’s compassionate conservatism could also be conceived of as neoconservatism. Harvey defines neoconservatism as an offshoot of neoliberalism: Neoconservatism is therefore entirely consistent with the neoliberal agenda of elite governance, mistrust of democracy, and the maintenance of market freedoms. But it…has reshaped neoliberal practice in two fundamental respects: first in its concern for order as an answer to the chaos of individual interests, and second, in its concern for an overweening morality as the necessary social glue to keep the body politic secure in the face of external and internal dangers. 72 Bush strengthened the role of the federal government by taking more control of education with measures that would hold the public schools accountable. In one respect standardization contradicts neoliberal notions of individualism; however, within the conception of neoconservatism, it becomes a way to maintain “order” in the face of potential “chaos.” His agenda also fit within corporate culture of control and efficiency. Corporations strongly promoted the NCLB legislation. As the CEO of the United States Chamber of Commerce Tom Donahue, said in 2004: We strongly support the No Child Left Behind legislation because it works to create a K through 12 system that is more competitive with the educational systems of other industrialized nations and will lead to a better educated and more highly skilled American workforce of the future. 73 78 According to David Hursh, learning economically valuable skills becomes the primary focus of corporate-supported education. Giroux argues that this type of education detracts from public schools’ other priority of helping students to develop as democratic cultural citizens. 74 Within a neoliberal or neoconservative system, competition supersedes community building. Business advocates primarily emphasized the importance of the testing, standardization and accountability in the NCLB legislation, which measured and rated students and schools. The Business Roundtable requested that its members call on Congress to keep the testing requirements in the legislation. 75 Testing promotes quantifiable data of school efficiency and productivity in producing new generations of skilled individuals and competitive workers. Giroux argues that this type of education furthers inequality and racism because minorities from disadvantaged backgrounds are the least prepared for such tests. He concludes that: ...the failure of poor minority-group students often is attributed to a genetically encoded lack of intelligence…Similarly, the informalities of privatization schemes in which schools simply mimic the free market, with the assumption that its regulatory and competitive spirit will allow the most motivated and gifted students to succeed, deepen such racist exclusions. 76 The federal government and big business promotion of standards becomes a way to manage public education by limiting the role individual teachers, schools or school districts have in educating youth. At the same time such standardization, in theory, promotes equity across the country by making sure all schools are teaching the similar curriculum. 77 In practice, however, this is much more difficult to achieve. William Firestone and Roberta Schorr explain that in order for certain schools to 79 meet the proper standards, educators teach specifically to the test, limiting the quality of the curriculum. Often poorer schools with large minority populations are not provided the resources wealthier white schools have and therefore trying to meet those standards becomes more challenging and thus unequal. 78 Manna argues, the ambitions of NCLB did help the nation become more aware of inequalities between different student groups (based on race, class, disability); state and local technical capabilities have been improved, and important education reforms have been made based on NCLB. However, he argues that NCLB also decreased academic quality and led “policy implementers to focus their efforts on meeting technical rules. As a result substantively important outcomes for schools and students suffered.” 79 David Hursh, argues that just as all markets depend on regulation to prosper, the federal government uses standardizing tests as a way to regulate education. 80 According to Robertson, people with federal power often use federalism to promote their agenda. He writes, “Conservatives …tried to turn their intergovernmental system toward the benefit of business, market-drive economic growth and moral traditionalism. In office, conservatives decentralized some policies and nationalized others to achieve these goals.” 81 Therefore just as Robertson sees the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as a way to shelter media business from state regulation, 82 Bush used the NCLB legislation to promote a proficient and efficient education policy that held the previously state-insulated public school system accountable when not meeting test requirements. With the intentions to strengthen state standards, schools and student achievement were put forth by a bipartisan federal government with major support 80 from the business sector, but the federal government was still unable to work with the states, which continued to supply the majority of the funding, and thus the control, to implement this complex legislation. NCLB continued the Clinton administration’s efforts to provide grant money to states for technology education and reenacted Clinton’s objective for a nationwide technologically literate eighth grade student body. 83 A specific section of the NCLB legislation is dedicated to the Education Technology States Grant Program, which states the federal government’s goals and state requirements of incorporating technology into K-12 education. The Act states: The principal goal of the Education Technology State Grants Program is to improve student academic achievement through the use of technology in elementary and secondary schools. It is also designed to assist every student in becoming technologically literate by the end of eighth grade and to encourage the effective integration of technology resources and systems with teacher training and professional development to establish research-based instructional models. The program targets funds primarily to school districts that serve concentrations of poor students. 84 The NCLB agenda was particularly interested in addressing the “digital divide” in which schools in impoverished areas have less access to Internet connections and computers than those in low poverty areas. The other area that concerned the Department of Education was teacher training. According to NCLB, only 27 percent of teachers polled in 2000 were “fully prepared” to incorporate technology into their classrooms. 85 States were required to meet the NCLB standards in order to receive technology grants. These requirements included, a clear set of goals for the use of technology, plans to train teachers in the use of technology, technical aid for 81 impoverished districts and ways to track the use of technology and progress. 86 Districts were encouraged to make partnerships with private organizations, universities and corporations when creating their grant proposals. Due to the federal government’s lack of jurisdiction over curriculum, words such as “recommend” are used repeatedly and the goals and the requirements were left fairly broad. Because this is a federal document, the Department of Education could not create standards or curriculum for what it means to be “technologically literate by eighth grade” since curriculum and achievement standards are set up by the states and not nationalized. The federal government instead relies on the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE), a United States based membership association and advocacy group, made up mostly of technology and media corporations, nonprofits and educators that promote the incorporation of digital technology in the classroom. 87 This organization has established a broad set of seven standards that the NCLB refers to as defining technologically literacy. These standards include creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, research and information fluency, critical thinking, problem solving and decision-making, digital citizenship, technology operations and concepts. 88 Such standards broadly define media education, under the guise of technology literacy, which demonstrates a preference for technology as a tool to create, innovate, communicate, research, use legally and ethically, and operate. Using technology takes a precedent over studying it as a subject matter. According to Hursh, this occurs in a neoliberal society because “employability and economic productivity become central, education becomes less 82 concerned with developing the well-rounded liberally educated person and more concerned with the developing the skills required for a person to be economically productive member of society.” 89 Corporate advocacy groups become the bedrock for determining the conception of media education and therefore thinking critically about corporate products is not a priority yet fostering a future workforce that can utilize products and ultimately enhance them is a worthy investment for these advocacy groups. Allowing this advocacy group to determine the conception of technological literacy frees the federal government from critical states rights advocates that oppose too much infiltration by the federal government. ISTE rhetoric in conceiving of media and digital technology adheres to technological utopianism even when describing instances of studying media and digital technology. Under the category digital citizenship, the ISTE standards state, “Students understand human, cultural and societal issues related to technology”; under critical thinking, problem solving and decision making, it states, “Students…make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources”; and lastly under research and information fluency, it states, “Students locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media.” 90 These critical studies components of media education have been spread throughout the sections, making it more challenging to clearly define. Also, rather than recommending how students can achieve these goals or explanations of how they may be achieved, the use of present tense active verbs makes it seem like students already know how to use the technology. So essentially, 83 ISTE is advocating for these already-achieved skills to be applied to traditional school subjects. Instead of defining a particular discourse, ISTE demonstrates how technology usage supports schoolwork in general. Therefore ISTE’s conception of technology literacy acts more like a public relations pamphlet for the multiply uses of technology in the classroom. For example, under the critical thinking section before it gets to “making informed decisions using appropriate digital tools…,” it states, “Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems…”. These standards are purposely broad to incorporate technology use within other core subjects like English, mathematics and science. Education policy does not rule out critical thinking about media and digital technologies within its definition of technology literacy but policy does not forcefully or clearly state the importance of such an inclusion either. While the federal government is promoting and funding the implementation of technology into the classroom, discussions of how it should be used within curriculum remains outside of the federal government’s jurisdiction. Therefore, relying on this third party’s broad definition of technological literacy maintains some credibly for what the federal government proposes without causing backlash from the states. This third party, however, has major ties to media and technology corporations that depend heavily on legislation that moves their technology into classrooms, therefore, they are less concerned with a technological literacy that questions and thinks critically about their material than one that must rely on their products. 84 Bush’s administration continued to provide funding for technology under Title II-D called the Enhancing Education Through Technology Program (EETT). Title II was initially set up in 1965 when President Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that initiated federal government involvement in education. As stated previously, Title II was created specifically for the federal government to provide funding for instructional materials. Therefore, technology’s identification as a tool and not necessarily a subject matter gets defined by the funding category that it resides in. States receive EETT funding based on their plans for integrating technology into schools. In 2008, states were required to allocate at least 50 percent of its received federal EETT funding to competitive grant programs for schools and districts within the state. According to a summary study done by the State Educational Technology Directors Association on EETT competitive grants, the majority of proposals are for programs that teach technology literacy. And most grant proposals were for middle schools as opposed to elementary or high schools. Together these two statistics make sense since they further the federal goal of promoting technological literacy by eighth grade. 91 State definitions and standards for technological literacy differ by state but the use of broad goals will reappear in the creation of the Common Core State Standards Initiative discussed later in this chapter. For example, Florida’s grant proposal actually states that it just provides a “snapshot” of technological literacy for districts, schools, teachers and students, therefore avoiding a clear definition of the term. Creating a definition and clear standards for technologic literacy has a history of being avoided at the same time that 85 the notion of technological literacy has been coveted in this media-saturated 21 st century. Current Administration The Obama administration and congress did away with the NCLB legislation once in office. According to Obama’s education secretary, Arne Duncan, “NCLB had loose standards and tight prescriptions on what you have to do and we want to flip that so instead we have very clear goals and a high bar but flexibility on how to get there.” 92 Duncan argued that problems with NCLB included, states “dumbing down” their standards to meet requirements. Another problem he saw was too much concentration on math and reading at the expense of other subjects because teachers teach to the tests. 93 The new federal education policy on partitioning out financial aid, Duncan explained, depended on states’ abilities to meet four standards. States must improve teacher “effectiveness”, improve student standards, fix the weakest schools and create data systems that track student performance. 94 The administration considers technology as a part of the plan to fix each of these areas of concern. The National Education Technology Plan published by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Technology, titled, Transforming American Education Learning Powered by Technology provides five parts of the education system that can be bolstered by technology: “learning, assessment, teaching, infrastructure and productivity.” 95 I focus on how technology is discussed with regard to learning in this report. Similar to Clinton’s roundtable discussion, a sense of technological utopia permeates the document. Buzzwords and phrases continue to 86 crop up, such as, technology empowers, engages, personalizes and provides flexibility to student’s learning experiences. 96 Such technologically determinist rhetoric fits within neoliberal theory. The document expresses the desire to provide students learning environments that mimic their everyday lives, it states: Outside school, students are free to pursue their passions in their own ways and at their own pace. The opportunities are limitless, borderless and instantaneous...The challenge of our education system is to leverage the learning sciences and modern technology to create engaging, relevant and personalized learning experiences for all learners that mirror students’ daily lives and the reality of their futures…we put the students at the center and empower them to take control of their own learning. 97 Modern technology is understood to be both a freeing mechanism and an agent of control. According to this plan, outside of the classroom, technology allows students to be in control of their own lives, and such control should be transferred to youth in the classroom. The document lacks a discussion about how modern or digital technologies are complex mediums that have socio-cultural and politico-economic contexts with systems of control that determine their existences and abilities to operate. It also lacks a clear definition of which technologies are being referenced. Such technological determinist rhetoric disembodies technology from its context and assumes that technology works as a solitary agent that “fixes” the learning experience by bestowing students with personal control. However, teachers and administrators monitor and control student activities through technology, therefore, depriving students of a “borderless and limitless” environment and divesting technology of its magical powers. This is not to say that technology does not spur student interest or provide personal ways of learning, but the document’s inability to 87 acknowledge the complex system of human and institutional support that comes with technology presents technology as a god-like entity outside of the realm of critical discussion. While it is true that various uses of digital technology can trigger students’ interests in school, technology must be taught in a media education discourse in order to reduce this aura of utopianism that surrounds it. Technological determinist rhetoric fits within neoliberal theory that promotes a personal or private learning experience that conflict with a collective public education. Technology becomes a way for individuals not only to learn the necessary skills to work and compete in a free market but it also provides an educational experience that mimics the market that is both “borderless and limitless”. As witnessed in Clinton administration documents, the current Administration feels the need to sell or convince educators, lawmakers, financial backers and citizens that technology integration within the classroom is a necessary and grand progression for the education system. With the integration of technology into the classrooms, the Office of Technology in the Department of Education vaguely admits that a set of skills should accompany the set of tools. The report states, “21 st -century competencies and such expertise as critical thinking, complex problem solving, collaboration and multimedia communication should be woven into all content areas.” 98 Therefore, media literacy (or computer studies as suggested by the Nation At Risk report) should not be its own core subject but rather should be integrated in traditional discourses such as: language arts, mathematics, science, history, art and music. This set of 21 st 88 century skills seems to have been necessary before the 21 st century. Problem solving has always been a part of math and science, just as critical thinking has been required of most subjects. However, what is not clearly stated is that critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration and multimedia communication should specifically be studied in relation to media and technology. Again, part of the problem is the lack of purview the federal government has in assigning curriculum. The document states: In keeping with the appropriate role of the federal government, this national education technology plan is not a prescription but rather a common definition and five year plan that responds to an urgent national priority and a growing understanding of what the United States needs to do to remain competitive in a global economy. 99 The federal policy document also relies on the ISTE list of broad technological literacy standards, highlighted by the previous administration, as the suggested guidelines for technological education, leaving the corporate-entrenched advocacy group to determine the criterion for incorporating their products into the classroom. 100 Obama’s Administration has also embraced corporate support for technology integration in the classroom. For this first time in history, a Chief Technology Officer has been appointed to the cabinet to further emphasize the importance of technology in our mediated society. At a hearing before the committee on education and labor, titled, “The Future of Learning: How Technology is Transforming Public Schools”, the chief technology officer, Aneesh Chopra, explains, “Promising approaches include facilitating public-private partnerships for the development of new curriculum that incorporates emerging technologies.” 101 Though somewhat 89 vague, Chopra speaks to the administration’s support of escorting the marketplace into schools. Repeatedly through the hearing, Chopra refers back to the importance of the market to drive down costs of technology so that public schools can afford it. He says later in the hearing, “I believe the marketplace can decide what is the most effective means to deliver that content.” 102 So not only must the marketplace determine what is the most affordable, but it must also determine what is the best quality. This strategy forces schools to be reliant on the market to determine what they can afford even if the quality is not ideal, and thus, promotes a very uneven playing field for schools with more financial means than others. The Obama administration has also made STEM their educational priority (science technology engineering and mathematics). Much of the stress on mathematics and science has come out of recent global comparison that has demonstrated how poorly American 15-years-olds perform in these subjects in comparison to their global peers. 103 The administration’s plan relies specifically on a report published by The National Science Foundation in 2008, which advocates for technological literacy within the context of math and science discourses. The article makes note of foundation-supported media literacy research being done in the humanities to separate its research from this field. 104 The NSF’s charter included an examination of science, math engineering and technology, so the humanities fall outside of the NSF’s discretion. In a neoliberal system, STEM skills are more translatable and quantifiable than humanities skills for the globally competitive workforce. Nonetheless, the federal government should commission studies that 90 examine media literacy from combined science and humanities perspectives in order to provide a better conception of media and technology literacy that goes beyond simply promoting the mastery of a skillset, but also incorporates critical thinking about the subject matter and its social, political, economic and cultural contexts, which assist youth in becoming not only competent economic actors but also social actors. For the first time in U.S. history, the states have come together to create common curriculum standards. This would ideally alleviate some of the tensions that the federal government faces when discussing technological literacy because the agreed upon standards can now be referred to in national policy measures and documents. The Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) is the outcome of pressure from the federal government, business and international competition. Until now, educational standards have varied by state, but these new Standards, though not enforced by the national government, would unify the U.S. education criteria. This is a huge step for U.S. education policy. The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers co-led this effort with ACT, Inc., Achieve and the College Board to create grade level standards in Mathematics and English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects. I focus on Literacy in Technical Studies and any mention of media or digital technology within the Standards. Ultimately, I contend that media literacy components have made their way into the Standards under the guise of technical literacy. Yet, the instances of media literacy present in the Standards are 91 overshadowed by notions of how technology can be productive in supplying students with career ready skills and furthering other core subject matter. Keeping in mind federal, international and corporate pressure to include technological literacy in the Standards, I will analyze how media and technology get included in education. In one of the first few pages, media and technology appear: [Students] need to be ready for college, workforce training and life in a technological society…the need to conduct research and to produce and consume media is embedded into every aspect of today’s curriculum. In like fashion, research and media skills and understandings are embedded throughout the Standards rather than treated in a separate section. 105 By acknowledging media education importance but not clearly identifying its terms, the Standards continue a common avoidance of defining what it is. Unsurprisingly, however, the Standards do clearly state that students must learn how to use and produce with technology. The title, Technical Subjects, is defined in the CCSSI glossary as “A course devoted to a practical study, such as engineering, technology, design, business, or other work-force related subject; a technical aspect of a wider field of study such as art or music.” 106 The critical studies components of media education are missing; technology is simply defined as the tools or practical apparatus for other subjects. For students in K through 12, digital media and technology are addressed at various learning stages but with similar purposes, for publishing writings and research, again, emphasizing how media is a tool rather than a subject in the Standards. 107 Images and visual texts are understood as secondary or supplemental throughout the Standards so that even when referring to digital media or technology, 92 written text remains the primary form of gathering and producing information. 108 In Appendix A of the Standards, the initiative warns, “If students cannot read complex expository text to gain information, they will likely turn to text free or text light sources such as video, podcast and tweets.” 109 Visual information comes across as a lower form of information that can easily be digested. However, visual information like textual information also has a complex set of conventions and ways of determining meanings. Assuming text light information is easily digestible, presents a perspective that visual or auditory texts are not as complex as written text, thus negating the need for a critical thinking framework to dissect visual information. Along with the lack of attention given to the visual and auditory competencies, is a promotion of information texts over aesthetic or literary ones. This tactic aligns with the current trends to prioritize STEM programs at the expense of the humanities. Determining meaning through aesthetic analysis of multimedia technology appears just once as a guideline for 4-12 graders. 110 All other discussions related to media and technology focus on how they can be used as information texts as opposed to literary or creative ones. In general, the standards pay more attention to information texts than to artistic ones, but this is particularly the case with technical and visual subjects. Visual media, more often than not refer to informational images, like data graphs. In Appendix B, which provides various texts that can be used to promote these standards, not a single literary text mentioned comes from a visual medium. The only exemplified media texts are informational. This occurs because media and digital technology are primarily understood as tools 93 in conjunction with the math and sciences. Literary visual texts are important because they promote the critical thinking analysis that does not necessarily take the visual information as fact but as a complex canvas full of various semiotic meanings. 111 Nonetheless, the Standards do address media and technology, though brief and vague. The Standards require students to be able to compare various mediums, interpret and analyze various forms of information, (which includes being able to understand social political and commercial context of the information) and integrate knowledge of media and visual forms into projects. 112 Similar to previous reports and policy discussion on technological literacy, defining this type of literacy remains open to interpretation but still exists as an acknowledged part of contemporary education. Global pressures have caused the United States to pay special attention to STEM and have influenced corporations to advocate for an awareness and inclusion of technology and media in the education system, furthering a neoliberal agenda. In conjunction with the Common Core State Standards Initiative, the NGA and CCSSO also created an International Benchmarking Advisory Group to compare the U.S. education system with other nations. This advisory group was made up of national state and local politicians, educators and scholars. The committee had two corporate members, one from Microsoft and one from Intel—two media and technology companies, further demonstrating corporate influence on education policy— especially in relation to technology. The executive summary of this report clearly 94 states that the U.S. education system has not responded to the new “twin forces globalization and computerization” of our current time and that other countries, not only in Western Europe, but also India, Brazil, China are opening up the global labor market, because “a variety of work tasks can be digitized and performed nearly anywhere in the world. More jobs are going to the best educated no matter where they live which means more Americans will face more competition than ever for work.” 113 This report calls for more attention to math and sciences and sees technology as part of these fields. It reveals fear that the United States is losing its dominant position in innovation within the global economy due to an outdated education model. It argues that U.S. students are not fully equipped to meet the twin forces head on, reemphasizing the need for students to graduate with a technical skillsets in order to compete successfully in open global markets. While I agree that globalization and technology must be addressed in U.S. schools so that young people are prepared to take part in a politico-economic and socio-cultural society that stretches beyond their national borders, I will also demonstrate in the next few chapters how collaboration, community-building and critical thinking components of media education must correspond with a technical skillset in order for young people to speak and be heard effectively in the world. Conclusion This neoliberal system, which provokes the government to rely so heavily on corporate players, has made it challenging for a media literacy policy that promotes more than a mastery of a technical skillset to take shape. Though the deregulation of 95 media policy calls for more knowledgeable media-consuming citizens, the same companies that promote deregulation of the media markets are the same companies that advocate for a technological literacy. Therefore, these companies are less inclined to desire a media literacy that promotes critical users, watchers and thinkers and more inclined to promote a literacy that integrates their products in the classroom in order to find a new revenue stream at the same time they are prepping future employees with proper technical skills to compete and innovate in the global market. In Chapter Four and Five, I will explore the ways media literacy is being taught on smaller scales by specific private sector groups with regard to scholarly studies on effective teaching methods. As will be noted, practical ways of teaching media literacy often contradict the individual, personalized and privatized rhetoric that encompasses the policy surrounding this subject. The best way for youth to become media educated is through a public school system that provides access to all U.S. youth residents, therefore I advocate for education policy reform to incorporate a comprehensive media education plan. In order to reform the policy surrounding media and technological literacy so that it aligns with media literacy scholars proposals and within the realistic perimeters of what has been done by practitioners in the field, policymakers need to further their studies on this subject beyond information gathered from corporate advocates and need to better understand the complexities associated with technology to avoid technological utopianism. This way of thinking promotes a technological literacy 96 devoid of critical thinking components and prevents youth from actualizing their potential as active media users, creators and communicators. Setting up conferences and studies that include science and humanities scholars, along with corporate and nonprofit practitioners would help better synthesize the conception of the subject matter and hence the legislation. Looking to the European Union studies and conferences on media and digital technology would be a good reference for the United States to set up their own policies. By employing the efforts of multiple actors of the media literacy field, policymakers would have better strategies at proposing this subject matter in a way that would be beneficial to young cultural citizens. This is just the start, such strategies do not tear down a neoliberal system but they do work within the system to promote more educated and skilled cultural citizens with a better understanding of media and technology. 97 Chapter Two Endnotes 1 The White House, “Education Technology Roundtable,” The White House, accessed February 12, 2011, http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/edtech/roundtable.html. 2 Jennifer Holt, Empires of Entertainment: Media Industries and the Politics of Deregulation, 1980- 1996 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011), 13. 3 Henry A. Giroux, Public Spaces, Private Lives: Beyond the Culture of Cynicism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001), 82. 4 Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004), 6-7. 5 Renato Rosaldo, “Cultural Citizenship in San Jose, California,” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 17, no. 2 (1994): 1. 6 Garcia Canclini, Consumers and Citizens: Globalization and Multicultural Conflicts, trans. George Yudice (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 2001), 26. 7 Holt, Empires of Entertainment, 3-4. 8 Mara Einstein, Media Diversity: Economics, Ownership and the FCC (Mahwah, NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2004), 9-11. 9 Ibid., 10. 10 Holt, Empires of Entertainment, 53. 11 Ibid., 94. 12 Ibid., 59. 13 Ibid., 60. 14 Ibid., 54. 15 Des Freedman, The Politics of Media Policy (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2008), 73-74. Dan Schiller, How To Think About Information (Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2007), 110. Holt, Empires of Entertainment, 55. 16 Holt, Empires of Entertainment, 56. 17 Ibid., 67. 18 Ibid., 150. 19 Ibid., 164. 98 20 Schiller, Information, 40. 21 Dan Schiller, Digital Capitalism: Networking in the Global Market System (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), 6 (italics in the original). 22 Schiller, Information, 76-77. 23 Dale Kunkel, “Policy Battles over Defining Children’s Educational Television,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 557 (May 1998): 40. 24 Ibid., 41. 25 FCC, quoted in Kunkel, 43. 26 Kunkel, 44. 27 Ibid., 49. 28 Amy B. Jordan, Is the Three-Hour Rule Living Up to Its Potential? An Analysis of Educational Television for Children in the 1999/2000 Broadcast Season (Philadelphia, PA: The Annenberg Public Policy Center, 2000), 27. 29 Ibid., 18. 30 Ibid., 17-18. 31 Ibid., 28. 32 Ibid., 25. 33 Toby Miller, Nittin Govil, John McMurria, Richard Maxwell, and Tina Wang, Global Hollywood 2 (London, UK: British Film Institute Publishing, 2005), 224. 34 Schiller, Information, 46. 35 Miller et al., Global Hollywood 2, 232. 36 Ibid., 232, 37 The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology, “Archived: Discounted Telecommunications Services for Schools and Libraries E-Rate Fact Sheet,” The US Department of Education, accessed January 11, 2012, http://www2.ed.gov/Technology/comm-mit.html. 38 Ibid. 39 FCC, “FCC Enables High Speed, Affordable Broadband For Schools and Libraries,” news release, September 23, 2010. 40 FCC, “In the Matter of Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service Report and Order, Corrected Version,” Docket no. 97-157, 222 (1997): para. 431. 99 41 Ibid., para. 481. 42 Ibid., para. 470, 492, 496, 502, 520. 43 Sixth Report and Order, FCC 10-175, “In the Matter of Schools and Libraries Universal Service Support Mechanism,” CC Docket No. 02-6, and “A National Broadband Plan For Our Future,” GN Docket No. 09-51 para 9. (2010) (italics in the original). 44 Ibid., para. 6. 45 David Brian Robertson, Federalism and the Making of America (New York, NY: Taylor and Francis, 2012), 57. 46 Ibid., 57-73. 47 Ibid., 59. 48 Henry A. Giroux, Stealing Innocence: Corporate Culture’s War on Children (New York, NY: Palgrave, 2000), 95. 49 Ibid., 96. 50 Paul Manna, School’s In: Federalism and the National Education Agenda (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2007), 9-10. 51 David Stephens, cited in Manna, School’s In, 78. 52 The National Commission on Excellence in Education, “A Nation At Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform” (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983), 5. 53 Ibid., 1. 54 Ibid., 7. 55 Ibid., 26. 56 Manna, School’s In, 78-80. 57 Ann Reilly Dowd and Jennifer Reese, “How Washington Can Pitch In: George Bush wants to be Education President. He Gets A for Rhetoric; Incomplete for Action. States Must Lead. There is not Much for the Administration to Do,” Fortune Magazine, May 28, 1990, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1990/05/28/73588/index.htm. 58 Elizabeth A. Fones-Wolf, Selling Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism 1945- 1960 (Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 289. 59 Manna, School’s In, 80-82. 60 Ibid., 74-75. 100 61 Ibid. 62 The White House, “Education Technology Improves Student Performance,” The White House, accessed February 12, 2011, http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/edtech/perform.html. 63 Ibid. 64 The White House, “Education Technology Roundtable.” 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 Manna, School’s In, 112-3. 68 Ibid, 111. 69 Paul Manna, Collision Course: Federal Education Policy Meets State and Local Realities (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2011), 7. 70 Ibid., 23-30. 71 Patrick J. McGuinn, No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005 (Kansas: University of Press of Kansas, 2006), 153. 72 David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005), 82. 73 Manna, Schools In, 162. 74 Giroux, Public Spaces, 82. 75 McGuinn, No Child Left Behind, 174. 76 Giroux, Stealing Innocence, 89. 77 William A. Firestone and Roberta Schorr, “Introduction,” in The Ambiguity of Teaching to the Test: Standards, Assessment, and Education Reform, eds. William A. Firestone, Roberta Y. Schorr, and Lora Frances Monfils (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004), 9. 78 Ibid., 9. 79 Manna, Collision Course, 17. 80 David Hursh, “Neo-liberalism, Markets and Accountability: transforming education and undermining democracy in the United States and England,” Policy Futures in Education 3, no. 1 (2005): 4. 81 Robertson, Federalism, 164. 101 82 Ibid., 152. 83 Katie McMillan Culp, Margaret Honey, and Ellen Mandinach, A Retrospective on Twenty Years of Education Technology Policy (Washington, D.C.: US Department of Education, 2003), 1. 84 U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, No Child Left Behind: A Desktop Reference (Washington, D.C.: US Department of Education, 2002), 85. 85 Ibid., 85. 86 Ibid., 86-7. 87 Learning Point Associates, Understanding the No Child Left Behind Act: Technology Integration, (2007), 5. 88 International Society for Technology in Education, “The ISTE NETS and Performance Indicators for Students,” ISTE, accessed February 20, 2011, http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Student_2007_EN.sflb.ashx. 89 Hursh, “Neo-liberalism, Markets and Accountability,” 5. 90 ISTE, “The ISTE NETS and Performance Indicators for Students.” 91 Metiri Group, National Education Technology Trends: Innovation Through State Leadership, commissioned by the State Educational Technology Directors Association (2010), 22-25. 92 Quoted in Carlo Rotello, “Class Warrior,” The New Yorker, Feb 1, 2010, 29. 93 Ibid. 94 House Committee on Education and Labor, The Obama Administration’s Education Agenda Hearing before the Committee on Education and Labor, 111th Cong., 1 st sess., 2009, S. No. 111-23, 10. 95 House Committee On Education And Labor, The Future Of Learning: How Technology Is Transforming Public Schools Hearing before the Committee on Education and Labor, 111th Cong., 1 st sess., 2009, S. No. S. No. 111–28, 9. 96 Ibid., 8. 97 Ibid. 98 U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology, Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology (Washington, D.C., 2010), 13. 99 Ibid., 7. 100 Ibid., 14. 101 House Committee, The Future Of Learning, 9. 102 102 Ibid., 47. 103 U.S. Department of Education, Transforming American Education, 22. 104 National Science Foundation, Fostering Learning in the Networked Worlds: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge: A 21 st Century Agenda for the National Science Foundation, (2008), 10. 105 National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers, Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (Washington, D.C.: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010), 4. 106 National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers, Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, Appendix A (Washington, D.C.: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010), 43. 107 National Governors Association, Common Core State Standards, 18, 21, 41, 43, 46. 108 Ibid.,14, 48, 50. 109 National Governors Association, Appendix A, 14. 110 National Governors Association, Common Core State Standards, 13, 37, 39. 111 Ibid., 13, 31-2, 62. 112 Ibid., 35, 39, 44, 49. 113 International Benchmarking Advisory Group, Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring US Students Receive A World-Class Education; Executive Summary (Washington, D.C.: National Governors Association, 2008), 5. 103 Chapter Three E.U. Media Education Policy It is inevitable that Europe should be at the forefront of the discipline of media literacy. Historically, Europe has served as a cradle of (media) civilization…It is therefore natural that Europe should take the lead in addressing the development of media literacy as a social and scientific imperative. 1 Unlike in the United States, where federal education officials have not fully committed to establishing a cohesive media literacy plan, the European Union continues to advance media literacy in its member states. Through its policy and research initiatives, the European Union strongly recommends that all member states engage in media literacy programs in schools. In the early 2000s, the supranational governance made great strides in promoting cooperation between media literacy scholars, nonprofits and corporations to develop a conception of media literacy that is both specific enough for participating countries to grasp yet flexible enough that it can adapt to the ever changing media and technologies and social and cultural landscapes of differing nation-states. Alike the U.S. federal government that must be careful not to overstep its limited role when proposing education initiatives to states, the European Union only has so much jurisdiction when promoting such a recommendation to its self-governing member states. Nonetheless, its efforts to initiate collaboration among invested parties and publish research on the subject matter in a complex and thoughtful manner positions the E.U. policy endeavors in a separate league from those of the United States. 104 Similar to the United States, but perhaps not to the same extent, the European Union has engaged in media market deregulation in the last thirty years to ensure its place in the competitive and primarily United States dominated media and communications field. At the same time that the supranational governance has opened up borders between participating countries and propped up its own industries, the European Union has also tried to inhibit an overabundance of U.S. media control and imports. The E.U. media policy consists of a combination of deregulatory actions to empower European corporations to compete globally, and regulatory strategies to keep outside competition in check and uphold the region’s own economic control. E.U. policymakers employ media policy for cultural, social and political purposes as well. The media policy not only promotes cultural revenue streams across member states but it also generates a common European identity for its members through its support for cultural products and programs. As David Morley and Kevin Robins argue E.U. policy situates culture at the core of its unifying goals on which to base its pan-European economy. 2 The European Commission has sought to unify member-states’ citizens through a pan-European culture founded on Western civilization, particularly Greco-Roman tradition that promotes a European superiority over all moral, artistic, cultural and scientific aspects of society. 3 The authors argue “that the burden of catering to the various forms of ‘nostalgia’ – for a sense of community, tradition, identity and belonging – falls increasingly on the electronic media at a time when they are, in fact beginning to operate in new ways.” 4 105 According to Fatima El-Tayeb, new models of pan-European identity erase histories of European imperialism and are implicitly white and Christian in opposition to racial and religious others. 5 In the process of trying to make Europeans feel a common bond for the European Union, migrants and people of color are targeted as threats to Europeanness. Therefore just as the E.U. media policy tries to bolster the economy of member countries, while curbing foreign competition through regulation, it fortifies a shared European cultural heritage through media policy, that as the quote at the beginning of this chapter points out, ultimately leads to an insular and self-regarding media literacy policy. In order to create a unified constituency, the European Union targets youth, whose identities and political, social and cultural affiliations develop through these formative years. According to the European Commission’s youth webpage, the European Union promotes European citizenship, cultural diversity, participation and inclusion. The E.U. Youth in Action Programme calls for youth of all races, religions and ethnicities to participate in volunteer work and social programs. 6 However, because citizen participation is a main priority for the European Commission, noncitizens, such as migrants, are not included in the E.U. portrayal of European youth. All legislation regarding youth, including media education, is intended for legal citizens. In terms of access to audiovisual media, according to Livingstone and Bovill’s comparative European study on youth media consumption, the majority of youth across Europe have access to “television, telephone, books, audio media, magazines and video.” 7 Television continues to overwhelmingly be cited as the most 106 common and favored medium of children and youth in Europe. Television is so important to young people that it tends to be their favorite topic of discussion among friends and family. 8 Within the home, gender and age do not have a huge impact on access to media but the socio-economic status of the home does determine youth’s access to media, particularly to the computer. Nonetheless, youth prove to be the most avid new media users. 9 In 2008, 75 percent of children from ages, 7 – 17 used the Internet in the 27 European Union countries. 10 According to Livingstone and Bovill’s comparative study, children from the Nordic countries and the Netherlands have higher levels of new media usage with regard to their domestic access to computers and “in terms of time spent with interactive media reflecting a more established culture of domestic and educational ICT.” 11 While discrepancies exist between young people within countries and between countries regarding new and old media usage, the European Union is fully aware of the importance youth place on media and media industries place on youth. Therefore, they have intervened through media literacy policy initiatives, which provide the European Union with access to a young demographic without intruding too much on the open media market. Striving to maintain cultural prestige and economic power in the field of new and old media, the European Union has put many resources towards establishing a cohesive media literacy policy that includes critical engagement with media and practical application of using and creating media. Critical engagement with media was one of the European Union’s solutions to the dominance of American media in its less regulated market. I argue that by continuing to refer to media education as a 107 uniting cultural project, differences within the Union are suppressed and replaced by one common goal—to compete with the United States. Over the last thirty years, Europe has transformed its definition of media education from one that primarily focused on media understanding to one with a greater emphasis on technological competency. I will investigate these points by tracing the recent history of the E.U. media literacy policy. By taking a close look at the studies completed by European Union and the policies passed, I highlight the European Union’s anxiety about maintaining a sense of cultural and economic control of media. I will also examine how the conception of media literacy, according to the European Union, changed over the years to position Europe as both a keeper of its own cultural heritage and technological innovator in competition with the rest of the world. Ultimately, despite the European Union’s anxiety about maintaining economic and cultural importance in the globalized world, the supranational governance succeeds in being a frontrunner in the advancement of media literacy because it actively pursues legitimacy for the subject matter through legislation and collaboration with a diverse network of invested parties, who procure research and assessments on the dynamic subject matter in order to keep it fresh and relevant. Part of an examination of policy includes an examination of how it translates into practice. I therefore examine two programs supported by the European Union for the advancement of media education in order to demonstrate the success that policy has in promoting media education practice at the same time that I illustrate how these practices ostensibly contribute to the Eurocentricism embedded in E.U. 108 policy. I also investigate how specific nation-states interpret the supranational governance’s policy by looking closely at the United Kingdom and Hungary’s media education policies to demonstrate a disparity between the two nation-states in terms of priorities. The U.K. policy mostly focuses on fostering digitally competent youth for a global workforce while the Hungarian policy engages in cultural protectionist policies. Both member-state policy approaches correspond with the European Union’s goal of promoting European economic and cultural control in this period of globalization. Citizens of the European Union in the Globalized World In this age of globalized trade and deregulation of financial markets, the nation-state relinquishes some of its power and control. Neoliberal political- economic strategies have transported capital around the globe through transnational and multinational corporate ventures that transfer people and cultural products across borders. According to Arjun Appadurai, the movement of migrants and media around the globe causes a disjuncture from the nation-state centered past to a space and time in which people’s imagined worlds and selves are complicated by their non- geographically bounded social interactions and media consumption. 12 In an environment in which U.S., Japanese and Indian corporations infiltrate European countries’ economies and culture, and migrants from the global South arrive to take refuge and look for opportunities, European countries have joined together to insulate their economy and culture. Appadurai contends, “In Europe there is 109 widespread agreement that the largest justification for the European Union is the inescapable fact that Europe has to play the global game, or risk everything.” 13 Jurgen Habermas explains that notions about the role of the European Union have been divided by those who advocate for its current role as a neoliberal (de)regulator ensuring the strength of European corporate ventures through the creation and control of a shared currency and those who advocate against the E.U.’s role in meddling with nation-state control. He explains that the third way consists of Eurofederalist perspective, which endorses the creation of an E.U. constitution. Cris Shore argues that Habermas’s proposal for an E.U. constitution is flawed because while a constitution ensures a citizen’s legal rights it does not speak to a citizen’s cultural identification with the nation nor does it tackle a citizen’s legal property entitlements, and thus it does not address the territorial affinities citizens have for their nation-states. 14 Nonetheless, Habermas sees an E.U. constitution as a starting point for his cosmopolitan position, which promotes “the development of a transnational network of regimes that together pursue a world domestic policy, even in the absence of a world government.” 15 El-Tayeb views discussions of cosmopolitan theories, such as this one, as Eurocentric because they place Europe at the center of a world order. She contends that the unification of Europe is often framed in terms of postwar notions of the reinstatement of the “Enlightenment project” in which the European Union will return to its former position as world leader in international matters. 16 Philip Schlesinger is wary of Habermas’s notion of cosmopolitanism as well because he argues that member states continue to control 110 citizenship rights and national kinship between citizens. 17 Though he acknowledges the transnational landscape in which the European Union exists, he does not believe E.U. citizens hold the same affinity for the supranational governance as they do for their own nation-states. Discussions about creating a European Union constitution have subsided, but the European Union still continues to covet solidarity from its nation-states’ citizens. The Council of Europe has produced policy documents that according to Liza Tsaliki aim at creating a common European culture. She writes: Accounts perceive a cultural heritage wherein democracy, enlightenment values, reason, individualism and a Greco-Roman historical tradition are infused to produce a unique European flavor. This heritage not only describes a common European culture, but concurrently prescribes its protection and advancement as a proper policy. 18 According to Shore, the European Union spends 500 million euro every year on its cultural policy to promote kinship among its members. 19 The official slogan for E.U. cultural policy has become “unity in diversity” which he argues is both contradictory and ambiguous. 20 Shore contends that though this slogan is continually referred to and restated in a myriad of ways, the European Union’s repeated attempts to garner a common European identity through communication technologies and cultural policies undercut a real emphasis on the abstract diversity promoted in the slogan. 21 He argues that many of these strategies are aimed specifically at youth. I will examine how a specific European identity gets framed through an E.U. youth media education program later in this chapter. 111 A common European identity must be bound by affiliations and commonalities between the different nation-states but it must also separate the member states’ European citizens from all others, prompting Schlesinger to write, “This post-nationalist, rule-based form of identification implies an order of preference and at least some distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them.” 22 El-Tayeb concurs arguing that in trying to articulate a European identity, E.U. debates and discussions transform into exchanges about what and who do not personify a sense of Europeanness. Migration, in particular, gets treated as a common ‘problem’ that unites the member-states and also distracts the European Union from coming to terms with Europe’s “unresolved identity crisis.” 23 She argues that as the territorial borders open within the continent, pinpointing the ‘other’ frequently happens through racial and religious profiling. The two main racial and cultural threats within the European borders that most disrupt the common white Christian European heritage and identity are embodied by the African migrants from the global South and the Muslim migrants from the Middle East. 24 These are the very profiles that the European Union creates its identity against. The European Union’s identity relies on a specifically Western European history and culture that stifles Eastern and Southern European histories and identities. According to Aniko Imre, “A Romantic-nationalistic cultural heritage and the quest for ongoing modern development intertwined with technological progress are embraced as dual means of turning truly European.” 25 She argues that the European Union’s “unity in diversity” tagline and public relations campaign 112 camouflage the division between core Western states and peripheral Southern and Eastern states, while opening up the peripheral states to corporate and nonprofit groups spreading Western notions of market capitalism and democracy. 26 Imre explains that post-communist countries have surrendered to notions of being fringe states within the European Union, in order to become part of the “Euro family” insulated to some extent from American imperial cultural and economic power. 27 The current European debt crisis has caused people to call into question the effectiveness of the “Euro family” as a protective supranational governance. In 1998, eleven member states created the European Monetary Union in which they agreed to share one common currency, known as the euro. This group of nations within the European Union, known as the Eurozone, includes 17 members and relies on the European Central Bank to regulate the monetary policy. According to Peter North, those in favor of a single currency among the divergent nation-states believe that the currency and its corresponding legal framework would “force local and national economies into an equilibrium” over time through coordinated efficiency efforts. Critics, however, argue that while in theory this may be the case, in practice, synchronizing the efforts of various states with different languages, cultural understandings and economic conditions make an equilibrium goal impossible. North explains that growth rates within the Eurozone differ while the economic regulations remain identical for all nation-states resulting in certain countries, like Germany, prospering, and other nation-states, like Greece, failing to keep up with the measures set outside of national control. 28 113 The financial collapse in the 2000s brought this critical debate to the foreground. Like dominos, the rest of the world, including the Eurozone, began to feel the effects from the United State subprime crisis in 2007, eventually leading to the disclosure of other fiscal crises. In the Eurozone, privatized debts became sovereign debts as states took financial responsibility for citizens and industries (or the government accrued its own debts, as in the case of Greece). 29 In 2010, the European Union had its first encounter with the sovereign debt crisis in Greece. Germany spearheaded the recovery plan instead of orchestrating a more communal arrangement that involved institutional support from within the European Union. According to political economy scholar, Brigitte Young, “Debt ridden countries were singled out for their culture of fiscal profligacy. The discourse surrounding the rescue operation focused on the lack of domestic discipline in the peripheral countries who supposedly lived beyond their means.” 30 The plan proved unsuccessful because punishing Greece with strict measures did little to help the country and required further action and support from the European Union. In February 2011, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President, Nicolas Sarkozy agreed to the “Pact of Competiveness” that emphasized a new agenda to coordinate efforts among the member states to stabilize the euro and help the struggling debt-ridden countries in the Eurozone. 31 Since then the Eurozone countries have worked together to help Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy get out of debt through austerity measures that cut government spending and raise taxes. Critics of these measures, such as political economist Paul Krugman, argue that such 114 actions only force countries into deeper depressions. Instead, he contends that the European Central Bank needs to step in and help alleviate some of the debt by raising the interest rate. 32 The European Central Bank, modeled after the German banking system, has taken on the role of remaining independent from political pressures even in times of crisis, in order to control inflation. According to Virginie Mamadouh and Herman Van Der Wusten, “No financial help could be expected from the European Central Bank, which is required to protect the euro against the policies of the Member States.” 33 This crisis has exposed the major economic and political differences between these nation-states joined by currency regulation. Germany has emerged from the crisis as the leading nation-state and consequently has taken charge in coordinating rescue plans in close partnership with France. The Southern states, Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal have lost much of their credibility within the Union. Within these states, there has been upheaval among their citizens due to the new austerity measures set by the European Commission. 34 In 2012, French citizens proved their frustrations for European-wide austerity measures by voting out their incumbent president and voting in their very first socialist president, Francois Hollande. Likewise, Greek citizens showed vexation with the country’s two main parties by voting for far left and far right Neo-Nazi candidates in parliamentary elections. The Coalition for the Radical Left, which currently holds 50 seats in parliament refuses to adhere to austerity measures set by European leaders causing concerns about whether or not Greece will default on the loans and leave the Eurozone. 35 Boycotts and rallies 115 denouncing national leaders for their inability to stand up to the European Union occurring all over Europe have caused the allure of a common E.U. identity and citizenship to lose its luster. At the same time it has become even more vital for E.U. leaders to reassure member state citizens that their interests are being met by these measures in order to save the economic system in place. The newly elected President of the European Parliament was recently interviewed by Euronews about the public perception of the European Union. When asked what he thinks have been the failures of the European Union, he states: To convince the citizens, that Europe doesn’t take anything away from [member state citizens] and that it actually gives them something. I’m happy to admit that I have myself believed for many years in the United States of Europe as a model, just as a European USA. Only lately have I understood that national identity and regional identity is very important to people. And this isn’t a bad thing at all…Different cultures are the great heritage of our European continent. 36 This statement demonstrates how E.U. officials have witnessed dissent among citizens who feel a lack of identification with the supranational governance when their nation-states are in crisis, furthering the European Union’s need to promote unity because its livelihood depends on nation-state cooperation, especially in this time of crisis. I will explore the European Union’s audiovisual policy to demonstrate how it tries to unify its members through a promotion of European cultural prestige, while also competing with global outsiders. European Union Media Policy The European Union employs media to facilitate a common European culture. Using Kevin Robins’ scholarship as a starting off point, Morley argues that 116 the European Union’s desire to create a common European identity amplifies national efforts to unify and insulate a territory of people on a larger scale. 37 National broadcast continues to be the most popular form of television viewing in E.U. countries. David Morley argues that media help globalize people by exposing them to spaces, people and objects beyond their national scope but certain media, like national broadcasting also help to insulate the nation by projecting narrow classifications of who or what belong. Morley complicates Paddy Scannell’s discussion of how the BBC helps create a national identity in the United Kingdom and Orvar Lofgren’s discussion of how European national broadcasting becomes a unifying device and educating service for national citizens. 38 While Morley acknowledges the important role national broadcasting plays in sharing and displaying national events and customs, he also argues that national broadcasting creates norms that can leave people out. He writes, “Those who do not see themselves represented in such shows can hardly be expected to be effectively interpellated by them or to feel much identification with the culture that they represent.” 39 Those left out are minorities, often of different religious and racial backgrounds who subscribe to cable and satellite television from USA, Arab and Asian countries where they are able to see more complex representations of people and cultures that they identify with. 40 Migrants from within further threaten national control by opening up their private spaces to outside media conglomerates from U.S., Arab and Asian countries. The threat from above and below gives further justification for European states to band together. 41 117 Neoliberal policies that supported less government regulation and promoted a free market economic system began taking shape in the 1980s on both sides of the Atlantic. However, unlike in the United States, where media is privately owned, most European countries relied on government-supported services, therefore, reshaping their media systems to keep up with the open market required a more complicated transformation. Sarikakis writes that the deregulation of media industries “undermined the ideological and cultural underpinnings of media and culture institutions up to that time in Europe, and in particular the near monopoly of the Public Service Broadcasting System.” 42 According to Hedwig de Smaele, the most important piece of audiovisual legislation was the Television Without Frontiers Directive (TWF 1989/1997). TWF ultimately straddles the line between open market and government protected television services. This piece of legislation encourages neoliberal deregulation in Europe by lifting national borders between member states at the same time that it safeguards European media industries against U.S. and other non-European media industries by enacting quotas and other regulatory measures. 43 Staying true to the regions’ public broadcasting history, the European Union created legislation that opened up the market within member countries while also protecting social and cultural priorities such as “cultural diversity, media pluralism and public service broadcasting.” 44 However social and cultural measures were created by ‘softer’ policy procedures that resulted in recommendations for sound implementation methods as opposed to clear legislative mandates, which were created for economic measures. Lunt and Livingstone explain that the economic 118 policy within the European Union has legal underpinnings that clearly establish an agenda for a systematized approach to media commerce across the member states. However, the social and cultural characteristics of media policy remain within the jurisdiction of each state. 45 TWF transformed into The Audiovisual Media Services Directive in 2007 in order to incorporate new media technologies and convergence. Like its predecessor, this legislation maintains an open market policy that protects European industry interests. 46 Europe’s insecurities and anxieties about the United States’ invasive media technologies and content derive from the overabundance of U.S. media in Europe. DVD sales are dramatically skewed in favor of U.S. products in the European Union. In 2007, seventy percent of DVD sales were U.S. or U.S. co-produced imports while only 20 percent of sold DVDs originated from Europe. Also, in 2007, between 60 to 70 percent of movie ticket sales in the Europe were for U.S. film productions. In 2008, 58.4 percent of European television series and soap operas came from the United States as well. 47 Nonetheless, according to Jeremy Tunstall, each European country chooses its own country’s television programs and videos as its preferred choice of entertainment, with U.S. imports coming in second and products from other European countries coming in last. 48 The fact that products from other European countries come in third goes against the European Union’s economic and cultural aims of opening up the European media market within E.U. borders and promoting solidarity among members. 119 The European Union played an influential role in characterizing audiovisual entities as ‘services’ as opposed to commodities in global agreements in order to prevent the United States from further dissemination of U.S. products abroad. E.U. officials maintained that the audiovisual sector should be left out of The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). According to Miller and et al, “GATT restructured capitalism” in a neoliberal framework because it “embodied in contractual terms the First World’s rule of economic prosperity: nondiscrimination; codified regulations policed outside the terrain of individual sovereign-states; and multilateralism” ultimately promoting free trade. 49 In 1986 the United States tried to pressure the European Union to divest film and programming quotas that prevented E.U. member countries from importing a significant amount of U.S. products. In 1993 a coalition of thousands of Europeans from the audiovisual sector signed a petition to be “exempted from the GATT’s no-holds barred commodification.” 50 U.S. critics saw European promotion of cultural rights as a way to protect their weak industries. 51 The World Trade Organization (WTO) replaced GATT in 1995. The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) organized by the WTO includes all audiovisual texts as services including television programming, although as of 2002 theatrical films have been considered goods. According to Miller et al., GATS could not successfully open up the film and television markets around the world, because civil society movements challenged the United States’ unabridged access to dominate media markets. 52 The European Union though a promoter of free market 120 capitalism has been careful to support its own audiovisual industries, by erecting legal and economic barriers for U.S. media conglomerates in the name of culture. The European Union has also propped up its own industries in order to compete with U.S. and other international audiovisual industries. The European Union established the Media Programme in 1991 and continues to renew it every four to five years to help develop a stronger media industry that can compete with U.S. companies. According to Papathanassopoulos and Negrine: The [European] Commission has called for support for the film industry, which has been suffering from structural weaknesses, including the under- capitalization of companies, the fragmentation of national markets which are dominated by non-European productions and poor transnational circulation of European work. 53 As with most neoliberal strategies, the European Union has chosen to open markets for competition but also props up its own industry through support and subsidies. These measures include technical training, project development, distribution and promotion of films and television programming. The MEDIA 2007 Programme in place through 2013 provides 755 million euro in support to Europe’s industry. 54 Over half of this budget is set aside for wider distribution circulation. 55 The project Media Mundus furthers the European Union’s goal of obtaining a larger market by promoting collaboration with non-European countries, primarily Canada, Australia, Japan, India and China in order to “counter U.S. dominance in the global cinema market.” 56 According to Smaele, the Programme has been helpful for Central and Eastern audiovisual industries development but Western European countries with bigger established industries reap most of the Programme’s support. 57 Germany, 121 Spain, France, United Kingdom and Italy received two-thirds of the Programme’s funding, according to a 2007 survey. 58 Therefore, though the Programme helps the Europe Union compete with the United States, the playing field within Europe is not level. The neoliberal policies that have opened up the market in the member countries do not give smaller industries from Central and Eastern European leverage to vie with larger industries from the West for E.U. support. The Media Programme fits within a neoliberal policy framework that promotes government intervention when it benefits business but otherwise leaves the market alone. One of the Programme’s main goals is to “strive for a stronger European audiovisual sector, reflecting and respecting Europe’s cultural identity and heritage.” 59 The repeated efforts to unify all of the member states to participate in the common objective of competing with U.S. media industries further suppresses cultural differences and promotes Western European industries and heritage. Through TWF Directives, the European Commission has addressed the protection of minors from harmful media content in its policy. In line with neoliberal deregulating measures, the Commission chose to promote self-regulation measures. David Oswell contends, “Rather than seeking, in the first instance European-wide formal regulatory structures regarding illegal content, the European Commission recommendation moves toward greater industry self-regulation and greater paternal responsibility on the domestic regulation of their children.” 60 He explains that the European Union separated content into two categories, that which is illegal for everyone, no matter the age of the audience or the type of media, and harmful 122 content that may be acceptable for adults but not for children. Illegal content was limited to “child sexual abuse, race-hate material and extreme violent pornography” and harmful content included “offense and obscenity”. According to Oswell, such vague recommendations allow member states their own “interpretative flexibility.” 61 He argues that in recent years, legislation regarding illegal content, such as child pornography has been standardized across member states but that harmful content continues to be difficult to define and standardize throughout the European Union, especially since the advent of new and converging media. 62 The 2010 Audiovisual Directive, the most recent version of the TWF legislation, makes suggestions about how to monitor harmful content on differing mediums. Measures taken to protect the physical, mental and moral development of minors and human dignity should be carefully balanced with the fundamental right to freedom of expression as laid down in the Charter on Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The aim of those measures, such as the use of personal identification numbers (PIN codes), filtering systems or labelling, should thus be to ensure an adequate level of protection of the physical, mental and moral development of minors and human dignity… 63 Eva Lievens et al. argue that these suggestions are part of a more recent E.U. legislative agenda to promote co-regulation measures for childhood protection. By co-regulation, the authors are referring to measures that promote the combination of industry self-regulation and government regulation to overcome some of the problems that occurred when relying solely on industry self-regulation in the past. 64 Co-regulation forces the audiovisual industry to be more accountable to member state governments for the protection of minors. Like the United States, the European 123 Union is more inclined to promote stricter regulation when it comes to the protection of children. Nonetheless, the suggestions by the European Union to enact protective childhood measures often rely on third party organizations instead of member state governments. For example, in 2001, the Council of Europe, an intergovernmental organization within the European Union, recommended that member states create organizations made up of different interested parties to label Internet content and create “content selection tools” for citizens “thus enabling users to make their own value judgment regarding such content.” 65 This is similar to the resolution issued by the European Union Council in 2002, for the protection of minors through a label system of electronic video games. In 2003, a private organization, the Interactive Software Federation of Europe created the Pan European Game Information System to replace all national rating systems with one cohesive program. Viviane Reding, the European Commissioner for Education and Culture cited this program as part of the co-regulation measures that she approved of because: A co-regulatory approach can be more flexible, more adaptable and more effective than straightforward regulation and legislation. With regard to the protection of minors, where many delicate and subjective decisions have been taken into account, co-regulation can often achieve the goals better. 66 In these two instances, co-regulation comes across as a safer and more reliable method than self-regulation for the protection of minors but is also flexible enough to exist in a neoliberal environment that does not require nation-state governments to obstruct the open media markets within the European Union. 124 The other main way the European Union combats government interference with free flowing media markets is through the promotion of media literacy. This self-regulatory policy requires citizens (and not the government) to control their own media use and intake, allowing industries free reign in the dissemination of material. When referring to media literacy, Lunt and Livingstone explain: The political payoff is substantial: in so far as a media-literate public is attainable, it may become defensible to support a policy of market deregulation, cutting the bureaucratic ‘red tape’ of consumer protection, content labelling, customer redress, child safety, data privacy protection and platform-specific content regulation. 67 According to Matteo Zacchetti, the European Commission’s Deputy Head of Unit, MEDIA Programme and Media Literacy, the media literacy policy administered by the European Union, is considered a ‘soft’ policy because there is no budget for projects attached to it. Although a small budget exists for studies, programs can find financial support through other E.U. educational funds. 68 Therefore media literacy policy did not create a huge financial or regulatory threat to the market so much as it was understood as “the only sensible way forward for a converged media environment in which a skilled workforce, a competitive market and an empowered citizenry are all crucial.” 69 Media Literacy Policy Media education is understood as a way to combat the omnipresence of media with less government regulations in a neoliberal market. In 2007, the new Audiovisual Media Services Directive did more than recommend media literacy; it actually established legislation to protect media literacy as public interest: 125 The development of media literacy in all sections of society should be promoted and monitored…If necessary, the Commission should make further proposals to adapt it to developments in the field of audiovisual media services, in particular in light of recent technological developments, the competitiveness of the sector and levels of media literacy in all Member States. Within this recommendation, it becomes clear that the neoliberal dismantling of media regulations has played a major role in the promotion of media literacy because the new education is understood as a form of protection not simply from unregulated media industries but also from perceived threats to European identity. The media literacy policy safeguards European cultural heritage by promoting a European sense of art and visual culture that is distinguished from the massive popularity of U.S. and other non-European media entities in Europe. The notions of media literacy as a protector of European identity and an enforcer of individual self-regulation continue to permeate the studies and conception of media literacy at the same time that the attainment of media literacy is also understood as providing a competitive edge for promoting the European economy through digital innovation in the global market. I will examine three different studies commissioned by the European Commission about media literacy. The European Commission conducted the first public consultation. The European Association for Viewer’s Interests (EAVI), a nonprofit organization founded by the European Commission took part in conducting the 2007 and 2009 studies. The 2007 study provides the disclaimer that the opinions expressed in the study were those of the authors and not necessarily of the European Union. 70 However, because the European Union creates its policy based on these studies, 126 provides public access to these studies via its audiovisual webpage and continues to contract its studies out to the EAVI, I use these studies to unpack how they promote a common Europe culture in opposition to U.S. media culture and migrants with their own taste preferences. I will also draw attention to how the definition of media literacy has morphed from 2006 until 2009 to promote a more competitive and practical mastery of digital skills, beginning first with a brief history of how this legislation came to fruition. Ultimately, I conclude that despite the European Union’s insecurities and anxieties about being innovators in this emerging field, it has made important strides in defining and promoting media literacy in policy. According to the European Union documents on media literacy, the European Union’s initial interest in and conceptual understanding of media literacy came from UNESCO’s seminars and publications on the subject matter. The field of media education was developed and defined by the Grunwald Declaration of 1982 that came out of UNESCO’s 1982 International Symposium on Media Education in Grunwald, Germany. The declaration states: We live in a world where media are omnipresent…Rather than condemn or endorse the undoubted power of media we need to accept their significant impact and penetration throughout the world as an established fact and also appreciate their importance as an element of culture in today’s world. The declaration summoned more research and development on media education and more formal and informal curriculum and training about media. 71 UNESCO held three subsequent conferences that more clearly defined the subject matter and eventually included new media and digital technology within the discourse of media 127 education. At the last conference in Seville in 2002, it was agreed upon that policy initiatives needed to be carried out in these areas: research, training, cooperation between the public, private and governmental sectors and the clear connection of the public sphere with media. 72 UNESCO’s conferences, credited with establishing the field of media education, at least as a subject worthy of policy attention, have clearly configured media to be a powerful and unidentifiable force that can only be conquered through a careful study of the subject matter. This force, though not clearly stated, comes from the media conglomerates in the United States that have much control over the production and dissemination of media. The European Union answered UNESCO’s call to promote media education in schools through their use of formal recommendations and regulatory frameworks. Media literacy was first revealed as part of the Lisbon Agenda established in 2000 and renewed in 2005 with the intentions of helping all member-state citizens achieve Internet access by 2010. Though the ultimate goal was not achieved, media literacy gained momentum as a viable component of media policy. 73 According to Zacchetti, in 2002, media literacy was appointed a small budget as E.U. officials began recruiting media literacy advocates, academics and practitioners to help formulate a common framework for the new subject. 74 Beginning in 2005, a Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council on film heritage and the competitiveness of related industrial activities made recommendations for member states to promote visual education, particularly through the use of film heritage (i.e., teaching about esteemed European films) in education and professional training. In 2006, the 128 Recommendation of Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning promoted universal literacy, including media literacy, in their lifelong learning strategies. In 2006, a Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of minors in relation to the competitiveness of the European Audiovisual and on-line information service industry clearly included media education as a “necessary measure [for] the protection of minors and human dignity in all audiovisual and online information services.” 75 According to the 2006 Commission’s questionnaire to those with a connection to media literacy in member countries and the report on the results of the questionnaire, media literacy was initially framed as a protectionist policy. The Commission received 106 submissions from industry, associations, nonprofits, university professors and government and public institutions throughout the member states. 76 The original definition provided in the questionnaire to provoke response stated: Media literacy has been defined as the ability to access, analyse and evaluate the power of images, sounds and messages which is now being confronted with on a daily basis and are an important part of our contemporary culture, as well as to communicate competently in media available on a personal basis. 77 This definition promotes a more analytical definition of media literacy in which its primary goals include being able to read and understand media as opposed to communicate or produce with media. While most respondents agreed (35 percent) or partially agreed (46 percent) with this definition many did mention the need to add a 129 practical component that included communication and creation. 78 Nonetheless, when it came to allocating part of the media literacy framework to digital media, only one third of respondents agreed that it was an important part of media literacy while one third disagreed and the last group found it important for all media to be studied but worried “a special focus on digital media might also involve the risk of limiting media literacy to digital literacy which is more concerned with technical than analytical skills.” 79 On the following page, the report reiterated many respondents’ conclusion that production skills should be factored into an understanding of media literacy but “theory without practice is acceptable but practice without theory is not.” 80 These documents point to consensus that media literacy should emphasize the necessary analytical or critical skills to self-regulate one’s own media intake in a neoliberal period. The reasoning for this protectionist agenda, not only comes from the deregulation of the European Union’s media policies but also from a desire to combat U.S. media invasiveness and promote Europe’s own media heritage. The questionnaire asks a very leading question of its respondents with regard to U.S. film influence. Before positing the question, the questionnaire states: Audiovisual works represent the main vector for the transmission of our cultural, social and democratic values to European citizens, notably in respect of the younger generations. They also have a strong economic dimension in Europe’s internal market. One of the consequences of the distribution structures and financial means available to Hollywood blockbusters is that our European works i.e. stories, drama, documentaries and other works that reflect the reality our own lives and histories are neglected by young European audiences. At the same time many audiovisual works preferred by young audiences in Europe include content that might be detrimental to their 130 health or influence negatively their social behavior. These issues can also be raised as regards the consumption of videogames. Media literacy for audiovisual works may contribute to raise the awareness of European audiences regarding the social values and messages conveyed by audiovisual works according to their region of production and to enhance the taste for quality audiovisual works among European audiences. 81 The fear of American influences on youth and the desire for creating a pan-European quality culture furthers the European Union’s longing for a visual culture modeled on a European Enlightenment past from which the region existed as an epicenter of culture and knowledge. The report based on the public consultation determined four specific areas of media literacy: commercial communication literacy; media literacy for audiovisual works; media literacy in the online environment; and copyright. The literacies are constructed out of protectionist priorities. Commercial communication literacy includes teaching youth how to “decipher and evaluate advertising and other forms of commercial communication.” 82 This literacy prepares youth for the deregulation of media policies that allows for a larger concentration of commercial television to exist. Media literacy for audiovisual works, according to the report, should “raise the awareness of the European film heritage.” While the respondents were careful to enforce the point that media literacy should not be linked to promoting “good taste” they felt it should encourage a wider circulation of audiovisual works within Europe to promote cultural diversity and awareness. 83 Again, a focus on sharing European culture (“unity in diversity”) gets addressed but no attention is paid to audiovisual material outside of European borders, therefore, insulating an appreciation for a European culture and market. Media literacy in the 131 online environment, similar to commercial communication literacy, concentrates on teaching people how to critically navigate and decipher Internet content as opposed to creating or producing one’s own content or software. 84 Being aware of copyright issues, the last category of media literacy, not only protects citizens from legal trouble but also safeguards media industries from losing revenue on their products. The initial E.U. policy documents on media literacy demonstrate a clear focus on media literacy as part of a cultural and economic protectionist policy in a U.S. dominated, neoliberal market. The European Union commissioned, Study on the Current Trends in Approaching Media Literacy published in 2007, altered the framework of media literacy from a protectionist one to a more proactive discourse that promoted two major goals for the European Union—a better role in the global economic market and the promotion of active European citizenship—both of which get merged together in this document. Acquiring digital media skills becomes an important part of the discourse and production and creation practices procure vital positions in the media literacy framework. However, the study continues to stress that digital media and technological advancement should not overwhelm the critical components of media literacy. For example, “Reducing media education to mere computer literacy would be technocratic reductionism, while including computer literacy within the media education paradigm would lead to a broadest and most meaningful realm of learning.” 85 Therefore the U.S. approach to media literacy, which promotes a more technical understanding of the subject matter, differs from the European Union’s 132 initial emphasis on critical understanding and eventual gravitation towards an acknowledgment of the importance of practical skills. This document is also more proactive than the last in the sense that it provides more preemptive reasons for the importance of a European Union media literacy discourse as opposed to a reliance on protectionist fears of U.S. media imperialism to necessitate the new subject matter. The first sentence of the study states, “The objective of the European Union is to become the world’s most advanced information society by the year 2010.” And an awareness of other global competitors besides the United States ensues: Europe’s aspirations for information society leadership must also take account of the growth of India and China as significant players in the global marketplace for both information and material goods and the critical situation of African populations with scarce access to the quality of life enjoyed by most European citizens. 86 The first part of this sentence is self-explanatory in terms of the need for the European Union to take into account China and India’s roles as technological innovators and thus competitors, but the second part of the quote seems out of place at first glance. Although Africa is not understood as a competitive threat to the region, the document reminds Europe that it should take full advantage of its Enlightenment-endowed creative and intellectual capabilities and further insulate its superior European identity from the destitute racialized other. The 2007 study advances the notion of Europe’s superiority through an emphasis on European audiovisual culture and potential for quality. The study states, “A higher level of appreciation of European cultural patrimony directly enhances the demand for new contents, products and services, increasing the consumption of 133 European production.” 87 By using the term patrimony, this quote implicitly references a narrow cultural heritage passed on from white male ancestors. Furthermore, quality becomes the rationale for why Europe will better succeed in the global economy: In short, if Europe wants to be a competitive society it must start from the need for quality: Media literacy gives people the criteria to measure quality that should lead to the sort of market auto-regulation made of quality offerings and guarantees…This demand for quality will affect the industries related to media and ICTs, which in turn will find itself obliged to respond by improving the functionality and efficiency of their services and products. This will in turn ensure the conditions for a constant existence of a spirit of improvement and progress that will result to the improvement of competition in the European industry of ICTs and communications on a Global scale. 88 While the respondents in the initial report were hesitant to assume that media literacy could teach and determine taste, this study argues vehemently that media literacy will enlighten European consumers awareness and desire for quality productions, which will effectively promote Europe’s competitive edge in the economy—because European cultural products are equated with quality due to the region’s rich cultural and intellectual history of progress. Progress is associated with Europe’s Enlightenment past of scientific achievements and intellectual reasoning. According to Morley and Robins, “For Enlightenment thinkers, such as Condorcet or Turgot, history was understood as a linear progression of humanity towards a condition of perfection, ultimately embracing the whole of mankind based on principles of reason.” 89 This Eurocentric view of Europe at epicenter of the world on a journey towards perfection gets tied to Europe’s current role as a global competitor in 134 neoliberal markets equipped with a self-regarded sense of quality that justifies its ability to outmaneuver other lesser opponents. Within neoliberal reasoning, the market determines the social welfare of its participants. While this type of thinking has been proven erroneous due to the wider discrepancy between the rich and the poor in the last thirty years, its presence furthers the promotion media literacy. The study refers to the deregulation of the market as one of the major factors in contributing to media literacy policy. 90 E.U. media literacy policy also implicitly protects European cultural heritage from some of the consequences of the free market, such as the intrusion of U.S. media and technology and foreign workers and their media consumption habits. The European Union partly responds to the globalization processes of the free market by reconciling them with Eurocentric notions of progress and an elevated sense of quality. Within its “Active citizenship and European public sphere section” the study also states, “If media literacy consists of raising awareness of citizens on new media and if it allows citizens to take advantage of technological benefits, social progress is assured.” 91 Social progress is chosen as opposed to social equality, furthering the Eurocentricism of an Enlightenment past. No longer are citizens supposed to protect themselves from deregulation with media awareness skills but they are now prompted to use technology for their own progress, furthering the divide between European citizens and outsiders, consequently moving away from social equality. 135 The 2009 Study on Assessment Criteria for Media Literacy Levels authorized by the European Commission, continues to promote medial literacy studies as a “predestined” European pursuit. It is inevitable that Europe should be at the forefront of the discipline of media literacy. Historically, Europe has served as a cradle of (media) civilization, as well as a focus for the coordination of debate, criticism, and unchecked invention. Europe has been at the centre of the philosophical, literary and technical evolution of media, grounded, as it is in a tradition of communication and interaction with its roots in public engagement and civic participation. It is therefore natural that Europe should take the lead in addressing the development of media literacy as a social and scientific imperative. 92 While such a statement seems to create a false sense of totalizing European history in a report that is supposed to be based in research and statistics, it furthers the European Union’s goals of uniting its disparate member states through a mythological history of intellectual and cultural achievements in an ideal political and social environment that erases the major historical conflicts (World War I & II) and inequalities (colonialism). All of the reports use examples of different media literacy practices from participating countries in order to demonstrate that innovation happens in all member states. Yet in the 2009 report, an assessment of the various countries’ programs demonstrates a higher degree of media literacy in Northern and Western countries as opposed to Southern or Eastern countries. 93 The study suggests that the amount of time certain countries have been members of the European Union affects their media literacy progress. In other words, countries that scored the highest were considered to be Member States for the longest period of time. A continual reaffirmation of European pride and its connection to the promotion of media 136 literacy attempts to prevent lower-member states from feeling ostracized. The following paragraph after the findings on media literacy standings, states: If the study were to be extended beyond Europe, and the same criteria were applied to other continents, it may be reasonably concluded that Europe would rank high in the analytical spectrum. Having demonstrated that many of the best performing countries are also the most advanced in terms of their democratic function, infrastructure, and social and economic welfare it may be assumed uncontroversial that Europe with its high levels of social and economic development would manifest more elevated levels of media literacy than other, less overtly privileged parts of the world. 94 Therefore as discussed above, the study institutes an “us versus them” dichotomy with regard to non-member states to further unite Europe by closing itself off to those that have not been fortunate enough to have such a progressive heritage and natural tendency to lead in this field. The 2009 study illustrates the European Union’s desire for a common identity and emphasizes how media literacy will better impact citizen participation to maintain the supranational governance’s existence. The report states: As such it is clear that the principles of democracy that informed the creation of the European Union are under threat—not from violent attack but from apathy and passive disengagement…This worrying development can be explained in part by the inability of media users (or in the alternative, “everybody”) to utilize the information flow to their (and their society’s) benefit. Media literacy can counter-balance these dangerous effects… 95 The European Union desires legal citizen participation, not only because it has a history of promoting democratic values but also because it needs citizens to need the European Union and feel a sense of belonging to it in order for the governance to continue to exist and further its economic potency in the globalized open markets. Therefore, part of the reason more attention is given to the democratic values 137 associated with critical understanding of media in the European Union as opposed to in the United States, is because the European Union is on the defensive with regard to U.S. media domination and also because the European Union necessitates a common European sense of belonging, modeled after citizens’ affinities for nation- states, to continue to legislate economic policy. Though the motivations for E.U. media literacy studies—to create and protect a common European culture and compete in a global market economy—complicate the media literacy policy emerging from the European Union, no less attention should be paid to the strides in the discourse that have transpired from these policies and corresponding research. In trying to determine assessment strategies for media literacy, the 2009 report comprehensively breaks down the various components that make up media literacy by creating a pyramid of skills, something the U.S. technological policy has failed to do. The pyramid’s base consists of the environmental factors that effect media literacy. They are broken into two important sections: media availability and media literacy context. Unlike in previous studies, this study takes note of how access to media plays a major role in a person’s ability to become media literate. The context, which has been touched on in the previous study, includes prior media education; the civil society and media industry that surrounds him or her; and the media literacy policy that has been put in place in his or her region. In opposition to neoliberal thinking that posits the individual as the sole factor in attaining one’s goal, this study acknowledges how social, economic, political and cultural factors relate to media literacy. Individual competences are 138 broken into two categories as well: personal and social competences. Lunt and Livingstone quote Buckingham, reemphasizing the importance of media literacy as a social endeavor, “literacy is a phenomenon that is only realized in and through social practices of various kinds, and it therefore takes different forms in different social and cultural contexts.” 96 Therefore, by addressing these societal factors outside of one’s control, the European Union has gone further than the United States because it acknowledges the needs of human and institutional support for media literacy to be carried out. As stated in the previous chapter, the acknowledgement that media literacy is a social process and skill further separates it from neoliberal individualist thinking and practice. However, these studies do not go into specific details about the issues that affect one’s media literacy abilities and environment, and the report’s environmental context for media literacy includes only media–specific indicators. For example, education includes media literacy teacher training; policy includes the existence of regulators; media industry includes newspapers and telecommunications companies; and civil society includes associations and organizations invested in media literacy. 97 An acknowledgement of issues such as racial inequalities, migration, gender and class should also be addressed as environmental factors that play a role in youth’s access and abilities to attain a valuable media education. On the media literacy pyramid, personal competences are stacked above environmental factors and are split into personal use skills and critical understanding. While such mention of critical thinking positions this model one step ahead of the U.S. technological literacy framework, critical thinking specifically references media 139 content and how it functions, media regulation and user behavior. 98 These indicators focus on specific guidelines that can be measured. For example, the study suggests that a media literate person should be able to classify, distinguish and read texts and content. The problem, however, is that the media literacy studies promoted by the European Union do not distinguish or address Eurocentricism; instead these studies naturalize it. Each study actively promotes critical thinking about media at the same time that it reproduces naturalizing rhetoric about the specialness of what it means to be European. By basing notions of media literacy on an implicitly white, male Eurocentric Enlightenment heritage, E.U. media literacy documents block critical thinking about some of the most important issues in Europe’s past and present, including racial inequality and imperialism, which are erased in the European Union’s new model of Europeanness. Because media represent, reflect and present worldviews and events, critical thinking about larger societal issues should also be mentioned in the framework. Nonetheless, the existence of this comprehensive framework that includes media industry and regulation studies and content creation demonstrates a much more complex outlook for media education than witnessed in ISTE’s list of attributes for a technological literate person in the United States. European Union Funded Practice The attention given to media literacy in E.U. policy has been matched by a few European-wide, E.U. funded projects. I will examine two such projects—the European Association for Viewers Interests (EAVI), a nonprofit organization, initially established with support from the European Commission in 2005 and 140 Children in Communication about Migration (CHICAM), a European Commission funded “action research” project that ran from 2001-2004 in six European countries—to demonstrate the range and emphasis of media literacy research supported by the European Union. While both programs ultimately support the European Union’s involvement in media literacy initiatives, the former “was created to fill the institutional gap in representing citizens and media viewers at a European level”, 99 and the latter was set up as a research project to understand how migration affects children’s media intake and how children’s media intake affect their experiences and identities as migrants. 100 The first project invests in attracting more citizen engagement in the European Union through political practices, such as voting, while the second project works with those that are not necessarily legal citizens in the European Union but should nevertheless have rights to engage and participate through media. Both projects support youth’s ability to understand and participate in European society through media, though EAVI tends to emphasize media literacy through critical engagement and CHICAM provided migrant children with the education and media tools to use and create media. Ultimately, both projects, which were originally initiated around the onset of specific E.U. media literacy policy, recommend that the European Union continue to promote media literacy policy initiatives that encompass both practice and critical understanding. I argue that the European Union’s involvement in establishing EAVI and CHICAM demonstrate its initial efforts to carryout media literacy projects in order to further its knowledge on the subject matter and determine how media literacy policy can be 141 used for the benefit of supporting an active and engaged constituency of young people—even those that may not be considered legal citizens. At the same time these programs further notions of Eurocentrism through their methods of defining what it means to by European in the case of EAVI, and what it means to be foreign in the case of CHICAM. EAVI promotes and supports E.U. citizen’s interests with regard to media. The European Commission funded a project to create “a public forum that will serve viewers’ needs and defend their interests” in 2004. 101 The project, titled, “European Association for Consumers of Television (EACTV) – Citizen first. Facilitating e- participation in media governance” strived to create an Internet platform for promoting citizen rights, interest, and participation in the media field. 102 This came at a time when national public broadcasting systems were losing out to deregulated commercial industries and the emergences of ICTs. EAVI was founded during the European Commission financed EACTV conference. Since its establishment, its main objectives have been a combination of industry and policy lobbying in favor of viewer and user rights in Europe and the promotion of active citizenship and media literacy. This influential nonprofit engages in many activities and practices to support its goals, such as the signature collection campaign, which EAVI conducted in 2010 in order to provoke the Italian Congress to pass legislation that would include media literacy in school curriculum. 103 The organization has worked very closely with the European Commission on issues of media literacy, holding conferences on the subject matter and producing the 2007 and 2009 studies discussed 142 earlier in this chapter. While EAVI looks to the European Union for support, the European Union depends on EAVI’s research and collaboration. Through EAVI’s close involvement with the European Commission, the organization has impacted the European Union’s conception of media literacy, particularly with regard to active citizenship and the promotion of democratic participation. Therefore, the organization’s focus on legal citizenship has greatly influenced the research and motivations of E.U. media literacy policy. Just as the European Commission helped found this organization for the sake of bettering citizen involvement in European Union media matters, EAVI plays a major role in defining, conceiving and assessing media literacy among member states—proving the interdependence of the nonprofit and supranational governance. Unlike many of the advocacy groups that have supported technology integration in schools within the United States, this advocacy organization represents consumer and citizen interests as opposed to major media industry players. Therefore media literacy consists of more than technological competence but also critical understanding and engagement. However, EAVI’s focus on citizen engagement has resulted in studies that privilege European legal citizens and naturalize Eurocentricism. Just as the United States relies on advocacy organizations that promote corporate objectives, the European Union relies on an advocacy organization that embeds Eurocentricism in the media literacy framework; therefore attaching media literacy to a Eurocentric and elitist understandings of citizenship for young people. 143 CHICAM demonstrates the European Union’s desire to know and hear how an underprivileged segment of the E.U. population viewed and used media. David Buckingham, prominent pioneer scholar of media education in both the United Kingdom and European Union, co-founded and sought out funding from the European Commission with Liesbeth de Block for CHICAM. The three-year program consisted of setting up media clubs in Sweden, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Germany. Migrant children, ages 10-14 from Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe residing in these European countries were invited to take part in this research project while learning filming and editing skills and obtaining access to the Internet. Each center included media educators who taught skills but all of the videos were made by the participating youth. Internet access also presented youth from different clubs with the chance to interact with one another. 104 Researchers in each of the host countries worked in the clubs and did field research by spending time with the children at schools, with their families and on other social outings. Researchers also gathered information during informal group and individual interviews. 105 Although Buckingham and de Block provide cohesive analysis of their study in their book, Global Children, Global Media, I would like to resituate their research and findings here in the context of E.U. funding and research on children’s media education. Buckingham and de Block’s research provides the European Union with insight on migrant population culture and cultural practices that often take place under the radar, particularly because these populations do not want to call attention 144 to themselves. Therefore the gathered material becomes “useful” for the European Union as it tries to expand upon its understanding of young people that do not particularly identify as European, though they reside in E.U. territory and thus disrupt the implicitly Christian, white European identity. This practice positions the European Union as intrusive for gathering this type of information, via third party researchers, from youth who have tried to remain undetected by the European Union because of their undocumented residency in member states. With regard to consumption, the authors discover that consistent with other youth media findings, television ranks as the most used and important media among migrant youth and that many families subscribed to satellite television. Concurrent with Morley’s research, satellite television connects migrant families with their countries of origins. Nonetheless, families often supported children’s viewing of national television as a way to learn the language and cultural norms of their host countries. Global television programs from the United States proved to be popular among children across borders, whom often cited Friends and The Simpsons among their generational favorites. However, other non-European transnational programming registered with migrants. For example, in the United Kingdom, several non-Hindi children admitted to spending family viewing hours watching the Hindi film channel, B4U, even though they did not speak the language. 106 The authors concluded that “it seems that children’s interest in these films overcomes their unfamiliarity with the language—and that its interests functions largely on a symbolic or emotional level, that has a particular resonance for them as migrants.” 107 Therefore, the study 145 reaffirms the European Union’s frustrations by illustrating that migrant youth tend to seek out non-European forms of entertainment, which ultimately affects the region’s financial and cultural capital and thus control. The media education program defuses conflict and vexation from the European Union’s disenfranchised community by promoting the European Union’s social and cultural policy of ‘unity in diversity’. The E.U. funded media-making clubs promoted inclusion and positive civic engagement for migrant children by providing them with experiences to let their voices be heard. Sarikakis expands upon this idea: Europe’s newfound enthusiasm for culture is based on the intentions of ‘softening’ the edge of or tensions around – heterogeneity in the EU – not only with reference to difference among nations but also those of migrant populations and diverse social and cultural groups. The expectation is to mediate a degree of social cohesion through culture in ways, which will foster growth of ‘unity’ among citizen subjects of the EU. 108 Though the CHICAM co-founders and researchers are independent of the European Commission, they nonetheless, inadvertently promote E.U. goals of unifying inhabitants through cultural experiences, particularly because the researchers tried to create connections and dialogue between clubs through internet communication and project-sharing, though this proved difficult due to language and cultural differences. 109 Nonetheless, this type of program allows migrants to share their voices and feel included in the European Union, therefore keeping them from partaking in other forms of political activity or agency that may disrupt the European Union’s system of order. 146 This project further separates Europeans from outsiders by trying to define and study those that are not European. The authors acknowledge the fact that by constructing the project around migrants and defining migrants by their otherness, they contributed to the children’s difference and marginalization. The authors admit that “the danger here was of ‘othering’ – and in the process, of exoticising or merely partonising – some essentialised ‘migrant’ experience, albeit in the interest of making it publicly visible.” 110 The authors also get caught up in a European-centered practice of titling their book “global” even when the main study takes place within Western European countries. Often they found that the children did not completely acknowledge their migrant identities, because as was evident with certain children, they “had internalised the generally pejorative view of migrants in their respective European host countries.” 111 Nonetheless while the authors do not believe that media access and education can “somehow magically ‘empower’ them or enable their voices to be heard,” they do see this type of education as a gateway to “permit[ing] young people to represent themselves on their own terms,” especially for migrant children who tend to be the most invisible and disenfranchised. 112 The study led to recommendations by the authors to E.U. policymakers for media literacy initiatives, specifically for disenfranchised youth. In their 2007 report on the CHICAM study, the authors recommend that the European Union further its media literacy initiatives. Through the CHICAM project, the authors found several issues with the current state of media literacy conception and policy: “Firstly, a protectionist focus on harmful content limits the potential of media literacy 147 programmes to address wider issues of media consumption, social expression, culture and quality. It also fails to address the role of media production as creative expression and participation.” 113 Though the authors also feel that too much focus on digital technologies leads to a skills-based education that does not address social, cultural and aesthetic factors imbedded in media consumption, they argue that usage and creation are vital elements of media education. 114 The authors also mention the digital divide between and within countries as a relevant problem particularly in relation to their study. They argue that funding priority should be given to programs and projects that particularly address underprivileged children that are denied access to media participation and that these program should ensure “sufficient infrastructure for feedback and chat; personalization across media formats; the possibility for meetings.” 115 The report proposes more distribution and exposure to diverse European media products, exchanges between children of different European nation- states and platforms for which migrant children can exhibit and share their films and voices with peers. 116 These suggestions fit within the European Union’s ‘unity in diversity’ campaign in which further circulation of European products and communication will promote a more diverse and yet accepting and unified region that includes its non-European minorities. At the same time the report also provides practical guidance and rationale for media literacy funding and promotion. Studies, such as this one took place at the start of the European Union’s media literacy policy and research initiatives and contributed to the media literacy policy and research conducted by the European Union. 148 Although this study contributed to the European Union’s knowledge about youth who try to go unnoticed in their countries of residence and confirmed the European Union’s worry that outsiders bring non-European media tastes and preferences into Europe, CHICAM empowered disenfranchised youth by teaching them how to use media to be heard and by sharing videos with policymakers and organizations invested in the well-being of migrant youth. This study and its related recommendations align with scholars and activists who promote a cultural citizenship that goes beyond a person’s legal status within a nation or region and further reinforce how media literacy policy and practice can promote a global citizenship in which everyone has the skills, access and knowledge to speak and be heard. 117 Though giving voice is only a first step towards political, social and cultural agency, it is an important step for youth to become enfranchised in their current places of residence. From International Media Policy to National Media Policy—The United Kingdom The European Union and institutions such as EAVI and scholars and practitioners such as David Buckingham have been reliant on each other to promote media literacy practice and policy. Likewise, the European Union depends on member states to carryout its decree for media literacy initiatives and curriculum, while they look to the European Union for guidance in the field. The E.U. objective to seek legitimacy via social and cultural policy depends on nation-states to carryout its initiatives. The European Union is currently in the process of investigating how 149 best to assess media literacy skills since it has solidified the various characteristics that go into the conception of the discourse. The Danish Technological Institute and EAVI were commissioned by the European Commission to “assess and recommend methods for measuring national media literacy levels” in the 27 European Union member states and Norway and Iceland. 118 Surveys were sent online and offline to citizens in member states. Though the researchers ran into a problem based on the way they phrased the Internet questions, which resulted in them having to disqualify all Internet-related findings, 119 this study procured concrete results of media literacy levels in participating states that included critical understandings of how media can be read, classified and analyzed; communicative abilities for social relations; content creation and civic participation; and use skills for publications, television, cinema, mobile phones and ICTs. When dividing up media literacy levels by countries, the Northern European countries rank much higher than Southern and Eastern countries. The United Kingdom continues to achieve an advanced ranking while Hungary scores in the bottom half of the middle-ranked countries. Both of these nation-states had media literacy programs before the onset of E.U. legislation and therefore have a solid infrastructure for promoting this subject matter. I examine both member states and their efforts to promote media literacy in their countries in order to flesh out the disparities between them in their attempts to implement the E.U. media literacy initiatives. More specifically, I demonstrate how E.U. media goals of acquiring global economic success shape U.K. media literacy policy and how E.U. fears of non-European global economic power surface in Hungarian media literacy policy. 150 The United Kingdom established The Office of Communications (OfCom) as part of the 2003 Communication’s Act to proceed as a regulatory body for broadcasting and telecommunications media. OfCom’s responsibilities include the promotion of competition through new self-regulation and co-regulation strategies for media industries and the assurance that citizen and consumer interests are met. 120 As Lunt and Livingstone argue, the creation of OfCom allowed one cohesive agency to “operate across a wide range of media and communications policy—through a dialogue and consultation with stakeholders, the conduct of research on markets, firms and public opinion and the advancement of policies that require some coordination with other agencies.” 121 Some of OfCom’s duties were modeled after the Financial Service Authority (FSA) established in 1997, which unified financial matters through similar tasks, such as, regulating industries and protecting consumers. 122 Both of these agencies were established while the New Labour party was in office. During this period, the government furthered a neoliberal agenda, consisting of the promotion of competition and free enterprise through deregulation and low taxation. At the same time, the state intervened in social policy matters, such as investment in education, and engaged in global and European politics and policies. 123 Media literacy policy reflected the “hybrid” 124 New Labour government policies because it does not intervene in the free market but equips citizens with critical thinking and technical skills through educational practices, consequently demonstrating how the government juggled public and corporate interests. 151 The 2003 Communications Act required that OfCom encourage and advance media literacy among citizens in the United Kingdom, proving to be the first time media literacy was acknowledged in legislation and setting a precedent for media regulators around the world. 125 It encompassed an emphasis on both audiovisual and ICTs and was included in the government’s Digital Britain plan. Initially, receiving half a million pounds a year from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the media literacy agenda included persuading broadcasters and content providers to educate the public about representations, subjectivity and meanings and conducting examinations and assessments of schools’ integration of media education in classrooms. 126 Just as the European Union would do a few years later, OfCom held a public consultation in 2004 to determine the definition of media literacy because the initial 2003 Act did not define it. 127 According to Lunt and Livingstone, OfCom’s initial conception promoted a much more protectionist agenda that included phrases such as, “With these skills people will be able to exercise greater choice and be able to protect themselves and their families from harmful or offensive materials.” 128 The authors explain that between 2004-2008 the media regulators moved from a protectionist agenda to an empowerment one, meaning that the agenda moved to “prioritising a view of media as affording an expressive, cultural, participatory opportunity which brings significant benefits to those who are able to ‘read’ its codes and conventions and to use its tools and technologies.” 129 According to the Study Assessment Criteria for Media Literacy Levels: Final Report, 2009, the U.K. media literacy score placed the nation-state in the “advanced” 152 category for individual competences and environmental factors. Each country was given a questionnaire to fill out to measure their own media literacy practices with regard to E.U. policy initiatives. Because the United Kingdom’s policy predated that of the European Union and therefore other member states, the country scored well in comparison to other member states with regard to individual’s skills and communicative abilities, as well as in environmental categories, such as media availability, and media literacy context. Critical understanding was the only portion of the European Union’s media literacy agenda that was not measured. 130 According to the European Union’s U.K. Country Profile of 2007, media education implementation lacked an appropriate emphasis on critical thinking components and projected an overemphasis of attention to digital media at the expense of attention paid to audiovisual media. 131 However, the Profile does acknowledge that the incorporation of digital literacy and ICTs into education “has been carried out swiftly and efficiently,” but still lacks the necessary critical understanding components and focuses much more on how media can be used as productive tools. 132 These 2007 findings are not surprising considering the United Kingdom’s neoliberal strategies, which prioritize practical skills for the sake of obtaining a competitive edge for youth as they enter the job market but seem to contradict Livingstone and Lunt’s assessment that U.K. policy promoted both critical and practical skills in its initiatives at this time. Media literacy’s emphasis and notoriety among policy officials began shifting in 2009. Lord Stephen Carter, who stepped down from OfCom’s CEO 153 position, proceeded to produce a report on Digital Britain that referred to media literacy as “a technocratic and specialist term understood by policy makers but not really part of everyday language.” 133 The following year the Digital Britain report suggested “to move away from media literacy as a discrete subject term and move towards a National Plan for Digital Participation.” 134 This new plan was allotted up to 12 million pounds over three years according to Budget 2009 and consisted of a framework that according to Lunt and Livingstone encompassed all of the important aspects of media literacy; “first, equality of opportunity…second, active and informed participation…and third, self-actualisation for individuals and communities.” 135 Nonetheless, the authors argue that the plan’s aims have been sidelined by officials more interested in top down initiatives which position citizens as consumers as opposed to participators, by focusing on “copyright, privacy and vulnerable user’s rights in relation to digital content” and government programs that provide access to governmental information and services for consumption purposes. 136 The change in policy has been met by the results of the 2010 and 2011 Media Literacy Audits, which demonstrate that levels of media literacy are becoming less clear and suggest that literacy levels have possibly even plateaued. 137 Similar to earlier trends in European Union policy, a new protectionist trend exists more focused on Internet usage rather than audiovisual media. Also, a concentration on digital (and thus practical) skills has usurped more comprehensive media literacy skills in policy documents and dialogue. Interestingly, Lunt and Livingstone conclude their discussion on U.K. media literacy policy by explaining that while the 154 United Kingdom spurred the European Union media literacy research and policy dialogue, a reversal of influence in now occurring in which the United Kingdom’s policy dialogue is now being shaped by a wider net of stakeholders from other member states through European Union policy, research, and collaborative communication. Referring to the European Union’s most recent policy objectives, they too see the media literacy agenda “widening to encompass positive, even emancipatory though perhaps over-ambitious objectives.” 138 Not surprisingly, the E.U. policy initiatives were modeled after a Western European country with a large economic stake in media industry initiatives and a region-wide trendsetter for neoliberal deregulation and open market reforms. However the concession by the authors that the United Kingdom is now looking to other member states for exemplary media literacy strategies demonstrates the European Union’s success in creating a collaborative, well-informed and researched media literacy policy. Hungary’s Media Literacy Hungary’s media policy has changed as it has transitioned from a socialist country to a member of the European Union; however, remnants of its old socialist ways continue to resurface through Hungary’s governmental strategies to maintain control of its newly privatized media system in a neoliberal world. In comparison to many socialist Eastern and Central European countries, Hungary had a relatively open media system. According to Andras Lanczi and Patrick O’Neil, “By the late 1960s, Hungary, which only a decade earlier was a source of violent upheaval and repression, had developed into a model of tolerance and reform within the socialist 155 camp.” 139 Both the newspaper press and broadcast television, which were run by the state allowed for debate and “semi-open discussion of sensitive topics.” 140 After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the press was privatized in the early 1990s. This frustrated the conservative party in power, which created its own state paper to compete with privatized papers. In 1991 after the death of the Mirror Holding Company owner who purchased a significant amount of newspapers shares and the liquidation of his assets, the Hungarian government bought back their stake in the press. By 1994, the government had assumed control of major newspapers, nonetheless, the authors argue that the government’s attempt to influence the press made little headway. 141 Due to Hungary’s less strict press system under socialist rule, the conservative government could not thwart the transition to a privatized press; however, control of public broadcasting proved to be more complicated. The Prime Minister, Jozsef Antall, maintained control of the president and vice president nominations for the public broadcasting service. In 1992, he triggered public outcry for dismissing the leaders he helped put in office. Since then the political intervention in public broadcasting has continued with each new administration. 142 The 1996 Broadcasting Law remodeled the broadcasting system after Western European frameworks so that both public and private broadcasting networks could coexist. Nonetheless, a number of TWF directives were not implemented into the Hungarian media policy until 2002, after the European Commission put pressure on Hungary by excluding them from participation in the Media Programme. The new provisions included: a minimum of 50 percent European and 25 percent Hungarian programming; 156 prohibition of false advertising; and regulation of programming and advertisements for minors. 143 Nonetheless, the Hungarian government continues to enact centralizing laws that cause public criticism. In 2010 Hungary’s media regulations body, National Media and Infocommunications Authority (NMHH), passed a law that would force the press to reveal their sources for national security reasons. According to a Financial Times writer, “Editors contend the bill is ill-defined and open to misuse by a five-member media council filled with government appointees.” 144 Therefore even while Hungary is considered one of the most assimilated post-socialist countries by Western economic and social standards, its socialist past continues to materialize. The combination of governmental control and privatization has made it difficult for civic engagement. John Downey writes: Privatisation of the press and continued state control over the majority of broadcasting, together with the difficult economic conditions experienced during the transition to capitalism, have meant that the liberal democratic public sphere is yet to emerge in Central and Eastern Europe. 145 Downey argues that the goal of transforming Hungary into a capitalist state in order to compete in the global market takes priority over establishing democracy. 146 Commentators assumed Western European public sphere democracy would accompany the transformation to capitalism; however, unlike Western European countries the Greco-Roman traditions and history of civic discourse do not exist in Central and Eastern European states. 147 Anna Lubecka explains that the reasons for adopting Western culture was “mainly economic, made East- and Central-Europeans 157 especially in the years immediately after the fall of Communism, strive for an uncritical identification with the values of the West, often very superficial, commercial and totally opposed to respective national cultures.” 148 Other scholars have argued against notions that Central and Eastern European countries did not engage in civil society during the communist era and illustrate current trends that exemplify the promotion of civic participation. Imre furthers John Horvath’s argument that part of the European Union’s goal in promoting technology includes an advancement of civic engagement among its member states’ citizens, particularly in the East, because false beliefs are held that communism squelched all civic participation. Imre contends “that promoting technological progress in the East is accompanied by certain Western missionary fervor and rests on an unconditional faith in consumerist democracy.” 149 Problems with civic discourse are not solely those of Central and Eastern European countries, particularly since citizen and government interactions have weakened in this neoliberal small government era and remain a central motivation for the European Union’s media literacy policy. New media and technologies are welcomed and feared in Central and Eastern nation-states that have become accustomed to centralized control but are now embracing capitalism. 150 The lure of the admission into the European Union was about more that simply civic participation but also about gaining social and economic protection. Imre explains that Central and Eastern European countries were primarily motivated to join the European Union for economic reasons. They wanted the powerful supranational network to safeguard them from intimidating 158 forces of globalization. Central and Eastern European countries vigorously supported and promoted technological advancement to appeal to the E.U. member states as worthy alliances. 151 According to Halcourt, due to Hungary’s inability to decide on television regulations, in 2001 four hundred and fifty local television stations operated without government regulations and an estimated 80 percent of programming came from the United States. 152 So just as the European Union fears American media imperialism, so do many Hungarians. Imre contends that in Central and Eastern European countries, critics of American imperialism equate electronic media tools for educational purposes with American invasiveness that undercuts the national education agenda. U.S. entertainment and nonlinear formats for learning offset traditional classes taught by a teacher to students in a one-way linear fashion. 153 This fear of American media imperialism and the desire to become part of the European Union to compete in the new media technologies global economy has motivated Hungary to become one of the first European countries to establish its own national media education curriculum. 154 In 2004 Hungary mandated that media education be incorporated into secondary education, and in 2006 primary schools had to adjust their curriculum to include “motion picture and media studies”. 155 Hungary reconfigured its national curriculum after the collapse of communism in 1989. More control was transferred from the state to local schools and teachers and separate subject areas were brought together “around larger intersecting, loosely identified areas of study.” 156 The incorporation of media education into the national curriculum played a part in the 159 comprehensive pedagogical changes occurring in Hungary. The new subject was accompanied by a secondary school elective exam that could double as a university entrance exam, furthering the legitimacy of media education. According to Imre, the curriculum incorporates both protectionist critical thinking measures and the promotion of new technology use skills that further the government’s “efforts to unify and continue to control desires and goals that are becoming increasingly divergent under the influence of global media, particularly the Internet.” 157 Therefore in an analysis of the public media education textbooks, Imre found a clear promotion of Eurocentric and national values in which art films were promoted over popular media, men’s theoretical and practical work outnumbered women’s and “apart from a brief mention of ancient Egypt into the chapter on the emergence of writing, from this book one surmises that civilized communication has not occurred outside of Euro-America.” 158 Though, Imre gives credit to the textbook authors for their advancement of media education in Hungary and acknowledges the difficult task of creating textbooks on the subject matter, she finds that the books fall within the larger European Union trap of over-emphasizing European achievements in the field to promote further innovation and create solidarity amongst its citizens at the expense of discounting non-Europeans and their contributions to the discourse. According to the Study Assessment Criteria for Media Literacy Levels: Final Report, 2009, Hungary media literacy scored within the “medium” category for individual competences and environmental factors. As stated in the U.K. section, each country was given a questionnaire to fill out to measure its own media literacy 160 practices with regard to E.U. policy initiatives. Like the United Kingdom, even before European Union media literacy initiatives were established, Hungary promoted media education in schools. The 2009 study reported that Hungary scored in the middle of the use skills and communicative abilities categories as well as in the media literacy context category but its availability of media score was at the lowest “basic level.” In an interview with Zsuzsa Kozak, one of the shapers of Hungarian media literacy curriculum and the president of the nonprofit, Visual World Foundation, she explained that Hungarian national curriculum focuses on the critical thinking components of media education because economic conditions restrict schools’ access to technology. 159 According to the E.U. Country Profile on Hungary in 2007, while 97 percent of households had at least one television, only 36 percent of households had at least one computer and 32 percent had Internet connections. The report found that access to media education training and institutional and government support for the subject matter remained strong but that education suffered from two major weaknesses. First the report found that many teachers rejected the study of popular culture and tended to have a protectionist outlook on studying media. The report states, teachers “take the teaching of the traditional subjects as the core of their responsibilities, showing their pupil that they can be manipulated by the media and the news.” 160 This aligns with Imre’s findings that an overemphasis on art film promotes European quality while marginalizing the significance of popular media. The report also found a “step-by-step destruction of film education” in which teachers did not go to the cinema and therefore could not 161 continue to equip students with thorough analytics lessons. The section concludes by stating that because the subject matter is required teachers discuss it but do so with little effort. 161 Therefore there seems to be strong support from “above” for the subject matter coming from both the European Union and Hungarian governments; however, the translation from policy to practice faces challenges that include, economic and resource restraints as well as a focus on seemingly contradicting values—European art films and popular culture. Popular culture has been emphasized as a subject matter that should be studied with protectionist lenses against globalizing media influences as opposed to a subject worthy of politico- economic and socio-cultural discussions. Conclusion Hungary demonstrates a more protectionist media literacy policy that safeguards its own national and European values while the United Kingdom media literacy policy tends to focus on digital literacy and the practical use skills necessary to compete in the global media economy. Both concerns reside within the European Union media literacy policy and both concerns have major impacts on the respective countries and pan-European economy. The member states coordinate efforts through the European Union to protect their own media industries against the globalizing processes and open markets. At the same time, the European Union must also foster these media industries to compete in these global open markets. Media literacy policy both elevates a European cultural education at the same time that it provokes youth to question and critically examine popular media from the United States and 162 other non-European countries with strong media industries. Media literacy policy does not, however, inhibit media industry operations because it relies on citizens to self-regulate their own media intake. Since the European Union exists as a fledgling supranational governance during this neoliberal period, the lack of historical connections citizens feel towards the government makes it challenging to entice them to participate. In order to procure legitimacy for its economic policies the European Union needs citizen affirmation. The current economic crisis causes even more schisms between socially, culturally, economically and politically different nation-states, at the same time citizens of these nation-states feel even less support for this distant regulatory body. Media literacy policy therefore becomes a solution that fosters a European identity through the promotion of European cultural products. It also cultivates civic engagement by young people through the advancement of communication abilities. Complex economic and cultural motivations have furthered the promotion of media literacy in the European Union among citizens at the same time it has ostracized those who do not belong due to their nationalities, race, gender and or religion by creating a media literacy framework that does not address these issues. However, because these issues are prevalent in society, they are also extremely prevalent in media representations, regulation and labor and therefore need to be inserted into the E.U. media literacy policy, framework and research. Nevertheless, the policy and corresponding research have made important strides in promoting and defining this subject matter in member states and abroad. 163 The nonprofits, academics, practitioners and industry professionals that have collaborated through publications, conferences and research projects have created a media literacy policy that incorporates various individual and environmental factors that affect media literacy with regard to both audiovisual and new media technologies. And certain studies, such as the CHICAM study moved beyond notions of legal citizenship as the defining factor in civic engagement and instead see this type of education as a way to further more cultural understandings and interactions beyond borders. The close relationship within the European Union between practitioners, scholars and policymakers helps advance a more complex and thoughtful media literacy policy in comparison to the technological literacy policy currently residing in the United States. Though this policy needs to examine the larger societal issues and histories that affect media literacy, which should shed light on the problematic Eurocentric rationales and motivations for media literacy, the large network that impact how this policy gets researched, written and translated keep these policy documents from relying on the same technological determinist arguments that overwhelm U.S. policy discussions about technology and education, while still showcasing the importance of media and technology in the twenty-first century. 164 Chapter Three Endnotes 1 Paolo Celot, ed., Study Assessment Criteria for Media Literacy Levels: Final Report (Brussels: EAVI, 2009), 4. 2 David Morley and Kevin Robins, Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries (London, UK: Routledge, 1995), 2. 3 Ibid., 51. 4 Ibid., 5. 5 Fatima El-Tayeb, “The Birth of the European Public: Migration, Postnationality and Race in the Uniting of Europe,” American Quarterly 60, no. 3 (2008): 649-660. 6 European Commission, “Youth in Action Programme: Programme Priorities,” European Commission, accessed April 11, 2012, http://ec.europa.eu/youth/youth-in-action- programme/programme-priorities_en.htm. 7 Sonia Livingstone, “Children and their Changing Media Environment,” in Children and Their Changing Media Environment: A European Comparative Study, eds. Sonia Livingstone and Moira Bovill (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001), 316. 8 Ibid., 312. 9 Ibid., 309. 10 “Appendix B: Children and Parents Online by Country,” in <kids online> Opportunities and Risks for Children, eds. Sonia Livingstone and Leslie Haddon (Bristol, UK: Polity Press, 2009), 254. 11 Livingstone, “Children and their Changing Media Environment,” 321. 12 Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large (Minnesota, MN: Minnesota University Press, 1996), 4. 13 Arjun Appadurai, Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 22. 14 Cris Shore, “Whither European Citizenship?: Eros and Civilization Revisited,” European Journal of Social Theory 7, no. 27 (2004): 29 15 Jurgen Habermas, “Making Sense of the EU; Toward a Cosmopolitan Europe,” Journal of Democracy 14, no. 4 (2003): 96. 16 Ibid., 654-655. 17 Philip Schlesinger, “A Cosmopolitan Temptation,” European Journal of Communication 22 (2007): 413. 165 18 Liza Tsaliki, “The Construction of European Identity and Citizenship Through Cultural Policy,” in European Studies: Media and Cultural Policy in the European Union, 24, ed. Katherine Sarikakis (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007), 158. 19 Ibid., 33. 20 Ibid., 33. 21 Ibid., 38. 22 Schlesinger, “A Cosmopolitan Temptation,” 420. 23 El-Tayeb, “The Birth of the European Public,” 650. 24 Ibid., 651-652. 25 Aniko Imre, Identity Games: Globalization and the Transformation of Media Cultures in the New Europe (Boston, MA: MIT Press, 2009), 38. 26 Ibid., 36. 27 Ibid., 37, 51. 28 Peter North, “Should Crisis-Hit Countries Leave the Eurozone?” Economic Sociology_The European Electronic Newsletter 12. no. 2 (2011): 23. 29 Ibid., and James Surowiecki, “An Avoidable Crisis,” The New Yorker, Dec 5, 2011, accessed April 1, 2012, http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2011/12/05/111205ta_talk_surowiecki. 30 Brigitte Young, “Economic Governance in the Eurozone: A New Dawn?” Economic Sociology_The European Electronic Newsletter 12. no. 2 (2011): 12. 31 Young, “Economic Governance in the Eurozone,” 11. 32 Paul Krugman, “The Lesser Depression,” The New York Times, July 21, 2011, accessed April 1, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/opinion/22krugman.html. 33 Virginie Mamadouh, and Herman Van Der Wusten, “Financial, Monetary and Governance Crisis: An Outlook on the Euro(zone),” Tijdscrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 102, no. 1 (2011): 112. 34 North, “Should Crisis-Hit Countries Leave the Eurozone?”, and Douglas Dalby, “Growing Antitax Stoicism Wearing Thin,” The New York Times, March 19, 2012, accessed April 2, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/world/europe/growing-antitax-movement-shows-irish-stoicism- wearing-thin.html. 35 Rachel Donadio, “Greek Voters Punish 2 Main Parties For Economic Collapse,” The New York Times, May 6, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/world/europe/greeks-vote-in- parliamentary-elections.html. 166 36 “Martin Schulz: Different cultures are Europe’s Great Heritage,” Euronews, March 22, 2012, http://www.euronews.com/2012/03/22/martin-schulz-different-cultures-are-europe-s-great-heritage/. 37 David Morley, Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity (New York, NY: Routledge, 2000), 260. 38 Ibid., 106. 39 Ibid., 112. 40 Ibid., 122-123, 156-157. 41 Ibid., 260. 42 Katherine Sarikakis, “Mediating Social Cohesion: Media and Cultural Policy in the European Union and Canada,” European Studies 24 (2007): 65-90. 43 Hedwig de Smaele, “More Europe, More Unity, More Diversity? The Enlargement of European Audiovisual Space,” European Studies 22: 119. 44 Peter Lunt and Sonia Livingstone, Media Regulation: Governance and the Interests of Citizens and Consumers (London, UK: Sage Publications, 2012), 31. 45 Ibid., 31. 46 Stylianos Papathanassopoulos and Ralph Negrine, European Media: Structures, Policies and Identity (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2011), 65-66. 47 Ibid., 94-95. 48 Jeremy Tunstall, The Media were American (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008), 274. 49 Toby Miller et al., Global Hollywood 2 (London, UK: British Film Institute, 2005), 85. 50 Ibid., 86. 51 Ibid., 86. 52 Ibid., 89. 53 Papathanassopoulos and Negrine, European Media, 102. 54 Ibid., 101. 55 de Smaele, “More Europe, More Unity, More Diversity?”, 123. 56 Papathanassopoulos and Negrine, European Media, 100-101. 57 de Smaele, “More Europe, More Unity, More Diversity?”, 125. 167 58 Papathanassopoulos and Negrine, European Media, 71. 59 European Commission, “Media: Europe Loves Cinema,” European Commission Media, accessed February 6, 2012, http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/index_en.htm. 60 David Oswell, “Media and Communications Regulation and Child Protection: An Overview of the Field,” in International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture, eds. Sonia Livingstone and Kristen Drotner (London, UK: Sage, 2008), 480. 61 Ibid., 480. 62 Ibid., 481. 63 European Parliament and the Council of the European Union, “Directive 2010/13/EU of the European Parliament and the Council of 10 March 2010,” Official Journal of European Union (2010): 7 para. 60. 64 Eva Lievens, Jos Dumortier, and Patrick S. Ryan, “The Co-Protection of Minors in New Media: A European Approach to Co-Regulation,” UC Davis Journal of Juvenile Law & Policy 10, no. 1 (2006): 98. 65 Ibid., 121. 66 Ibid., 137-138. Viviane Reding, European Commissioner responsible for Education and Culture, Minors and Media: Towards a More Effective Protection (Brussels: September 10, 2003), 2. 67 Lunt and Livingstone, Media Regulation, 127. 68 Matteo Zacchetti, in discussion with the author, January 30, 2012. 69 Lunt and Livingstone, Media Regulation, 124. 70 Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Study on Current Trends and Approaches to Media Literacy in Europe (2007), 1, accessed August 5, 2010, http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/literacy/studies/index_en.htm. 71 UNESCO, “Grunwald Declaration on Media Education,” accessed August 10, 2010, http://www.unesco.org/education/pdf/MEDIA_E.PDF. 72 Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Study on Current Trends, 11-12. 73 Lunt and Livingstone, Media Regulation,124. 74 Matteo Zacchetti interview. 75 Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona “Media Literacy Profile Europe,” Study on Current Trends and Approaches to Media Literacy in Europe (2007), 4-5. 168 76 European Commission, “Report on the Results of the Public Consultation on Media Literacy,” 3, accessed August 5, 2010, http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/literacy/consultation/consultation2006_en.htm. 77 European Commission, “Media Literacy Questionnaire” (2006), 1, accessed August 5, 2010, http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/literacy/consultation/consultation2006_en.htm. 78 European Commission, “Public Consultation on Media Literacy,” 6. 79 Ibid., 8. 80 Ibid., 9. 81 European Commission, “Media Literacy Questionnaire,” 3. 82 European Commission, “Public Consultation on Media Literacy,” 16. 83 Ibid., 18. 84 Ibid., 19. 85 Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Study on Current Trends, 49. 86 Ibid., 2. 87 Ibid., 39. 88 Ibid., 34-35. 89 Morley and Robins, 202. 90 Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Study on Current Trends, 60. 91 Ibid., 86. 92 Celot, Study Assessment Criteria, 4 (parenthesis in original). 93 Ibid., 69-70. 94 Ibid., 12. 95 Ibid., 9. 96 David Buckingham, in Lunt and Livingstone, Media Regulation,136. 97 Celot, Study Assessment Criteria, 46. 98 Ibid., 41. 99 EAVI, “EAVI: About Us,” accessed February 21, 2012, http://www.eavi.eu/joomla/about-us. 169 100 Liesbeth de Block and David Buckingham, Global Children, Global Media: Migration, Media and Childhood (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 94. 101 EAVI, “EAVI’s Mission and Background,” accessed February 21, 2012, http://www.eavi.eu/joomla/about-us/mission. 102 Ibid. 103 EAVI, “EAVI: Collection of Citizen Signatures,” accessed February 21, 2012, http://www.eavi.eu/joomla/component/content/article/41/66-collection-of-citizens-signatures. 104 de Block and Buckingham, Global Children, ix-x. 105 Ibid., 95. 106 Ibid., 98-108. 107 Ibid., 101. 108 Sarikakis, “Mediating Social Cohesion,” 80. 109 de Block and Buckingham, Global Children, 177-194. 110 Ibid., 174. 111 Ibid., 174. 112 Ibid., 176. 113 Liesbeth de Block and David Buckingham, “Children in Communication about Migration: Final Report,” EU Research Science and Humanities (Luxemburg: Office of Official Publications for European Communities, 2007), 139. 114 Ibid., 139. 115 Ibid., 140. 116 Ibid., 140. 117 See Renato Rosaldo, “Cultural Citizenship in San Jose, California,” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 17, no. 2 (1994), and Garcia Canclini, Consumers and Citizens: Globalization and Multicultural Conflicts, trans. George Yudice (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 2001). 118 EAVI and Danish Technological Institute, “Testing and Refining Criteria to Assess Media Literacy Levels in Europe: Final Report,” European Commission (2011), 1. 119 Ibid., 42-43. 170 120 Lunt and Livingstone, Media Regulation, vii. 121 Ibid., 26. 122 Ibid., 30. 123 Ibid., 27. 124 Ibid., 29. 125 Ibid., 120. 126 Ibid., 120. 127 Ibid., 121. 128 OfCom, quoted in Lunt and Livingstone, Media Regulation, 122. 129 Ibid., 119, 122. 130 Celot, Study Assessment Criteria, 71. 131 Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, “Country Profile, United Kingdom, V4.0”, Study on Current Trends and Approaches to Media Literacy in Europe (2007), 4-5. 132 Ibid. 133 Digital Britain 2009 Report, quoted in Lunt and Livingstone, 132. 134 Digital Britain 2010 Report, quoted in Lunt and Livingstone, 132. 135 Lunt and Livingstone, Media Regulation, 132-133. 136 Ibid., 133. 137 Ibid., 134. 138 Ibid., 139. 139 Andras Lanczi and Patrick O’Neil, “Pluralization and the Politics of Media Change in Hungary,” in Post-Communism and the Media in Eastern Europe, ed. Patrick O’Neil (London, UK: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1997), 84. 140 Ibid., 84. 141 Ibid., 88. 142 Alison Harcourt, “The Regulation in Media Markets in Selected EU Accession States in Central and Eastern Europe,” European Law Journal 9, no. 3 (2003): 328. 171 143 Ibid., 329. 144 Chris Bryant, “Hungary Passes Controversial Media Law,” Financial Times, December 21, 2010. 145 John Downey, “Full of Eastern Promise? Central and Eastern European Media after 1989,” in Electronic Empires: Global Media and Local Resistance, ed. Daya Kishan Thussu (London, UK: Arnold, 1998), 59. 146 Ibid., 56. 147 Ibid., 58, and Anna Lubecka, “Economic, Sociocultural, and Technological Contexts in the New Europe,” in Culture @nd Technology in the New Europe: Civic Discourse in Transformation in Post- Communist Nations, ed. Laura Lengel (Connecticut: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 2000), 34-35. 148 Ibid., 43. 149 Imre, Identity Games, 39, and John Horvath, “Alone in the Crowd: The Politics of Cybernetic Isolation,” in Culture @nd Technology in the New Europe: Civic Discourse in Transformation in Post-Communist Nations, ed. Laura Lengel (Connecticut: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 2000), 78. 150 Imre, Identity Games, 36. 151 Ibid., 37. 152 Harcourt, “The Regulation in Media Markets,” 329. 153 Imre, Identity Games, 37. 154 Ibid., 41. 155 Ibid., 42. 156 Ibid., 42. 157 Ibid., 43. 158 Ibid., 44. 159 Zsuzsa Kozak, discussion with author, April 30, 2010. 160 Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, “Country Profile, Hungary, V4.0,” Study on Current Trends and Approaches to Media Literacy in Europe (2007), 4. 161 Ibid., 4. 172 Chapter Four Institutions and Media Education From this project, I learned how to get my voice heard by the community. — AYV Youth 1 As U.S. media literacy policy remains stagnant, organizations and private programs continue to crop up to engage youth in media literacy and creative production. 2 Federal and state government officials rely on nonprofit and corporate support to carryout their technological literacy goals while also providing these organizations and programs with the freedom to define their own conceptions of media and digital literacy. Due to the dynamic ever-changing quality of media and technology and the loose definitions prescribed to media and digital literacy, programs vary in concentration, motives and priorities. Yet, these programs aim for the same goal—media comprehension among youth. All three sectors, government, corporate and nonprofit, play a role in media and digital education. I investigate two different media and digital literacy programs from California’s Silicon Valley, an area heavily saturated with media influences and where both the need for such programs and the resources necessary to carry them out are more visible than in other parts of the country. Both programs rely on institutional support and collaboration between at least two of the three sectors. I examine a public school digital art class in the Los Altos School District and Adobe Youth Voices, a corporate social responsibility program specializing in youth digital 173 production, established by Adobe Systems, the digital software company. Taking into account how these programs are funded and supported, where their resources come from and how they operate, I employ methods of policy document and public relations textual analysis, and interviews. I explore these case studies within the larger institutional context of how government relies on nonprofits and corporations as deregulation affects education. Since the 1970s, the politico-economic and socio-cultural policies and practices implemented in the United States have been referred to as neoliberalism. Due to the politico-economic and socio-cultural ramifications caused by media and digital technology literacy, the institutions that educate about and with media and digital technology do so within a neoliberal environment. This does not mean that in all instances these programs support neoliberal tendencies, but they cannot escape them either when their primary subject matter and tools are so embedded within this economic and cultural structure. Just as Mizuko Ito argues in her book Engineering Play that education software cannot radically change the education system because new technologies are not created outside of existing structures but deeply rooted within them, 3 I too argue that these media literacy institutions are made up of technologies and funding that are part of the neoliberal system, and consequently, must negotiate their existence within the system. At the same time after investigating these organizations, I contend that these programs tend to question the status quo to varying degrees, as the quote at the beginning of chapter demonstrates, because of the emphasis they give to media production and youth empowerment. Similarly, 174 Brian Goldfarb argues that though media education programs cannot exist outside of institutional support, youth subcultures can form. 4 I will unpack the complexities intrinsic in the practice of media and digital literacy from three different institutional perspectives to demonstrate how these programs both promote and subvert the politico-economic and socio-cultural structure through their operating methods and education. Corporate and Nonprofit Involvement in a Neoliberal Environment Neoliberal strategies and ways of thinking impact how government, corporations and nonprofits interact, therefore, an overview of how these three sectors operate within a neoliberal structure provides context for these specific case studies. Ito argues that “broader institutional and business contexts” shed light on media meanings. 5 I would go a step further to state that they also help explain how it gets taught, consumed and used as well. Goldfarb concurs, stating, “The voice of new youth media is institutionally situated and is thus subject to the same forces of the market as adult media production.” 6 However Goldfarb does not demonstrate how the nonprofit media programs posited in his case studies directly link to the market nor does he provide the institutional forces that impact the nonprofit programs. In this chapter, I not only consider the institutions that support the media education programs but I also address the financial forces that support these institutions. I begin by providing an institutional context from which these organizations and programs operate. 175 Neoliberal practices cause the gap to widen between those that have money and those that do not, resulting in an expansion of what has commonly been referred to as the “third sector.” This sector, comprised of nonprofit programs and organizations, has taken on the responsibility of citizen welfare that the government has relinquished through deregulation. Scholars such as David Harvey and Toby Miller argue that the third sector privatizes public space. Nonprofits and CSR programs further separate individuals from the government by acting as middlemen that claim to speak on behalf of those whom they represent but often have their own private agendas and are only accountable to private donors or corporations. 7 Theorists, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri are more extreme in their disdain for nonprofits. According to Hardt and Negri, human rights NGOs find injustices according to a normalized universalizing version of morality created by those in power (otherwise known as the empire). When other nation-states or localities do not act according to this morality, the empire has reason to bring in military power. Instead of fighting or opposing the empire, NGOs further the empire’s power by identifying its reasoning and practices as necessary and righteous. 8 These scholars, like Harvey and Miller see nonprofits and CSR programs as essential beams in a neoliberal structure that must be overturned. George Yudice also agrees that the privatization of aid is problematic, but contends that Hardt and Negri’s argument is too absolutist. He provides examples of NGOs that do not always share the same moral code as those in power and often work in collaboration with the people and movements that fight against the current neoliberal system. 9 I will likewise 176 demonstrate that organizations are rarely absolute, particularly in dealing with media education. To quote Miller and Yudice in their joint earlier work, Cultural Policy, “Resistance goes nowhere unless it takes hold institutionally.” 10 Therefore, I will begin by demonstrating how and why CSR programs and nonprofits have gained such a strong foothold during this neoliberal period. Corporate philanthropy or corporate social responsibility seem like oxymorons. A corporations’ primary goal is to make money, while philanthropy’s goal is to help people, usually through money, time, and resource contributions. Why would corporations donate money and resources when they work so hard to accumulate them? In the last half of the twentieth century, corporations have institutionalized their philanthropy practices because they have found it beneficial to help, not solely for the good of society but also for the good of corporations. CSR and philanthropy programs have improved corporations’ images amongst other businesses, employees, consumers and the government. CSR programs also attempt to curtail big government by aiding in the welfare of citizens and institutions, thus allowing corporations to maintain their autonomy. This helps ensure privatization and a deregulated business environment. I will illustrate how corporate philanthropy existed before neoliberalism while also proving that neoliberal deregulation strategies have produced a greater demand for corporate philanthropy. I will also explain how deregulation of social services has influenced the quantity and stature of nonprofits and how public-private partnerships in the nonprofit sector have resulted 177 in strategies that promote nonprofit growth to make up for the loss of government support. CSR scholars credit the 1950s as the beginning of CSR programs. Scholars, Steve May, George Cheney and Julie Roper contend that economic professor, Howard. R. Bowen was one of the first to come up with the conception of CSR in 1953. He believed that because of U.S. postwar affluence, corporations needed to take on more responsibility for the welfare of the general public in order to maintain a free market system. He suggested that businesses should provide “(1) higher standards of living; (2) widespread economic progress and security; (3) order, justice and freedom; and (4) the development of the individual person”. 11 Bowen’s thinking came after influential laws were passed in support of corporate giving. While individual philanthropy evolved before the fifties, corporations were hesitant to donate to social causes because their money belonged to shareholders. Before this time, corporations contributed to fundraising campaigns, especially during war years. For example, in 1917, corporations donated at least $18 million to the Red Cross drive; however, there were no official programs set up to administer donations within companies. Narrowly defined charters kept companies from donating, unless they could prove to their shareholders that participating in charitable practices produced specific company benefits. The Revenue Act of 1935 allowed companies to deduct up to 0.5 percent of their federal pre-tax profit for donations; nonetheless, stakeholders continued to be aggravated when they could not find the direct link between charity and profit. The ambiguity of the legal statutes that either 178 allowed or prevented companies from donating cleared up in the 1950 New Jersey case, A.P. Smith Manufacturing Company v. Marlow. The shareholders of the company took A.P Smith Manufacturing, a water and gas equipment manufacturer, to court when the company decided to give $1,500 to Princeton University. The New Jersey court not only decided in favor of the corporate philanthropy practice, but also justified a broad definition of how corporate philanthropy could be administered to support higher education. Following this case, many other court cases within the United States consistently sided with corporations that wanted to participate in philanthropic activities although benefits to the corporation could not always be immediately proven. 12 Changes in laws were met by changes in the social and cultural climate that compelled more corporations to engage in philanthropy. The 1960s and 1970s, counterculture and liberal movements protested corporate and government actions that generated social and environmental injustices. Corporations, on the defensive, tried to prove their commitment to the betterment of society through philanthropic activity. Oil companies received a large portion of public criticism because of high gas prices and pollution. They had to transform their public image in order to stay in business. In some cases, major gas companies increased their donations even faster than their profit margins to help their brands at this time. In 1980, five out of the twelve of the largest corporate philanthropists were oil companies. 13 Many other businesses joined oil companies in contributing money and resources to social and cultural endeavors. Corporate philanthropy increased from $252 million in 1950 to 179 $482 million in 1960, jumping to $1 billion per year in the 1970s and dramatically escalating to $6 billion in the late 1980s. The 0.5 percent pre-tax donation set in 1935 was extended to two percent in the eighties, further motivating corporate philanthropy practices. 14 As the statistic above demonstrates, CSR became a major practice in the 1980s about the same time neoliberal policies were imposed by the Reagan administration in the United States. Though the Carter administration began deregulating the economy as an answer to persistent stagflation in the 1970s, it was not until Ronald Reagan defeated Carter in the 1980 presidential election that neoliberalism strategies became fully realized. Paul Volcker, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in 1979, shifted the New Deal and Keynesian economic policies, which included strong government support for citizen welfare and an assurance of employment opportunities, into a monetary strategy that could put a stop to inflation. He did this by noticeably increasing the interest rates, which went from negative digits to about 20 percent in July of 1981. 15 This caused massive amounts of unemployment, bankruptcies and people unable to pay their mortgages. 16 According to Harvey, the Reagan administration reappointed Volcker to continue implementing his economic policy, which they supported politically through “further deregulation, tax cuts, budget cuts and attacks on trade unions and professional power.” 17 While corporate taxes were cut drastically, so was the minimum wage. In 1980 the minimum wage was at the poverty level and by 1990 it had fallen thirty percent below it. 18 Clear advantages for the upper classes can be drawn from the 180 implementation of politico-economic neoliberal policies that furthered the divide between the upper and lower classes. Because state-supported programs have been dismantled or privatized, those with little access to the market are not compensated by the state. And at the same time the market cannot secure the welfare of everyone, consequently corporate philanthropy and nonprofit organizations have taken on the responsibility of providing for society. Milton Friedman, one of the major proponents and forces behind the implementation of neoliberal economic policies, discouraged CSR because it could not produce a direct connection to the company’s profit accumulation and hence, it was not in the best interest of the company’s shareholders. He held steadfast to the market as the ultimate guide to social good. 19 However, in practice neoliberalism has proven that if the government and the market cannot ensure the welfare of people then another entity must step in. Toby Miller argues, “The corollary of open markets is that national governments cannot guarantee the economic well-being of their citizens.” 20 Therefore, the state acts in accordance with neoliberal procedures by doling out its responsibility to provide public welfare for its citizens to private groups. Corporations are further motivated to continue their philanthropic actions to make certain that the government does not take on a stronger role of intervention and regulation. In the 1970s, according to Harvey, the capitalist class (including CEOs and corporate executives) needed to spread neoliberal theory within U.S. society in a way that was not propagandistic but seemed almost natural. As stated earlier, the 1970s 181 was a time of protest and distrust in government and corporations. The movements were varied, ranging from anti-war protests to civil rights issues, and while many of the movements called for social justice, tensions existed between the collective leftist movements and the student movements that emphasized individual rights. Harvey argues that neoliberal enthusiasts were able to ally with those frustrated by the government’s actions and inactions, by underscoring how the government impeded individual liberties. 21 According to corporate philanthropy scholar, Jerome Himmelstein, the corporate class also became aggressive in their tactics to create a politico-economic and social climate that upheld corporate autonomy. They set up public affairs offices in Washington D.C., became involved in political advocacy for business interests, established political organizations like the Business Roundtable, and donated heavily to the Republican candidates that supported corporate interests. Conservative capitalists, for the most part, supported corporate philanthropy and nonprofit work because the market alone could not guarantee societal well being, and they wanted to avoid big government at all costs. In 1981, The Business Roundtable, issued a statement endorsing corporate philanthropy, “Accordingly if the business community is serious in seeking to stem over-dependence on government and still allow the private-not-for-profit sector to make the same contribution to society that it has in the past, business must itself increase its level of commitment.” 22 The nonprofit sector required the support of private business during this period because Reagan cut social welfare programs and spending while he furthered 182 the divide between rich and poor through his neoliberal initiatives. Lester Salamon explains how the government put the nonprofit sector in a challenging position by cutting welfare budgets and relying on nonprofits to assume control of social services. He writes, “Suddenly, attention to the nonprofit sector and philanthropy became a central part of the policy dialogue, even though conservative politicians had overlooked the inconvenient fact that the nonprofit organizations they were championing were funded largely by the very government social welfare programs they were cutting.” 23 At this time government increased health and pension support, but it cut programs specifically targeting the poor, including many social services. According to Kristen Gronbjerg and Lester Salamon’s statistics, by the mid-nineties the real value of government support was down 19 percent from its 1980 level in education and social service, down 17 percent in international aid and down 42 percent in the field of community development. 24 Besides cutting funds for nonprofits, the government also encouraged for-profits to take part in contract work for government agencies, which created competition for the nonprofit agencies accustomed to receiving government grants. In many cases, the limited resources and funds positioned nonprofits at a disadvantage when competing with for-profit companies. Beginning in the eighties and continuing through the nineties, the government cut “producer-side” financial support and increased “consumer-side” subsidies. These subsidies included vouchers that go directly to the consumer instead of helping to support nonprofit organizations that provide services for people. In 1986, 70 percent of federal aid went to consumer-side programs, again opening 183 nonprofits up to competition from for-profit businesses. Such strategies are in line with neoliberal theory that emphasizes individual choice and competition. 25 The Reagan administration tried to motivate corporate philanthropy and donations by allowing companies to deduct up to ten percent of their federal pre-tax profit (initially at two percent) for donations, illustrating the government’s support for private-public partnerships. 26 The changes in the federal government’s assistance plan forced nonprofits to look to the for-profit sector for support. The deregulation of social services by the federal government caused more people to live below the poverty level at the same time that the nonprofit organizations with corporate support supplanted the government’s responsibility for ensuring the welfare of U.S. citizens. Though the government’s social budget cuts impacted nonprofit funding (and forced many of them to make corporate connections), a proliferation of nonprofit organizations materialized in the last thirty years due to the implementation of neoliberal policies. The nonprofit sector grew 42 percent from 1977 to 1997, with a 51 percent increase in social service organizations (which received major government budget cuts). 27 According to Gronbjerg and Salamon this growth is attributed to “the new market-oriented funding streams that came to dominate this period.” 28 The nonprofit sector’s collaboration and reliance on the business sector not only provided another funding source but also contributed to structural and cultural changes that have impacted the sector’s growth. Nonprofits have acquired business personnel and resources that have helped streamline their practices. Corporations 184 offer financial expertise, management and organizational strategies, and training in effectiveness and efficiency. 29 Besides monetary donations and infrastructure help, corporations also provide meeting spaces, advertising assistance and publicity. 30 Due to the loss of government support, for-profit competition, and for-profit collaboration, Dennis Young and Lester Salamon argue, “Nonprofits are internalizing the culture and techniques of market organizations and making them their own.” 31 This results in both infrastructural and cultural changes. With regard to management, traditional nonprofits were usually run by professionals in the fields of the nonprofit’s specialty, such as art, science, media, and etc. Now nonprofit management education has become a prominent discourse in universities and a respected career choice. Because many of these university programs include business management education, for-profit language and practices come with the newly trained managers. “Nonprofit organizations are increasingly encouraged to identify their market niches, to maximize their comparative advantages, to think of their clients as customers, to devise marketing plans, and to engage in strategic planning.” 32 The change in managerial staff and the marketing language and practices has resulted in more efficiency, assessment and cost-effective procedures. Venture philanthropy is one example of how the nonprofit sector has become more market-oriented. Instead of being concerned with investments in capital, these philanthropists are interested in social investments, consequently, they measure their investments similar to market investors, figuring out the risk and return on funding social projects. 33 Nonprofit growth has also occurred through “cause-related” 185 marketing in which a corporation uses a nonprofit’s name to sell a commercial product in exchange for a portion of the proceeds. Corporate partnerships have provided nonprofits with financial support and market strategies that have resulted in their growth. However, its important to remember, while nonprofits continue to proliferate during this market-centered period, certain risks involved in aligning with businesses exist, such as jeopardizing social missions and losing public credibility. 34 Nonetheless, the partnerships and collaboration with private businesses have aided in nonprofit growth at a time when deregulation of social, cultural and welfare programs cause a greater need for such organizations. The networks created between the three sectors have different implications on each case study. Though my first case study is on a digital art class in a public school district, the reliance on nonprofit support for the program underpins Harvey’s argument that neoliberal privatization policies support the affluent. Nonetheless, the teacher’s education strategies challenge social hierarchies by providing children with production capabilities normally reserved for adults. The second case study on Adobe Youth Voices demonstrates how the relationship between the corporation and its CSR program is mutually beneficial. Adobe projects its corporate brand and advertises its software at the same time AYV relies on financial and resource support from its parent company. Yet AYV fosters youth individual and societal activism through media making. In these case studies, I will pinpoint the complexities of different institutional media education programs in order to complicate the 186 arguments that these programs simply sustain the social order, while also acknowledging how these programs are reliant on certain neoliberal practices. Digital Design Sheena Vaidyanathan created a digital design course for fourth, fifth and sixth graders in the Los Altos School District in Northern California. The course teaches children how to use new media software to create art projects. It is part of a traveling arts block that includes dramatic arts, musical instruments, visual arts and physical education. These courses are each taught by a single teacher who travels to all seven middle schools in the district. Vaidyanathan teaches each class of less than thirty students once a week for forty minutes and sees 500 students a week. The art block was put together for the 2009-2010 school year, by Jeffery Baier, the assistant Superintendent in charge of curriculum of the Los Altos School District and paid for by the Los Altos Educational Foundation (LAEF). 35 I will deconstruct how Digital Design was established, funded, taught and almost dismantled to demonstrate the importance of institutional support, even in a government-supported public school district. Vaidyanathan, a computer scientist, left her job working for a Silicon Valley firm to study art, her other passion. She soon began volunteering at the Los Altos elementary schools as an art docent and eventually landed the art teacher position at Almond Elementary School. Along with teaching watercolor, acrylics and clay, she began to teach a unit on digital art in the computer lab since she had a background in computer science. Students and parents provided the school with positive feedback 187 about the digital art unit. The principal of the school at the time, Baier, entrusted her with a GATE (gifted and talented enrichment) course to teach to an after-school group of about ten accelerated and interested students. Baier was promoted to assistant superintendent in charge of curriculum for the district and continued to keep in contact with Vaidyanathan, who meanwhile, stopped teaching art after a year because the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) at Almond could no longer afford the art program. During this time, art programs varied from school to school in the district since they were paid for by each school’s PTA program. Baier came up with the 2009-2010 arts block idea because he realized that schools struggled to maintain their own visual arts programs at the same time that LAEF, a nonprofit that was set up by the parents to supplement government funding, supported the music and physical education programs for the entire district. LAEF agreed to support his new initiative for block courses and Vaidyanathan was brought in to teach the digital art component, titled Digital Design. 36 The Setting The Los Altos School District exists in one of the most affluent and educated areas in the country. According to the 2010 Census report, between 2005-2009, the median price for a house in Los Altos was $1,000,001, which was more than double the median price for a home in all of California, which was $479,200. The median household income, $155,466, was almost triple the median household income in California, $60,392. The population statistics states that 76.8 percent of people living in Los Altos have at least a Bachelor’s degree while only 29.7 percent of those who 188 reside in California have obtained a Bachelor’s degree. The percentage of white and Asian people, 70.6 percent and 23.5 percent surpass Californian averages, 57.6 percent and 13 percent while the percentage of Latino, 3.9 percent, and black people .5 percent are relatively low compared to California’s averages, 37.6 percent and 6.2 percent. The average number of people living in poverty is also lower in Los Altos, 2.1 percent in comparison to California’s average of 13.2 percent. 37 These statistics posit the Los Altos population as one of the least diverse and yet most affluent and educated populations in California. Los Altos therefore becomes an ideal area to examine how an exclusive nonprofit can be set up to support education when the government cannot provide enough support—but the parents can. The importance of digital technology and media are also prioritized in Los Altos, which is a residential city within the heart of Silicon Valley, otherwise known as Santa Clara County. Silicon Valley exists between San Jose and San Francisco, and is the headquarters for many digital and internet companies, including Adobe Systems, Apple, Google, Oracle, and Facebook to name a few. According to education scholar, Larry Cuban, in 2000, of the 1.5 million people who live in Santa Clara County, one in six of them worked in the “multibillion-dollar, microelectronics industry.” 38 Cuban states that this area is home to many who work beyond the normal 40-hour week because they are devoted to their jobs. After researching vignettes and books on software engineers, venture capitalist and computer programmers, Cuban concludes that this syllogism best represents the ethos for Silicon Valley workers, “Change makes a better society; technology brings about 189 change; therefore, technology brings about change.” 39 Cuban argues that “the ethos of wealth, workaholism, and faith in technological progress” not only exists within these digital technology companies but in the society that surrounds them, including the homes and schools within the Valley. 40 According to the statistics and setting, many of the parents in the Los Altos School District are educated and work at various media and technology firms in the area. Ito explains that until the nineties, children from college-educated families usually had the least amount of contact with media, but since the nineties the opposite has become true. She cites a study conducted in 2004 on children’s media, which states that children from college-educated families have the highest level of media use. 41 She contends: The rise of more complex forms of media that has come with the digital age and the proliferation of sophisticated new series in television is tied to a cultural shift in how families value and manage both media and their children’s exposure to these media. 42 The Digital Design course has therefore come at a time and in a geographical location in which its cultural merits are understood by parents in search of enrichment courses that have the potential to bolster their children’s education. Nonprofit Parental Support LAEF was founded in 1982 due to major California State budget cutbacks in education and the recession. 43 In California, Proposition 13 passed a few years before in 1978. According to Cuban, this proposition, “Radically reduced taxes on property and therefore the monies for public schools, and moved funding authority 190 from local school boards to the governor and legislature.” 44 LAEF is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that is made up of parents from the district. Three parent volunteers from each of the district’s schools constitute the voting board members and donations come primarily from the parents of students. The suggested donation for each student is $1,000 but any donation, no matter how small is accepted. 45 Often companies in Silicon Valley, where these parents are employees (such as Adobe) have matching donation programs in which businesses will match the donation given to LAEF by their employees. 46 Each year LAEF decides, with input from parent surveys and principal reports, how best to use their monies to fill in the gap between state-funding and sustaining school programs. The nonprofit pays for district-wide electives and enrichment programs such as physical education and library services, while also maintaining small class sizes. 47 For the 2011-2012 school year LAEF aims to raise $2.35 million to keep class sizes under 30, fund enrichment programs and pay 40 teacher salaries. 48 While this nonprofit was created with the best intentions to support children’s education, it privatizes public education. Due to neoliberal deregulatory strategies and lighter property taxes, the affluent residents of Los Altos are able to focus their donations on their own children’s education and receive tax breaks for it, while parents in poorer communities cannot provide this type of support to their school districts, therefore enlarging the gap between the wealthy and the poor. LAEF demonstrates how nonprofit organizations support neoliberal policies by privatizing public education for those that can afford it at the same time that it demonstrates how reliant the government is on such organizations 191 to supplement its support—particularly, when it comes to ensuring students get the attention they need in small class sizes and obtaining a cultural education through “enrichment” programs, such as the digital art program. Besides the support that the schools in Los Altos receive from LAEF, schools also receive funding from the PTA, further creating the divide between this district's schools and those solely supported by the government. The PTA at each school is in charge of raising funds for their own respective school supplies and equipment, such as computers. 49 The PTA funding comes from parents and fundraising events that they plan; hence, parents are pressured to fund both their school’s PTA and the district's LAEF in Los Altos. According to Vaidyanathan, all of the elementary schools that she teaches in have computer labs with Apple computers, along with laptop carts of about 30 computers that travel to classrooms. Most of the computers are new and updated and the labs have a technician who monitors and helps with computer use. The lab technician also teaches the first and second graders introductory computer skills, such as typing; however, there are no other computer classes at the school besides the courses that Vaidyanathan teaches. Teachers are encouraged to use the lab and laptop cart when they teach traditional subject matter. According to Cuban, during the nineties, computers had infiltrated the classrooms in the Silicon Valley from kindergarten through university but schools were not equipped socially, culturally, economically or politically to transform with the technology, therefore, technology was not being used to its fullest capacity in the classroom. 50 The Digital Design course utilizes computers for more than just typing 192 machines and tools to supplement traditional courses; however, it cannot exist without PTA and LAEF financial support. This type of spending becomes the shortcut to financially funding schools for a cultural computer education that enriches and empowers privileged youth. Coursework The Digital Design program is made up of three different courses that Vaidyanathan refers to as RGB, which is based on the color model that she teaches to the fourth graders. Track Red is for fourth graders at the seven schools in the district. She teaches them 2D design through Inkscape, free downloadable software that is similar to Adobe’s Illustrator. All of the software she uses is free so that it does not cost the school anything, nor does it put pressure on parents if their children choose to continue to use the programs at home. She teaches students simple elements of art such as lines, shapes and colors through in-class exercises while also teaching them computer skills. She then assigns different projects to her students based on using the simple art elements that she teaches them. In Track Green, half of the fifth and sixth graders learn how to create 3D design through both Inkscape and SketchUp, a free architecture software program. Students learn how to create 3D images through vector drawing on Inkscape and move to SketchUp to create objects and housing models. In Track Blue, the other half of fifth and sixth graders learn how to use Scratch, a computer-programming software developed at MIT for young people. Students learn how to move objects and eventually program a very simple video game. 51 The three free software programs that Vaidyanathan uses come from 193 what Ito refers to as the constructionist genre because they require students to take part in media production. 52 Though Vaidyanathan does not teach media literacy in the sense that there is no critical component to her curriculum, the class goal of production through computer use challenges the notion of computers as standardization tools. As Ito states, “The construction genre represents the most profound influence of computational media learning in that it expands the range of opportunities for kids to author and reshape media worlds.” 53 According to Ito, this genre not only allows students to construct within media worlds but also positions students as producers in society. She writes, “Authoring tools are practically rather than merely symbolically antiauthoritarian; they shift the control of cultural production, allowing children not only to imagine a world where kids rule, but substantively to participate in the construction of the world.” 54 By teaching her students how to create their own houses, Vaidyanathan provides them with the skills to construct their own three-dimensional spaces by making the adult architecture program accessible to children. She is also able to teach them how to create their own video games, deconstructing the various video games that they consume. The Digital Design courses teach children not only how to use computers but how to create with them. Vaidyanathan’s curriculum could be reproduced and used in schools with less funding because of her reliance on free software, but her salary and the hardware are privately supported, therefore complicating the replication of such a program. 194 Unfortunately due to the 2011 California budget cuts, LAEF had to cut down on their support for enrichment programs because they needed to pay for more teachers in order keep class sizes under 30, therefore, the arts block was dismantled. Music and physical education continued to be paid for but the other three new programs were canceled. Even those in affluent areas are affected by governmental education budget cuts. As illustrated in Chapter Two, art does not help alleviate the discrepancy between U.S. students and their global peers who are accelerating in math and sciences because of the economic benefits for such skills in this globalized neoliberal age. Nonetheless, Vaidyanathan found a way to continue to teach her innovative program. She and the assistant superintendent came up with a proposal that LAEF decided to support—she would transform the digital art course into a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) course for sixth graders, titled CSTEM. The “C” stands for creativity, collaboration and computer science. Using multiple standard lists compiled by various government and nongovernment organizations and associations, she constructed a class that still focuses on computer programming but uses policy rhetoric to convince the parents to fund it. 55 The content has changed in minor ways to emphasize the mathematics and computer science components of computer programming, therefore transforming an art course into one that focuses on math and science. She spends more time on computer science terminology and introduces mathematic algorithms for programming but the projects are still based in creating images and constructing a videogame. 56 The 195 teacher’s ability to subvert the norm by transforming her media consuming students into media producers and to complicate STEM curriculum by including art components demonstrates how a single individual in an institution can make a difference for the privileged few that can afford it. No matter how radical her teaching strategies are, she is still reliant on her financial backers who are reliant on neoliberal policies that allow them to partially privatize their children's education. Adobe Youth Voices In contrast Adobe Youth Voices works with youth from underserved communities. It is the main philanthropy program sponsored by the Adobe Foundation, the private 501(c)3 nonprofit set up by Adobe Systems. Adobe is well known all over the world for its software programs that help design and create content across multiple media platforms. Beginning in 1982, the company set out to create software that could assist people in designing images and texts on the computer that could then be converted into print. Programs like Photoshop and Illustrator became popular design software for businesses, homes and students beginning in the eighties. From there it transitioned into programs that could design websites such as Dreamweaver and Flash. Due to their focus on design software, Adobe advertises itself as a company that specializes in branding and has recently become involved in measuring online marketing effectiveness. According to its website, the company “offer[s] customer experiences that strengthen brands and improve efficiency” and “deliver[s] and measure[s] marketing effectiveness across a wide spectrum of screens and devices.” Adobe has consequently come full circle; 196 creating the software branding tools and measuring how effectively those tools get used. As a multinational company dedicated to helping other companies with branding, it is very conscious of its own brand. Adobe markets itself as an innovative globally and socially conscience company. According to Naomi Klein, corporate branding is about more than simply advertising products; it’s about selling “ideas, attitudes, values and experiences.” 57 As a software company, Adobe upholds innovation as a constant objective in order to keep up with changing media platforms. And as a company that markets its software as tools that can be used for creative design, it must be one step ahead of its producing consumers in terms of innovation—or at least be perceived that way. Part of its trendsetter image comes from its global socially conscious work. According to their company profile, over half of its revenue comes from countries outside the United States so the company is very conscious about creating relationships abroad. 58 In 2010, Adobe was the only software company on Fortune’s list of “World’s Most Admired Companies” and made the Ethisphere Institute's list of “100 World’s Most Ethical Companies.” The company also plays a supportive role in its communities. Adobe has made Fortune’s list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” for twelve years in a row. 59 The quick snippet next to Adobe’s name on the list states, “The software firm is one of the biggest donors in Silicon Valley: Employee donations are matched dollar-for-dollar up to $5,000.” 60 Besides its social outreach, Adobe has also been a frontrunner in addressing environment change. It was the first commercial business to receive three Platinum certifications from the 197 U.S. Green Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-Existing Building program. Adobe’s environmental changes not only brand the company as socially conscious, but also as an innovative leader in its progress towards running a more sustainable business environment. 61 AYV is another component of the company’s global and local outreach that specializes in innovative media making. The CSR’s mission statement reads, “Adobe Youth Voices aims to empower youth in underserved communities around the globe with real-world experiences and 21st century tools to communicate their ideas, exhibit their potential and take action in their communities.” 62 The program includes over 500 youth media education sites in 32 countries. More than 27,000 youth and 1,500 educators in both schools and extracurricular programs have taken part in AYV services. 63 I will examine how AYV defines and teaches media education to demonstrate how its media education priorities link up with the company’s brand identity, therefore, helping to promote the brand and advertising the product. At the same time, AYV supports the type of socially active media making that challenges the neoliberal system that allows Adobe to operate in a deregulated market. AYV began in 2006 as a philanthropy whose main goal was to provide its support to other organizations that specialized in media and education. It created a partnership with five nonprofit companies that specialized in education. These organizations included iEarn, a nonprofit network of schools all over the globe that engages students and educators through Internet and new media technology activities; the Education Video Center, a filmmaking nonprofit organization in New 198 York; and Media Matters, a media exhibition group. The five organizations were required to work together to come up with a productive ways to use Adobe software for outreach; however, AYV felt that this system was inefficient. Appointing five organizations to work together and “leverage their assets,” especially when they had previously competed for grants, proved difficult. So AYV decided to pull the program “in house” and played a stronger leadership role. 64 The following year, AYV came up with a network model that it continues to build upon. iEarn was brought back into the fold, becoming AYV’s first network partner. Since then AYV has made partnerships with other organization, such as the Computer Clubhouse Network that sets up computer labs around the world and the American Indian Foundation that works to eliminate the digital divide in India by providing underserved Indians with computer hardware. Every year AYV finds new partners committed to media and education for social outreach purposes. AYV provide these partners with the software, the training, and trainers to create media education classes. A team from the Education Development Center (EDC), a global education consulting and development nonprofit, was commissioned to create the training and curriculum to correspond with the software. After the training and software goes out to these network partners, its up to the partners to run and support a yearlong course with students and educators. AYV corresponds with a coordinator at the various networks that must provide AYV with completed evaluations and the students’ projects. AYV then exhibits some of the youth work on their website, at 199 festivals and through other network partners, like PBS, that are interested in exhibiting youth media work. 65 As a CSR program, the AYV model is quite innovative. Communication scholars, Cynthia Stohl, Michael Stohl and Nikki Townsely, argue that there are four characteristics that make up the “New Generation of Global CSR”: 1. No distinction between “out there” from “in here”; 2. ‘Glocalization’ within new and old forms of media; 3. Reflections of the complex network of organizational relations across sectors rather than any particular organizations, individuals or specific interests; 4. Recognition of the permeability of public/private boundaries. 66 AYV adheres to this framework. As a multinational corporation, it fosters youth media making all over the world through its networking partners. Though its main sites exist in San Jose, Seattle, New York, London, New Delhi and Bangalore, where Adobe company offices are located, the networking partners have created programs in 29 other countries. During the AYV’s week-long Youth Summit, students and educators from all over the world are brought to San Jose to share their projects and create new ones in teams. Lynda Greene, the education consultant for AYV explained to me that one of AYV’s primary goals is to promote global awareness among the participating young people through the Summit and the exchange of youth media projects. Youth learn from each other about different areas, people, issues and ideas. She states that while technology is being promoted in policy as tools that will help American students compete globally, AYV founded by a global company, aims to demonstrate that people from other countries are not only 200 competitors but collaborators, and technology can be used for that purpose as well. 67 AYV collaborates with nonprofits, schools and the Department of Education. In partnership with Chicago public schools, AYV implements its program within the city’s technology magnet schools. The organization has also discussed how to align its program with the aims of the Department of Education. 68 AYV has created a complex network of media and education specialists and suppliers. With youth media making at the pinnacle of the organization, private and public boundaries are continually broken. The student media projects are about issues that are important to them. Often times these issues are public and private controversial issues. Students’ work showcased on the website ranges from issues in society like child labor laws in India to personal issues like one young woman’s struggle with informing her family about her sexual orientation. Part of the reason AYV is able to adhere to this CSR framework is because it focuses on media education; media tends to transgress private and public and global and local boundaries. The other main reason is due to the organization’s tagline and criteria for what constitutes youth media education. AYV uses “Create with Purpose” as the motto for its media education formula. Through the use of its curriculum and training, AYV aims to empower youth, hence, the program intends educators to use its tools and curriculum strategies to engage young people in making media projects that “[are] purposeful, designed to have an impact and affect change.” 69 Goldfarb writes about how community organizations are successful in using media education for political-conscious-raising and therapeutic purposes. He explains that these after-school programs are targeted 201 at Latino/a, African American and Chicano/a students in under-funded public schools who are disenfranchised from society. The programs teach media technology skills and critical thinking, but these educational outcomes are secondary to the political consciousness raising and psychological repair of the filmmaking process for the students. 70 Part of AYV’s aim is to provide underserved youth with the support, both technically and psychologically, so that they feel empowered to share their voices through their media projects. In the Making of Citizens, Buckingham argues: If empowerment means anything in this context [of pedagogy and media research] it must surely refer to something more than a purely psychological process—a matter perhaps, of ‘feeling good about yourself.’ On the contrary it must imply a relationship—however indirect—between watching television and some form of social or political action. 71 AYV provides youth with the action by exhibiting the often socially and environmentally active films on their website and in festivals. The organization provides them with the tools and training to communicate their messages and the outlet in which these youth’s voices can be heard. While such socially activist media education strategies are common for more autonomous nonprofit organizations (see the following chapter), such a progressive outlook is quite surprising considering that this program is funded by a corporation that relies on the existing neoliberal structure. Nonetheless, though AYV supplies students with the tools and outlet to make their voices heard, it does not actually participate in political change but rather just discusses the ideas behind such change. The students are empowered to speak, but they must go a step further on their own to 202 act. AYV’s promotion of social activism coincides with Adobe’s image of a socially and environmentally conscious corporation. Youth’s socially active media projects on the program’s website furthers their image of consciousness. Though the organization promotes youth activism, it is not clearly linked to an activism that it directed at corporate autonomy and control in the current neoliberal period. Instead Adobe’s activism is tied to consumer goods. The youth learn to rely on Adobe products to get their voices heard. Nonetheless, by politicizing youth and giving them the soapboxes and tools to be heard, AYV assists disenfranchised youth in becoming enfranchised. AYV employs the 21st Century Skills to construct its formula for media education. 72 The 21st Century Skills were developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. In 2002, the Department of Education and media corporations, AOL Time Warner Foundation, Apple Computer Inc., Cable in the Classroom, Cisco Systems, Inc., Dell Computer Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, National Education Association and SAP founded this nonprofit to further the integration of media and technology use in schools. One of Adobe’s (the corporation, not the foundation) employees is a member on the strategic council board. The Partnership provides tools and resources for K-12 by incorporating the “4Cs (critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation)” within traditional core subjects. 73 The Partnership is also a major lobbyer for policies on the federal, state and local levels that incorporate the 4Cs into school curriculum, professional training and educational environments. 74 The 4Cs come from the 203 integration of media and ICT skills into core subjects and result in the attainment of career and life skills that are necessary in the global media-saturated twenty-first century. These companies share a common desire to integrate their products into schools for financial gain at the same time that they are promoting the education of future employees in a globally competitive market. The Partnership exemplifies how a nonprofit institution gets created based on the interests of corporations to affect change on a public system. Cuban argues that the problem with the integration of media technology into the classroom is that schools have not changed their methods to foster the productive use of new equipment. Part of the problem, he believes comes from private groups, like the Partnership, who control and often constrain the policy discussions to ones of global competition, sidestepping the importance of schools as democratic institutions. 75 The Partnership has set up a plan to integrate technology into schools with a framework of key competencies that accompany technical skills, demonstrating an interest in more than simply technology integration. The partnership argues that media and ICT literacy are integral for the 4Cs; however, the weakness of the literacy presentation on the website proves the organization’s lack of attention to literacy as an important component in the implementation of its 4Cs curriculum. The link for literacy on the Partnership’s website takes one to AT&T’s page for a curriculum project created by UCLA in collaboration with the telecommunication company that has not be updated in a decade. The disorganized web page consists of links to various other websites created by other media organizations. 76 Though I do not doubt that new literacies are 204 an important part of the Partnership’s criteria, they are not clearly defined nor explained. AYV is not concerned with the Partnership’s framework for media literacy but with the 4Cs that it uses as guidelines for the media education it promotes. 77 AYV aims to promote the 4Cs through its media education curriculum and like the Partnership puts less emphasis on critical understanding of media and more emphasis on how the 4Cs can be learned through media production. Unlike the Partnership, AYV has a clear explanation of how media literacy is defined on its website, which the program obtained through collaboration with media literacy scholar, Renee Hobbs. 78 Nonetheless, both the consultant and evaluator I interviewed clearly stated that AYV was not interested in the critical components of media literacy. 79 The consultant felt uncomfortable even referring to the AYV program as a media literacy program because she believed it implied an emphasis on critical analysis instead of production. She explained that the only work that the young people view in the AYV program is work from other young participants. 80 By presenting a scholarly definition of media literacy on its site, AYV provides its organization and its education strategies an image of scholarly legitimacy. While both the Partnership and AYV emphasize critical thinking in the makeup of their 4C framework, it is not necessarily critical thinking about media that these organizations are concerned with but critical thinking as a general life skill. Part of media literacy includes examining where media comes from and the corporations behind the products. This type of education is not a priority for Adobe nor the other 205 conglomerates that created the Partnership. The companies do not want youth to necessarily question their own media consumption habits either. AYV though a separate organization from its parent company, does not want to teach subject matter than could hurt Adobe’s revenue stream because it would no longer exist. AYV consequently promotes a media education that emphasizes critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and communication as practical skills that can be taught through media production with the use of Adobe’s products. Greene, the AVY education consultant, explained that while the current emphasis on standardization and high test scores has been the focus of U.S. education policy, AYV wants educators and students to know that technology can be used to teach something different (and often contradictory)—collaboration, communication and innovation—three Cs that are at odds with individual competition and standardization but as she argues no less important in educating youth to become active participators in the world. 81 Therefore, though critical components are secondary to the other 3Cs, they still challenge the neoliberal education strategies presented in Chapter Two. AYV creates curriculum as part of its outreach program that can be utilized for branding and advertising purposes. The program employs lesson plans from the curriculum that it sends to its network partners as part of Adobe Essentials. Essentials is a free downloadable curriculum that any educator can use. Because AYV is an outreach program, it must focus on working with underserved communities. However, by posting some of its curriculum online for schools, AYV 206 can reach programs and educators who may not fit the criteria of being “underserved”. AYV reveals its program while simultaneously promoting Adobe as a company of socially responsible educators and Adobe’s products as ideal education tools. AYV has four categories of curriculum: print, video, photography and animation. Each of these categories has two, eight to thirteen-week lesson plans based on the creation of one media project. For example, in the print category, there is a lesson plan for creating photo collages; in video, a lesson plan for creating music videos; in photography, a lesson plan for digital storytelling; and in animation, a lesson plan for creating an animated video about the environment. 82 All of the lesson plans include a weekly outline of how to teach and create the media projects, as well as corresponding worksheets and training guides, links to sample projects made by other youth and exhibition suggestions. Each lesson plan corresponds with one or two Adobe software applications and comes with training sheets on how to use the software but educators can use other software if they prefer. Nonetheless, the curriculum does conveniently require Adobe software programs and thus becomes an advertisement and sample of how Adobe products are beneficial tools for education. Using the documentary plan as an example of AYV’s media education curriculum, it becomes clear that AYV addresses key components of media education but does so within the limits of the young people’s projects. Buckingham argues that media education strategies need to address, production, representation, language and audience with regard to media. 83 In eight sessions, students go through the production process of constructing a story, storyboarding, working together, 207 creating questions, shooting footage, editing, peer review and exhibition. Within these sessions media-making language gets taught, such as B-roll, rough cut, and storyboard, as well as specific editing terms that are necessary for the use of Adobe software. Representations are not explicitly discussed in this curriculum plan but in the reflection section of each week, AYV provides questions about youth perspectives that can be applied to issues of representation, such as; “Why is it important to share stories from a youth perspective? How can we ensure that the stories we tell are from a youth perspective, what distinguishes them?” 84 The reflection section also addresses audience in questions, such as “Ask your participants to think about who should hear their group’s story and why? How can they share their project to reach that audience?” 85 These media literacy components deal with the youth participants’ own projects and not other media. At the beginning of the session summaries, AYV suggests that educators refer to other documentaries as examples for student projects but does not make suggestions nor go into much detail of how examples can be integrated into the curriculum. 86 The one reflection question about other media, “Who speaks for you?” 87 , though poignant does not have any material to support or answer the question; therefore, the educator would need to do his or her own media literacy research to turn this question into an important teaching moment about media production in society. The curriculum’s focus on production addresses key media literacy components but does so without addressing and critically examining media consumed by young people. 208 Because AYV was founded by Adobe Systems, the nonprofit has access to Adobe software and is able to base its media education around it. However, like any nonprofit, AYV runs into resource problems at times. According to the evaluator, the number one complaint on evaluations is software delivery. She is not completely sure why but suggests that because AYV is providing the software for free, its orders to the company are secondary to consumer orders. AYV also encounters challenges because Adobe produces software and not hardware, so the program must rely on other organizations to contribute the hardware. This is one of the main reasons why this institution must partner up with other institutions that already have the hardware needed for its software to run. According the evaluator when AYV first began working with partners most of the organizations that it worked with had Apple computers, and Adobe programs were not compatible with Apple computers at the time. This was a hurdle they did not anticipate but figured out how to overcome. 88 Like other nonprofits, though part of a corporation, resource problems occur when outreach programs have little authority in terms of the equipment donations they receive. AYV has been evaluating the effectiveness of their program since the very beginning. A team led by Leslie Goodyear has evaluated how effective the program is based on AYV’s aims and criteria. In the first year the evaluation team did extensive case studies of programs and surveys. Since Adobe has changed the program, case studies have subsided and broad outcome surveys have become the primary form of evaluation. The evaluation team sends the surveys to the network 209 coordinators who are supposed to disperse them to the various programs that they oversee. Students and educators are supposed to rate their own selves through self- reports. The evaluations are framed by six AYV goals: • Models a comprehensive 21st century education • Increase youth access to technology • Provide training and support for educations in the use of technology • Connects with real lives of students • Increases young people’s feelings of engagement and self-worth • Provides opportunities for youth to feel valued and heard 89 According to Goodyear, AYV decided it was most interested in helping young people learn to create media and get their messages out, so though these youth may be learning critical skills along the way, AYV has no interest in measuring them. The evaluation team charts the perception that youth and educators have about how their technology skills have improved, as well as, their ability to collaborate, and feel good about the statements and messages they are making. Youth and educators answer questions based on these notions and according to Goodyear, the outcomes are incredibly positive across the board in all countries and with all network partners. She says that this is a conundrum since the outcomes are consistent no matter how different network partners implement the programs, but she has no clear diagnosis of why this is the case. Needless to say her team’s evaluations reaffirm that youth and teachers feel the process is providing them with communication, collaboration and creation skills along with feelings of self worth. 90 The AYV team does the curatorial work for their website and festivals judging the quality of the media projects based on technical innovation and personal or social statements (create with purpose). 210 Goodyear and her evaluation team would like to know if the process outcomes match the project outcomes. In other words, do the student surveys with extremely positive outcomes match the better projects? However, she says AYV is not concerned with this information, it just wants to ensure that it supports quality projects and effective education processes. 91 If AYV did study the connection between quality projects and student self reports other factors would have to be accounted for, such as whether students who have the best projects have had more technical experience before they partook in this program. By keeping both the projects and process outcomes separate AYV can demonstrate that its process works through high survey outcomes and samples of quality projects without having to be concerned with outside factors. AYV posts sample excerpts of high process outcomes and quality media projects from around the world on the website promoting its parent company’s brand as an international innovative and socially responsible company. At the same time, high outcome surveys, the use of outside evaluators, and the quality of exhibited, socially active media projects demonstrate the empowering and engaging media education coming from this organization. Conclusion Each of these media education programs ultimately provides young people with media-making skills that empower them to be producers in society, but each of these programs achieves its aims in completely different ways. Due in part to the separate institutional support, these programs employ different operating methods and teaching strategies. Often the privatized nonprofit sector can help underserved 211 communities in the example of Adobe Youth Voices and at times it can further separate the affluent from the disadvantaged in the case of the Los Altos School District. However, AYV also partially functions as an advertisement or extension of Adobe's brand, which ultimately has one priority—making money. The Digital Design course on the other hand, uses free software and therefore is not linked directly to corporate sponsors though it is supported by a nonprofit that receives contributions from companies, like Adobe. These programs demonstrate the complex organizational networks behind media education. Various organizations and people have taken it upon themselves to find ways to introduce this subject matter to young people. No systematic approach to media education exists as of yet in the United States. Instead a patchwork of programs that address a few segments of the population take on the responsibility of teaching valuable media production skills. Neoliberalism relies on segregated and fragmented groups that cannot rise up to challenge the ideology and corresponding practices in any radical way. While I agree that neoliberalism needs to be challenged systematically, small organizations’ efforts shed light on the feasibility of translating this privatized mode of education to a wider public school system. These organizations often have the flexibility to experiment in innovative ways that public education can eventually learn from. In many ways, they act like testing grounds for schools and should be studied more closely for their ability to motivate and engage youth in modes of learning. Though these organizations are small and able to rely on community and networked connections, certain methods and ways of thinking can be 212 transferred to the school classroom that help students become active culture citizens, such as an appreciation for international collaboration, use of free software and curriculum sharing, empowerment through production and exhibition methods and the employment of different areas of study and skills for a single media project. In the following chapter, I provide an in depth ethnographic study of a nonprofit organization, the Echo Park Film Center and one of its courses, “Origins,” to illustrate an actual media education process in order to demonstrate how the very application of media education strategies, if performed effectively, challenges neoliberal pedagogical strategies. While the case studies administered in this chapter tend to focus on larger institutional frameworks and influences, the following chapter concentrates on a more specific media course and its impact on students to provide a comprehensive examination of media education practice. 213 Chapter Four Endnotes 1 “Measuring Impact: Evaluation Data Supports Contributions Framework,” Adobe Youth Voices, accessed May 21, 2012, http://youthvoices.adobe.com/about/evaluation-data/ 2 Allan Collins and Richard Halverson, Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America (New York, NY: Teacher’s College Press, 2009), 5. 3 Mizuko Ito, Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children’s Software (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2009), 4. 4 Brian Goldfarb, Visual Pedagogies: Media Cultures in and beyond the Classroom (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 123. 5 Ito, Engineering Play, 11. 6 Goldfarb, Visual Pedagogies, 109. 7 David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005), 177-179. Toby Miller, Cultural Citizenship: Cosmopolitanism, Consumerism and Television in a Neoliberal Age (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2007), 48-49. 8 Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000), 36. 9 George Yudice, The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in a Global Era (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 133-159. 10 Toby Miller and George Yudice, Cultural Policy (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004), 34. 11 Steven K. May, et al., “The Overview,” in The Debate Over Corporate Social Responsibility, eds. Steven K. May, et al (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007), 5. 12 Jerome L. Himmelstein, Looking Good and Doing Good: Corporate Philanthropy and Corporate Power (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997), 14-22. 13 Ibid., 25-6. 14 Ibid., 22. 15 Harvey, Neoliberalism, 23. 16 Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York, NY: Metropolitan Books, 2007), 159. 17 Harvey, Neoliberalism, 26. 18 Ibid., 25-26. 214 19 Donna J. Wood and Raymond E. Jones, “Research in Corporate Social Performance,” in Corporate Philanthropy at a Crossroads, eds. Dwight Burlingame and Dennis Young (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), 54-55. 20 Miller, Cultural Citizenship, 45. 21 Harvey, Neoliberalism, 40-42. 22 Himmelstein, Looking Good and Doing Good, 26-27. 23 Lester Salamon, “The Resilient Sector,” in The State of Nonprofit America, ed. Lester M., Salamon (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute Press, 2002), 25-6. 24 Kristen A. Gronbjerg and Lester Salamon, “Devaluation, Marketization, and the Changing of Government-Nonprofit Relations,” in The State of Nonprofit America, ed. Lester M. Salamon (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute Press, 2002), 454. 25 Ibid., 454-55. 26 Peter Dobkin Hall, “Inventing the Non-Profit Sector: 1950-1990,” in The Nature of the Nonprofit Sector, ed. Steven J. Ott (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000), 119. 27 Gronbjerg and Salamon, 460. 28 Ibid., 460. 29 Dennis Young and Lester Salamon, “Commercialization, Social Ventures, and For-Profit Competition,” in The State of Nonprofit America, ed. Lester Salamon (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute Press, 2002), 431-432. 30 Leslie Lenkosky, “Foundations and Corporate Philanthropy,” in The State of Nonprofit America, ed. Lester Salamon (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute Press, 2002), 356. 31 Young and Salamon, 436. 32 Ibid., 437. 33 Ibid., 440. 34 Ibid., 442. 35 Baier became Superintendent in July 2010. Sheena Vaidyanathan, interview in Menlo Park, California, March 2011. 36 Vaidyanathan interview. 37 U.S. Census Bureau, State and County Quick Facts: Los Altos, California, accessed November 2011, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/0643280.html. 215 38 Larry Cuban, Oversold & Underused: Computers in the Classroom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 25. 39 Ibid., 29, 207. 40 Ibid., 29-30. 41 Ito., 191-2. 42 Ibid., 192. 43 “Los Altos Education Foundation: Who We Are,” accessed November 2011, http://laefonline.net/who-we-are. 44 Cuban, Oversold & Underused, 30. 45 “Los Altos Education Foundation: Who We Are.” 46 “Los Altos Education Foundation: Our Supporters,” accessed November 2011, http://laefonline.net/our-supporters/corporate-matching. 47 “Los Altos Education Foundation: Who We Are.” 48 “Los Altos Education Foundation: Our Programs,” accessed November 2011, http://laefonline.net/our-programs. 49 Ibid. 50 Cuban, Oversold & Underused, 188-189. 51 Vaidyanathan interview. 52 Ito, Engineering Play, 4. 53 Ibid., 7. 54 Ibid., 184. 55 The federal government’s policy promotion of STEM, the International Society for Technology in Education’s (ISTE) criteria for technological literacy, the Common Core Standard in Mathematics for sixth graders, Computer Science Teacher’s Association’s A Curriculum Model K-12 Computer Science Curriculum, California Content Standards in Visual Arts for sixth graders. 56 “Digital Art for All: Los Altos School District's CSTEM Program,” accessed November 2011, http://www.digitalartforall.com/lasdcstem/. 57 Naomi Klein, No Logo, 10th Anniversary Edition (New York, NY: Picador Press, 2010), 30. 58 Adobe Systems Company profile downloaded from About Adobe http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/ (November 2011). 216 59 “Adobe fast facts,” Adobe Systems, Inc., accessed November 2011, http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/. 60 “100 Best Companies to Work For,” CNN Money, accessed November 2011, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2011/snapshots/65.html. 61 “Adobe fast facts.” 62 “Adobe Youth Voices: About Us,” Adobe Foundation, accessed November 2011, http://youthvoices.adobe.com/about/. 63 Ibid. 64 Leslie Goodyear, Education Development Center consultant for AYV, interview, April 2011. 65 Ibid. 66 Michael Stohl et al., “The New Generation of Corporate Social Responsibility,” in The Debate Over Corporate Social Responsibility, eds. Steven K. May et al. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007), 35. 67 Lynda Greene, consultant for AYV, interview, Palo Alto, California, March 2011. 68 Ibid. 69 “Adobe Youth Voices: Youth Media Defined,” Adobe Foundation, accessed November 2011, http://essentials.youthvoices.adobe.com/our-philosophy/youth-media-defined.aspx. 70 Goldfarb, Visual Pedagogies, 72. 71 David Buckingham, The Making of Citizens: Young People, News and Politics (London, UK: Routledge, 2000), 56. 72 Goodyear interview. 73 “Partnership for 21st Century Skills: About Us,” accessed November 2011, http://www.p21.org/about-us. 74 Ibid. 75 Cuban, Underused & Oversold, 194. 76 21st Century Literacies http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/21stcent/sitemap.html#questioning (November 2011). 77 Goodyear interview. 78 “Adobe Youth Voices: What is Media Literacy,” Adobe Foundation, accessed November 2011, http://essentials.youthvoices.adobe.com/our-philosophy/youth-media-defined.aspx. 217 79 Goodyear interview and Greene interview. 80 Greene interview. 81 Ibid. 82 “Adobe Youth Voices: Curriculum,” Adobe Foundation, accessed November 2011, http://essentials.youthvoices.adobe.com/curriculum.aspx. 83 David Buckingham, Media Education: Literacy, Learning and Contemporary Culture (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2003), 54-61. 84 “Adobe Youth Voices: Curriculum Life Chronicles,” Adobe Foundation, accessed November 2011, http://essentials.youthvoices.adobe.com/curriculum/video-curriculum.aspx, 6. 85 Ibid., 5. 86 Ibid., 2. 87 Ibid., 4. 88 Goodyear interview. 89 “Adobe Youth Voices Program Impact,” Adobe Foundation, accessed November 2011, http://youthvoices.adobe.com/about/. 90 Goodyear interview. 91 Ibid. 218 Chapter Five Media Education at the Echo Park Film Center I will take away from this class a new outlook on my relationship to everything around me…the class exceeded my expectations. — from EPFC “Origins” female student’s final survey The study of how government, nonprofit and CSR programs engage in education is particularly complex when dealing with subject matter like media that is highly commercial and yet penetrates so many aspects of contemporary society. Neoliberal political-economic strategies have moved capital around the globe through transnational and multinational corporate media ventures. Major United States based multinational media corporations have benefited greatly from their expansion in global markets and have been chief instigators in providing constant material for audience and user consumption, particularly for youth. Corporate media influences are no longer only affecting children’s leisure time, but they have also infiltrated the public school system through monetary and technology donations. 1 This expansion of media has caused adults to become alarmed by the effects of commercialization on youth behavior and by the violence and sexual media content that supposedly corrupts children. 2 Education and media scholars have also taken special interest in youth media consumption, trying to move away from protectionist models that keep youth and children away from media and move towards literacy models. Media literacy has become the primary way to educate young people and concerned adults about the structures behind media making, media’s relation to 219 society, its language, and its significance. At the same time, media literacy includes learning to create and use media. Instead of shielding youth from exposure, media literacy practices provide them with the skills necessary to confront, deconstruct and actively engage with the material. The media organizations discussed in the previous chapter promote the study and creation of media, and in doing so; they identify, represent, transfer and create culture. Buckingham argues that media are not simply transparent tools through which communication happens, but rather “the media intervene: they provide us with selective versions of the world rather than direct access to it.” 3 Henry Jenkins uses Lisa Gitelman’s conception of media in his book, Convergence Culture, arguing that media are both instruments through which people communicate and also social and cultural entities. He goes on to say: Delivery systems are simple and only technologies; media are also cultural systems...A medium’s content may shift, its audience may change, and its social status may rise and fall, but once a medium establishes itself as satisfying some core human demand it continues to function within the larger system of communication options. 4 Media education is not simply about learning how to use tools but also about understanding the cultural systems that are embedded within them. I set out to uncover the cultural systems that are embedded in the media education strategies of the Echo Park Film Center, a nonprofit media-making and exhibition organization in Los Angeles. Culture systems cannot be separated from economic, social and political impacts. In George Yudice’s The Expediency of Culture, he argues that culture 220 should no longer simply be defined as “canons of artistic excellence” or “symbolic patterns that give coherence to and thus endow a group of people or society with human worth.” 5 Instead he contends that culture is a resource in our globalized society in which differences prove useful for social and economic outcomes. He writes, “In our era, representations of and claims to cultural difference are expedient insofar as they multiply commodities and empower communities.” 6 Media as a cultural form is used for economic and social means. Yudice explains that because state spending on the arts and cultural projects has been cut, reliance on nonprofits has created a whole sector of arts and culture. In order to succeed, these organizations have rationalized the productive purposes of the arts: “enhance education, salve racial strife, help reverse urban blight through cultural tourism, create jobs, reduce crime and perhaps even make a profit.” 7 The Echo Park Film Center specializes in nonmainstream media making and exhibition. EPFC enhances art and cultural education through its media classes for neighborhood youth. The social ramifications that the EPFC hopes to achieve are best summed up in the Center’s mission statement. The EPFC’s website discloses: We feel it is imperative that more members of marginalized and underserved communities become active, empowered participants in the creation and dissemination of experimental, documentary and narrative film in order to truly reflect the many voices and visions that make up the fabric of contemporary American life. 8 The Center’s commitment to empowering disenfranchised youth through nonmainstream media practices allow youth to politically, socially and culturally engage in their community. The quote at the beginning of the chapter demonstrates 221 how the Center teaches media education in a way that connects students to their community. The media literacy program at the EPFC uses non-mainstream media and community-building practices in neoliberal environments to challenge neoliberal thinking. In Chapter Two media literacy as an outcome is discussed as a neoliberal policy strategy in which deregulation compels the individual to become responsible for his or her media consumption habits, while he or she must acquire a digital skillset to compete in the global workforce and take full advantage of the wide assortment of consumption opportunities. However, the process through which media education occurs is at odds with neoliberal education strategies. Alison Butler writes, “neoliberalism has taken its hold in primary and secondary schools, with an increased focus on standardized testing, rigorous ‘zero tolerance’ security measures and increased Byzantine divisions within school systems that obfuscate the learning process.” 9 These strategies emphasize competition and ranking systems for schools and individual students; whereas, the EPFC emphasizes a participatory culture that has been promoted by media education scholars. The Echo Park Film Center is a non-profit neighborhood organization that promotes alternative filmmaking and exhibition. The co-op has been located in Echo Park at the corner of Alvarado and Sunset since 2002 and run by a group of volunteers. The Center functions in four ways: as a space to screen experimental or progressive movies, a filmmaking classroom, a retail store and home to film festivals. Executive director, Paolo Davanzo and his former student, Ken Fountain 222 founded the EPFC in order to combine activism with education through filmmaking for the community. It was established as an outgrowth of Davanzo’s traveling film festival, the Polyester Prince Road Show, and created in honor of his deceased activist parents. The social justice and experimental filmmaking roots of this organization continue to frame how it operates and teaches media education. 10 The institution’s leftist belief system is matched by its self-sustaining funding plan. Fountain expanded upon Davanzo’s space for art and education by developing a retail and repair shop that could create revenue for the co-op. When referring to another media education organization, scholar Brian Goldfarb explains that it has more “autonomy” than schools because of the nonprofit’s “stable funding, equipment and production space” which provides nonprofit organizations with “a degree of creative autonomy not attainable in most public school settings.” 11 Likewise, the Center is able to maintain its autonomy through its diversity of funding and stable revenue. One–third of the center is funded by grants, another third is financed by individual donations and the last third comes from EPFC’s sales, services and screening revenue. The Center has screened over 900 noncommercial films, produced over 250 collaborative and individual projects, taught over 400 neighborhood youth, and employed various grassroots funding plans to support the co-op and the community. 12 The strength and success lies in the EPFC’s strategies for diversity in programs, participants and financial support, which provide the necessary balance for media, outreach and activism. 223 In the previous chapter, I demonstrated how neoliberal policies have relied on nonprofit and corporate support for media education, and I illustrated how institutional context is necessary to understand the way media education is administered, defined and taught. No matter how much the programs’ actions and beliefs challenge the current politico–economic structure through media education practices, both case studies proved that their existence still relies on a neoliberal system that provides them with financial and resource support. I focused on the broader institutional support for these programs and how that support affects each program’s conception of media education. Due to EPFC’s diversified funding methods, it is more autonomous than the previously investigated programs but this does not discount EPFC’s existence as a nonprofit organization, which means that the neoliberal political-economic deregulation strategies that prompt private support for social and cultural programs and undertakings impact the significance that this organization has on its underserved community. In this chapter, I complete a closer examination of an organization through an ethnographic study of a twelve-week course, titled “Origins,” taught at the EPFC to youth, ages twelve to nineteen, in which I witness the organization’s teaching strategies, operations and conceptions of media education. First, I position the Center and its objectives within a larger discussion of the specific region within Los Angeles and its social and historical circumstances to demonstrate how EPFC situates itself as a microcinema in comparison to Hollywood media industries. I provide some context for other courses taught at the EPFC to show how the Center 224 constructs its classes in ways that teach youth about media and also teach youth to be aware of themselves, their neighborhood, its history, and the political and social conditions in which they live. Because the EPFC is a nonprofit organization, neoliberalism ensures its private independence and at times its very focus on experimentation leads to neoliberal tendencies that overemphasize formal qualities and disregard critical engagement with popular culture. Nonetheless, I illustrate how the EPFC’s clear emphasis on local community and experimental film, most closely align with practical applications of effective media education scholarship, which are often at odds with standardizing neoliberal pedagogical strategies. Echo Park Microcinema in Los Angeles The Center, as a filmmaking cooperative, resides in Los Angeles, a city in which Hollywood and the entertainment industry pervade media arts. According to the organization’s website, the directors conceive of the EPFC as a microcinema. 13 The term microcinema originated from David Sherman and Rebecca Barten, curators of the Total Mobile Home Microcinema in San Francisco in the early 1990s. 14 Since then, the term, microcinema, has been used to describe nonprofit or for-profit small temporary or permanent film and video viewing spaces with “intimate setting[s].” 15 Film scholar Kyle Conway situates his discussion of microcinemas within a discursive history of juxtaposing big and small media. In the 1970s, William Schramm designated media with a complex industrial and technological context, such as television, as big media while he interpreted small media to include simpler visual and auditory media, such as film slides and programmed texts. 16 According to 225 Conway, thirty years later, Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi and Ali Mohammadi reconceived of small media as political in nature because it is understood “as participatory, public phenomena, controlled neither by big states nor big corporations.” 17 Conway contends, “implicitly it would seem, one quality of small media is that they allow people to say things that big media ignore, discourage, or outright disallow, making room for alternate voices or counter-public spheres.” 18 The EPFC, as a microcinema within Los Angeles, counters the Hollywood big media industry, for the very reasons Sreberny-Mohammadi, Mohammadi and Conway use to define small media. No government or corporate entity controls the EPFC and instead it acts as a space for disenfranchised youth from underserved communities to come together and make media. The Center was established with the intent of providing a space in which art and activism could coalesce through education in a manner in which the youth could be producers of their own ideas, which could then be communicated through the art of filmmaking. This contrasts with the process of consumption and thus forces youth to be aware of their roles as consumers of mainstream media. The Center does not forbid the students from enjoying commercial media but exposes them to alternative screenings of experimental and documentary films as inspiration for making their own films and thinking outside of the stereotypes and tropes they witness in their day-to-day media consumption. As discussed in Chapter Two, neoliberal deregulation strategies have caused big media to grow and conglomerate; therefore, by staying small, exhibiting nonmainstream 226 media and teaching youth to critically engage with media constructs, the EPFC challenges neoliberal thinking and practices. According to the director, education is the foundation of the organization in which the EPFC’s goal is to empower people by giving them media-making training and exhibition access. The center offers free classes to youth and free drop-in workshops for senior citizens. The popularity of these classes has led to additional classes in which the EPFC charges a minimal fee to adults. The adult classes range from traditional Super 8mm or 60mm, to instruction on how to use computer-editing software. Each twelve-week youth course results in film productions, either individually or collaboratively. The Center loans out the camera equipment to the students so that they are free to capture wherever and whatever they want to shoot during the allotted time they posses the equipment. About seventy percent of the students come from Echo Park and the rest come from neighboring areas like Boyle Heights, Highland Park, Silver Lake and even Pasadena. Some of the youth come from Section 8 public assistance homes while others come from wealthy households in the Hills, and so the director believes the pool of students represent a microcosm of Los Angeles. Because of the EPFC’s location between the more expensive hillside houses and the eclectic downtown area, a diverse enrollment is possible. Specific local schools act as feeder schools, like Belmont High School, but as Davanzo says, they do not check IDs at the door; their only requirement is that the students are committed to the classes once enrolled in a course that meets once a week for two hours, plus additional editing and one-on-one tutorial work. 227 Like the AYV courses discussed in the previous chapter, these classes are usually structured around students’ media-making projects, but unlike AYV, the teachers spend time teaching the critical components of media education by exposing students to other media and discussions about media. While the EPFC website states that it teaches narrative, documentary and experimental film, documentary and experimental films were showcased the most in the class I observed due to the teachers’ area of expertise. The teachers, like the founder, are experimental filmmakers themselves. Experimental filmmakers tend to use techniques that challenge mainstream filmmaking methods, purposely or unintentionally making the audience aware that they are watching a constructed text. Techniques including performers looking into the camera, shaky or unfocused camera work, fragmentation, abstraction, juxtaposition of unrelated sounds or images and non-narrative-based structure. These films can be personal and/or political in nature, sometimes with specific messages and sometimes ambiguous in meaning. The institutional or disciplinary term for this type of filmmaking is avant-garde. The term originated for artwork during the French Revolution. According to Kathryn Ramey, “Anti- establishment, social outcast artist[s] and thinkers insisted that art must be political. Form and content must challenge the status quo.” 19 Like the avant-garde artists and thinkers of the past, the EPFC draws volunteers and employees that are not only filmmakers but also likeminded in their progressive and often anti-establishment politics, which include an appreciation for environmentalism, nondiscrimination and equality. The organization’s respect for difference fosters an ideal space for critical 228 discussion, while experimental filmmaking draws attention to how films are made and the relationship between the filmmaker and spectator. The aesthetic and political statements in the films exhibited spur questions and comments that eventually inspire students to experiment aesthetically and create media projects that make individual, communal and social statements. The East Los Angeles region from which the EPFC draws its community was formally known as Edendale, which was the initial home to the budding film industry in the early twentieth century. It encompassed Echo Park, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, and Westlake Park, just north of downtown and southeast of Griffith Park. The area is historically known for being the prominent West Coast location for the major film studios during the Silent Era. William Selig was the first to move his Chicago-based production company to Edendale in the early 1900s. According to historian Daniel Hurewitz, “It was an ideal spot, readily accessible to the business and residential parts of city yet offering a small-town feeling.” 20 By 1912, there were seventy-three film companies in Los Angeles, and Edendale became known as the epicenter of the industry, but by the 1920s the studios had moved to other parts of town. 21 EPFC’s location is fitting in the sense that it has such a rich film history though complicated by its desire to distance itself from commercial cinema. The EPFC also has connections to the area’s Bohemian and Communist past. Hurewitz quotes historian Kevin Starr when describing Edendale as Los Angeles’s “bohemian quarter of the 1920s and 1930’s [that]…is the closest thing Los Angeles had at the time to an artists’ quarter.” 22 During this time, many private clubs and 229 networks surrounding artist interests were founded in Edendale. Club members encouraged one another’s artistic endeavors and provided a social network for a group of men with common interests. Similar to the EPFC, these private clubs brought together a local community of artists to discuss, examine and create art. In contrast to private artistic organizations, public examples of artistic networks were constructed through the Los Angeles Public Works of Art Project and the Federal Art Project. Though these projects were not bound to Edendale alone, the projects’ headquarters and many of the contracted artists were located in the area. Edendale residents were often found in private clubs and commissioned to take part in the public art projects and murals throughout the city during the reconstruction period after the market crash. 23 These projects not only brought artists together, but they also connected the artists to society and actively engaged them in the current political, economic and social climate. By the 1940s, Edendale’s reputation as a hotbed for Communism became known throughout the city and the area was commonly referred to as Red Hill or Red Gulch. 24 By the 1950s, radical leftists joined the Bohemian artists to create a liberal community that bred culture and activism. 25 Daniel Hurewitz uses Edward Soja’s “thirdspace” to define Edendale because the region’s seclusion within the larger cityscape. He says, “It’s a space at the margins of society that can be adopted as a site for contesting power, a place where new identities, actions and opportunities can be constructed.” 26 This area has been the home of Bohemian art communities and progressive political organizations that reside outside the mainstream political and 230 entertainment landscape but which come together in reaction to or in opposition to the dominant capitalist and ideological forces within the city. The Center’s identification with Echo Park in its title and commitment to outreach in the specific region also highlights the location’s influence on the EPFC as an organization. Davanzo lived in Echo Park for nine years prior to renting one- third of the building that the Center currently resides in. After two years EPFC expanded to take up the whole space, which includes a front screening room and retail store, plus a back office and editing stations. He started the Center with the intention of giving back to the local community. He believes that part of their success lies in their ability to remain small and community-based. This provides an intimate hands-on working environment between the directors, teachers and students. Because of their recent success they have been featured in newspaper and magazine articles and news of their organization has spread throughout Los Angeles. 27 The director is proud to admit he has never turned away a child, however, he has received calls from parents of other Los Angeles communities and surrounding areas, like Santa Monica, asking if they can enroll their children in EPFC courses and he says, “no.” Instead of enlarging their organization he would like to keep it local, personal and manageable, maintaining a minority cooperative that can communicate with other networks around Los Angeles and the world but that focuses on the intimate relationships created within a designated space. He offers his assistance in establishing film centers in other neighborhoods. He serves on the boards of the other community film programs because he believes that every neighborhood should 231 have a Center. The desire to keep the organization local and community-based contrasts with the globalizing imaginary of neoliberal media education discussed in European media literacy policy and the AYV media program. Many of the class themes since the establishment of the EPFC focus on the area, including the “City of Angels” course that gets repeatedly taught. This course focuses on the youth’s relationship to Los Angeles and has spawned films about immigration, gentrification, neighbors, and the environment amongst other related topics. More specific courses about Los Angeles include courses on the Los Angeles River, urban planning and transportation in Los Angeles and the Red Hill project. The Center’s Red Hill project creates a historical account of the activism and art associated with the neighborhood space. The project was a collaborative filmmaking process in which the students were taught about the neighborhood’s progressive history by interviewing “Red Diaper Babies” about their experiences with political activism. After the interviews, the students reflect on how they were impacted by what they learned, while also providing a drawing and subtitle about an activity they take part in, like watching the news or being a vegetarian, that contributes to their awareness of their environment and society. Through the Red Hill Project, the EPFC connected their students to their own local history and provided a foundation of political and artistic history for which the Center continues to promote. Today gentrification has been a topic of concern for the Echo Park community and neighboring areas like Silver Lake and Highland Park. Since the film industries moved out, Edendale went through other transformations in which it 232 was home to bohemian artists and political activists and now is home to a large Latino community. The 2000 Census findings show that almost 62 percent of Echo Park residents are Latino while 11 percent are white, 23 percent are Asian and two percent are black. 28 The 2010 Census saw very little change in Asian and black residents, a decrease in Latinos to 55 percent and an increase in white residents to 18 percent. With the change in demographics comes a change in housing prices. The United States Census for the median house value in Echo Park in 2000 was $182,733 and the estimate for 2006 had increased substantially to $545,000. House value in Silver Lake went from $214,260 to $540,000 and Highland Park house value went form $159,523 to $506,000. 29 According to the LA Weekly, in 2004, demonstrators shut down Sunset Blvd in Echo Park in protest of “estos yuppies’ who are displacing long-time working-class residents,” many of whom are Latinos. 30 The Film Center has also been affected by the gentrification of the neighborhood. Though it does assist in the gentrification of the area by contributing to the current hip, trendy lifestyle that permeates Echo Park, it is also subject to rent increases. In 2005, the landlord raised the rent to a price that the Center could no longer afford. With the help of the City Council and parents, they were able to get an equitable rate for at least another two years. The EPFC addresses issues of gentrification and community activism in the classes they offer, shedding light on issues less visible in media classes that focus on acquiring a digital skillset. These classes take for granted the market relations necessary to supply resources and 233 property for such an education, unlike the EPFC that uses these classes and media as ways to address issues important to their community and specific organization. EPFC has many resources for youth to make their media projects but like most nonprofits, it is not without its struggles. For example, the EPFC has twenty laptops for students to edit on. Rarely but sometimes class times intersect and the laptops have to be shared between classes, cutting down certain student’s in-class editing time. Due to financial restraints as a nonprofit organizations and political anti-corporate beliefs, the EPFC copied the editing software onto more computers than is technically allowed by the software companies. The students therefore are not allowed to go online while Final Cut is open because it would become obvious that too many computers share the same access code. The Center defies software company rules that make media education expensive in this neoliberal era. The EPFC also relies on donations and community support for resources. A couple that frequents the EPFC screenings donated their warehouse in Glendale, about fifteen minutes from Echo Park, to the EPFC for extra class and storage space in return for tax breaks. The space was used for weekend classes and workshops, the “Origins” class exhibition and storage of media supplies and props. Unfortunately, the couple that owned the warehouse had to give up the space due to financial trouble during the summer of 2011. So though the EPFC is self-sustaining for the most part, extra donations such as this one do not always last indefinitely. The EPFC sent out an email to its community of supporters to see if anyone was willing to donate any extra space and in the meantime had a weekend garage sale to get rid of any extra supplies 234 and props, while also raising money. The EPFC’s craftiness has been part of its success in maintaining a media education organization that requires expensive technology that takes up space. Their ability to share with others and build a community around their media programs has helped them maintain their own autonomy, which ultimately has a major impact on how they teach media education. Origins The Echo Park Film Center allowed me to sit in and observe their Spring 2011 youth filmmaking class “Origins”. The four teachers created the theme of the class and the concurrent curriculum. All four teachers were under thirty, two of them had previously taken classes as youth and worked their way up from teaching assistants to teachers, and the other two had college degrees in the arts and worked as part of the EPFC staff. The teachers who chose to work at the EPFC were hired by Davanzo and his partner Lisa Marr and also shared the EPFC’s promotion of outreach, as well as their appreciation for experimental work. All four teachers are active experimental filmmakers and have taught EPFC classes before. However, it was the first time the directors would step back and let the teachers maintain complete control of the class. This was a big year for the teachers because three of them were leaving the EPFC for school or travel; therefore, there was an added pressure to make this class special. The teachers chose “Origins” as the theme for the class because it combined their interests and specialties and aligned with other EPFC projects. They saw this class as a way to explore the origins of Los Angeles’s Native American culture (two of the teachers were of non-Californian Native American 235 descent) and its native plants and wildlife environment. At the same time, they would teach the class about the origins of storytelling and filmmaking. In-class and homework projects included cyanotypes 31 and pinhole cameras, performing one’s own origins story and writing one’s own lexicon. For the first four weeks of class, the teachers would show different experimental and documentary films and clips from such avant-garde artists like Michael Snow or documentaries like The Garden (2008), hold discussions about the screenings and assign small creative assignments. Then students would spend the middle four weeks discussing their main film assignments and checking out equipment to shoot their projects. The last four weeks would ideally be spent editing and finishing up the films. Workshops on the weekends at the annex and field trips throughout the 12-week period supplemented the course. Two teachers were paired up to teach a class of students on Wednesday afternoon and two teachers were assigned Friday’s separate class of students. The teachers would choose their assignments and screening lists as a foursome and bring the classes together on the weekends but each class and set of teachers met separately each week. Both classes consisted of about 20 students, ages 12-19, from both the local private and public schools. The classes were racially and ethnically mixed, with the majority of students coming from Latino and white backgrounds. The ratio of male to female students was pretty even. The Friday class skewed older with students who had taken more classes from EPFC before. I will discuss the media education strategies I observed during the 12-week course in order to demonstrate how the context of the Echo Park Film Center as an alternative media- 236 making and exhibition microcinema with leftist political beliefs produced a media education course that aligned with scholarly writing about effective practices. Understanding media literacy as a set of social skills as opposed to individual ones, places it at odds with traditional pedagogical practices in which teachers act as givers of knowledge and students individually turn in work to demonstrate that they have received that knowledge. For this reason, Jenkins suggests that after school and extra-curricular programs tend to be better at facilitating participatory learning environments. 32 Jenkins argues that both critical understandings and production are socially regulated processes: The social production of meaning is more than individual interpretation multiplied; it represents a qualitative difference in the ways we make sense of cultural experience, and in that sense it represents a profound change in how we understand literacy. In such a world youth need skills for working within social networks, for pooling knowledge within a collective intelligence, for negotiating across cultural differences that shape the governing assumptions in different communities, and for reconciling conflicting bits of data to form a coherent picture of the world around them. 33 As stated earlier, media are not transparent tools but are intermediary technologies with social and cultural contexts. Therefore if media is subjective and depends on the social and cultural contexts in which it is made and viewed, being media literate is also a subjective process that relies on social and cultural understandings and mandates. Livingstone contends, media literacy “comprises a set of culturally regulated competencies that specify not only what is known but also what is normatively valued, disapproved or transgressive.” 34 The acquisition of media skills 237 is a social and cultural process because outside of schools media is used in social spaces and often for social and cultural purposes. The Echo Park Film Center successfully initiates media education as a set of social skills by incorporating Paulo Freire’s pedagogical practices into their curriculum. In his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire argues for a critical pedagogy that facilitates the consciousness and critical thinking of the oppressed. By oppressed he is referring to laborers, students, peasants and those kept inferior by the upper class elites who try to manipulate reality for their advantage. He calls for an education in which students can question society, their role in it and the structures that hold it up, so that they can transform it into a more equitable and just place to live. The EPFC was founded as a left-leaning, politically active space that uses filmmaking and exhibition as means to actively engage in society. Davanzo’s background as an experimental filmmaker provides the basis and principles on which the Center is founded. As catharsis for his father’s death, he produced films and traveled around the United States in his van, stopping at various locations to exhibit his own work on the sides of buildings and other public and private spaces. His intention was to deconstruct the notion of audience as passive consumers by engaging them in his exhibitions through politicizing content, experimental techniques and unconventional exhibition formats, plus live music. Growing up in a progressive and accepting family, Davanzo was inclined toward an alternative and artistic lifestyle uninhibited by mainstream pressures. This remained important to him when he founded the EPFC. As the founder and director of the EPFC, his leftist 238 philosophy has a major impact on how media is taught and learned at this particular institution. Part of creating a critical pedagogy includes structuring the way information is processed and learned. Freire argues against the banking education model found in most schools around the world in which teachers dispense knowledge to students, who act like empty vessels whose roles include memorization and retention, 35 a common model in neoliberal standardizing pedagogical practices. Instead he argues, “Knowledge emerges through invention and re-invention, through the restless impatient continuing hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world and with each other.” 36 In opposition to the banking model, Freire aspires to dialogic education in which one-directional education (from teacher to student) gets replaced by back and forth critical discussions between the students and teacher. Through his method of “problem-positing” students become conscious of the problems in their world by discussing, questioning and trying to find ways to solve them. 37 This type of learning takes both reflection and action. 38 Problem-positing education works best when students are dealing with issues that are part of their own world, which helps them to come up with “generative themes” to discuss, question and think critically. 39 Goldfarb explains that interactivity, including, “discussion, group collaboration and debate” exemplifies this form of education. 40 Due to the activist and advocacy culture that the institution embodies, many of its teaching strategies align with Freire’s critical pedagogy. Through my observations, I watched how these methods were successful and at times faced some 239 difficulties. Though the teachers stood in front of the class to lead discussions about screenings and issues pertaining to the class, they would depend on student discussion, often moving into tangents based on student interests and questions. A few times, students shared their own media examples that fit within the discussion. The teachers welcomed students to screen their choices and also helped create dialogue based on student contributions. The teachers deliberately chose to ignite debate and discussion about a field trip to a local pow-wow at California State University Long Beach put on by the Native American organizations at the school. After the event a newspaper editor from the college paper, Union Weekly, wrote an editorial titled “Pow Wow Wow Yippee Yo Yippy Yay” that condemned the pow wow as commercial, inauthentic and clichéd. 41 During both Wednesday and Friday courses, a teacher read the article out loud to discuss what the students thought of both the field trip and the article. In both classes students tended to waver between agreeing that they too felt that the pow wow was commercialized and disagreeing because they found the experience pleasurable and educational. The teachers did a good job explaining how pow wows were different than Native American sacred ceremonies and that pow wow customs have a history of including commercialized events. This led to discussions about what an “authentic” Native American representation is. The teachers explained that people often assume that Native Americans must look like they did two hundred years ago to be authentic. The class discussion then became about story telling and how the college newspaper editor did not properly research the facts and context of this pow wow. Using Freire’s method 240 of dialogic education, the EPFC teachers were able to have lively discussions about issues related to the generative theme of “Origins”, such as, authenticity, while also using this debate to discuss media education topics of representation and story research. The pedagogical focus on the indigenous past and present in Los Angeles is often obscured in education, especially, as discussed in Chapter Two, in media education courses that tends to focus on neoliberal technological progress and productivity. The EPFC used the generative theme of “Origins” as a starting point for creating dialogue, discussion, debate and creative projects, but the students did not completely understand this theme. Teachers began with local and personal questions of belonging and ownership, such as where are you from and who’s story is it to tell? Students questioned the “Origins” theme on a few occasions throughout the course. One white, 19-year-old veteran student of EPFC, Cynthia, asked about the theme and its relevance multiple times. 42 The teachers in Wednesday’s class opened up the question to the whole class, but they often could not completely articulate how the theme was related either and preferred to remain quiet. During one week, the teachers tried to reinforce how the experimental nature films that they were watching, which included one by Michael Snow, modeled different ways of depicting the natural environment. Snow’s film used technology to create an “objective” portrayal of the land, while the other film used different filming techniques that reflexively demonstrated the subjectivity of depicting nature. This was a lesson in perspective about a natural environment. The teachers understood 241 natural environments to be part of the “origins” of an area, but even so they wanted to demonstrate that nature could be filmed in different ways to invoke different understandings and feelings. While most students seemed to grasp the theme through their final projects, the final class evaluation after the exhibition led to heated discussions in which the students were quite vocal about their frustrations with this particular theme. One 13-year-old Latina student, who had not been especially vocal during the class said, “If we had been better guided, films would be better and not a bunch of shaky nature films.” Another student, 19-year old, Scott, who has taken a lot of EPFC classes, felt that there were not enough personal connections between the projects and students and therefore the projects felt homogenous. When one teacher asked what the students meant by more guidance, the first student said she would like more discussions about the theme and the male student asked for more personal connections. These two suggestions demonstrated the students’ desire for more structure from their teachers. While observing the class during the semester, the question about the topic had come up on at least three occasions in the Wednesday class that the female student was a part of but she and her classmates were reluctant to engage in the teachers’ discussions about it. With regard to the second critique, the homework assignments tended to personalize the topics but the students often did not partake in the assignments. Students engaged in the first assignment of performing their own origins story for the class but then slacked off. Very few students made their own lexicons, brought in biodomes or made maps of their environments. 242 The students’ desires for more guidance highlight the differences between the rigid school structure that these students were familiar with and the EPFC. So unlike the high school classes that they are used to in which a teacher at the front of the room teaches to the students, this class was set up in a way that the students were equals to the teachers and they were therefore responsible for asking the questions and finding the answers. However the students were unaccustomed to this type of teaching model, especially those new to the EPFC. The Wednesday class was made up of mostly new students while the Friday class had students that had taken many EPFC classes and as a result the Friday class tended to be a spirited bunch, since they had more experience with this type of learning. Also, because this was not school these students were less likely to do the assignments outside of the final project. Their main motivation for taking the class was to partake in the final filmmaking project. Unlike school, there were no formal repercussions for not turning in homework. The officialness and authority often associated with school was missing from this extracurricular community environment. Again there was some discrepancy between the two classes, the newer students in Wednesday’s class were more likely to do the assignments than the students in Friday’s class of which the male student who wanted the projects to be more personal was a part of. The institution’s philosophy of activism and community generated a critical pedagogy that provided students with more freedom, responsibility and agency than they are trained to expect in schools. As discussed in detail in Chapter Two, neoliberal pedagogy requires an emphasis on student accountability through standardized 243 curriculum and test taking. These standardizing methods result in habituation by students unaccustomed to the freedom and agency allotted by the EPFC. Media literacy scholars have worked out different key ideas and ways of framing media literacy that can keep it a dynamic and relevant subject that adapts to new technologies and social and cultural experiences. Media education scholars often use the 1992 USA National Leadership Conference on Media Literacy as a starting place for articulating what media literacy is. 43 The report states that a media literate person has “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and communicate messages in a variety of forms.” 44 I will use these four points as frameworks to examine how the EPFC educate about media. In doing so, I will demonstrate the importance of the politico-economic and socio-cultural context of media as a dynamic subject matter. In Media Education, Buckingham promotes media education components that tend to adapt to the changing media environment. The components can be taught in schools and after-school programs. He provides a conceptual model that can be applied to a range of media learning practices that include both theory and practice. His four key concepts to guide the education process are production, language, representation and audience. By learning about these various facets, students gain a better understanding of media as texts, businesses, pleasure and social constructions. 45 When examining these programs, special attention will be paid to how these concepts are addressed within the framework set up at the U.S. media literacy conference. 244 Access In order for students to learn about media they need to be given access to technological resources. Seiter argues that there is a disparity between those who can afford computer resources at home and in school and those who cannot. She also points out that U.S. policy officials have worked hard to provide public schools with computers and Internet connections, however these physical resources require so much more: “In order for Internet access to succeed, the device must be accompanied by a host of other expenditures for peripherals, software and a rich network of human relationships to ensure maintenance.” 46 Livingstone also explains that access is a complex subject when discussing computers and digital media because it includes more than the materials but also the knowledge to navigate and use the materials effectively. She writes, “The access dimension of literacy includes the skills required to avoid undesired contents, thus managing one’s exposure to content and contact risks, whether through technical means or social practices.” 47 Access not only includes social, economic and political factors but also cultural factors; therefore, understanding the necessary language needed to operate media plays a major role in one’s access. This type of access applies to old media as much as it does new media. Just because youth may know how to load a DVD and press play, does not mean they have access to understanding the cultural world represented on the DVD or an understanding of the larger social context of the DVD’s production and consumption processes. Access goes beyond the physical to include social and cultural support as well. 245 The setting of the EPFC, at the intersections of Sunset and Alvarado, makes it quite accessible to students because it is at the corner of a major bus stop and centrally located for people living in the neighboring areas. The space itself is separated into two main rooms. The room closest to the entrance is used for renting equipment and DVDs, screenings and classes. It is split in half. The front of the room is set up like a theater with a pull down projection screen and recycled mismatched theater seats. The back half of this room has folding tables and chairs that can be set up for laptop editing stations. The rental equipment counter and library line the sides of this room. The back room has a few desktops, class tools, and the projection equipment. It is mainly used for the office, though not really cut off from the front room. Conversations in either room are audible in both rooms and during project time, the back room is used for editing and animation, while business operations are conducted in there as well. Students are not kept out of the office but usually the EPFC regulars are the only ones to enter the back area unless new students are invited back. The EPFC were given a warehouse in Glendale to store more equipment and to host larger groups and workshops. To get to this space students often carpooled or had their parents drop them off. Access never was an excuse for not showing up to class or workshops. As far as access to production equipment goes, the class was allowed to check out sound recorders, Super 8mm cameras, digital camcorders, and flip cameras for a week at a time to shoot their final projects. They were also given a roll of film or DV tape depending on which equipment they chose to shoot on. Along with the 246 equipment for the final projects, they were given a number of other resources, such as cyanotype paper, materials for making pinhole cameras, rental privileges of books and DVDs that pertained to the class, and jars for creating biodomes. At one point one of the directors even went out of her way to find out-of-season corn for a student’s animation project. During the editing weeks of the course, the EPFC provided the students with Apple laptops to use during class time. Teachers loaded student materials onto a class hard drive and gave them each a folder to keep track of their own digital files. At the beginning of the editing classes, it was first come first served and students would be assigned laptops to work on their projects. There were three laptops that had to leave thirty minutes before class ended and so the last people to arrive to class to edit would have to sacrifice their computers early. The EPFC was also teaching another class for at-risk female teens at another location. Three of the computers left with the EPFC director for that class. Only about three times did this become an inconvenience for students because the students were shooting on different schedules, so it was not until the final weeks that everyone was editing at the same time. The teachers were also good about suggesting other projects, like making pinhole cameras or collecting more sound recordings during the allotted editing time if computers were unavailable. The teachers opened up the Center on weekends for extra editing time and allowed the students to come in at anytime after school to continue work on the projects, as long as there was not a screening. Both time and resources were offered to the students. 247 The diversity of the class resulted in some students having more access to media resources than others outside of the class. On two occasions, students used their own filming equipment. On one of the occasions, Jimmy, a white, 13-year-old from a private school, and his father owned an HD camera that he wanted to use to shoot his final project. At one point when the teachers were demonstrating the various cameras the students could use, one of the students jokingly said, there are no HD cameras and the class laughed. Jimmy told the student that he was welcome to borrow his is he wanted to. The student never took him up on the offer, most likely because it was a joke. None of the students seemed actively envious of Jimmy’s use of the modern and more expensive camera and there was no clear difference in how his film looked. If anything it took the teachers longer to reconfigure and transfer his footage onto the computer. The students were prohibited from using their own editing programs outside of the EPFC because the Center wanted to make sure that it received a copy of the film and because editing at home defeated the point in taking part in the class, which was supposed to be a communal experience. On only one occasion, did a student edit at home because she became ill and could not be around people. Because the filming and editing equipment was evenly available to all students in the class, there was no real digital divide in terms of those who could afford access to equipment and those who could not. The egalitarian beliefs and communal space equalized the social and cultural digital divide outside of the Center while the students took part in courses inside the EPFC, 248 challenging the uneven access to such resources in an inequitable neoliberal environment. At the EPFC, student surveys demonstrated that students appreciated not only access to the equipment, but also access to help and support. At least two teachers and a teaching assistant were available to the classes of about 15-20 students during class time and towards the end of the course there was a teacher present almost every afternoon and on weekends for extra editing time. For those who shot on the Super 8mm camera, hand processing their own films was offered during a weekend workshop and professional processing was available for those that could not make it or wanted to develop in color. Because students were at various levels of mastery with the editing equipment, there was never a class tutorial about how to use it. Rather the teachers gave students access to the software and allowed them to experiment while also providing one-on-one critical and technical help to each student during class time. Through one-on-one time, teachers helped students not only with the necessary techniques to process and edit their final projects, but also supplied them with the necessary language to navigate through the processes. I will address social and cultural access during the analysis and evaluation dimensions of media literacy; however physical access to hardware, software, related examples and trained and caring professionals were available to these students in and out of class time. Teachers enjoyed spending time in the space and were willing to devote their free time helping the students out, and the students likewise enjoyed spending their weekends and free time editing and hanging out at the Center. 249 Analysis Learning how to analyze media works provides youth with the conceptual training to understand the various components that make up these works and their intended and unintended messages. Analysis practices help students to negotiate the plethora of mediated material in the world around them, providing them with critical thinking skills. As stated in the first chapter, such skills are necessary in a neoliberal deregulated environment in which every person is in charge of regulating his or her own media intake but critical thinking skills often prompt people to question the very system that depends on self-regulated media intake. Because of the subject matter, Native Americans and land, analyzing representations was a key component of the class. The EPFC relied mostly on experimental and documentary screenings to expose the students to subject matter. Both of these forms are alternatives to mainstream commercial narratives. Experimental films tend to purposely emphasize the subjectivity of the portrayal through techniques that make one aware he or she is watching constructed artwork, while documentary tends to involve real life depictions and accounts. Nonetheless, Buckingham writes, “Even when its concerned with real life events, media production involves selecting and combining incidents, making events into stories and creating characters.” 48 The teachers used Edward Curtis’s portraits of Native Americans as a lesson in representation. They explained to the class that these portraits from the 1800s became quintessential images and thus stereotypes of Native Americans. These images depict very serious and stoic Native Americans dressed in 250 their traditional regalia. The teachers juxtaposed such stereotypes with Smiling Indians, a recent documentary, dedicated to Edward Curtis that portrays various Native Americans dressed in various outfits in different locations smiling at the camera. Though the teachers were not stating that this more recent documentary was an accurate depiction of Native Americans, they were trying to show that no single type of Native American exists, and that they are not always serious people dressed in traditional garments, but rather like other groups, a diverse set of people. Interestingly enough, on the same day the class discussed stereotyped Native American representations, students had to share their final projects proposals. In Friday’s class, Jimmy proposed a project in which a Native American dressed in traditional regalia was standing in the middle of a large crowd of modern Westerners. This received some snickers from older veteran EPFC students sitting in the back of the class, while one of the teachers reminded Jimmy about the discussion they had earlier about stereotypes and what it means to blend in. They did not say he had to abandon the project but they wanted him to think about it further within the context of this class discussion. Sure enough, Jimmy came back the following week with a different project, in which he would attempt to capture growth in the desert in Joshua Tree. His decision to move from issues of representation to nature demonstrates his choice to find a less controversial topic. Though his choice to completely abandon his original topic could point to his inability to reframe his original topic in a less stereotypical and more complex manner, the teachers’ use of other media and the critical discussions surrounding the media allowed them to 251 question Jimmy’s project without denouncing him or his film idea in front of other students. Jenkins makes the argument that traditional media studies about understanding representations, perspectives and stereotypes must transcend youth production. He refers to this as negotiation, stating youth must “acquire skills in understanding multiple perspectives, respecting and even embracing diversity of views, understanding a variety of social norms and negotiating among conflicting opinions.” 49 Due to the subject matter about land and people on the margins of society and the types of experimental and documentary films on the margins of commercial cinema, this course was suited to expose students to content and practices that could expand their thinking and complicate their projects. The teachers felt that when dealing with such delicate and complicated topics like the Tongan tribe and indigenous plants of the region, the best way for the students to learn was through field trips and talks by people who were specialists on these topics. The teachers were careful not to over-simplify or speak for groups and subjects they were not experts about, but at the same time they wanted the students to be informed and exposed to people, the land and issues in their communities. Many students listed the field trips as their favorite parts of the class in their surveys and final discussion. Though these field trips had more to do with the subject matter of the class and less to do with the media aspects they informed the students’ understandings of media subjects and diverse perspectives. This aspect of the class also challenged notions of acquiring technological skills for work-related and economically productive 252 purposes by associating filmmaking with people and cultures that valued other societal ideas and issues, like the environment and land preservation. Understanding media helps one create media, gain access to media and evaluate it, essentially providing media literate people with the tools to participate in society. Seiter, Jenkins and Buckingham argue youth are often disenfranchised from politics because they are not a demographic that gets spoken to or included in political discussions. Decisions are instead made on their behalf often without their awareness. 50 Buckingham writes, “The more difficult challenge for teachers, as for news journalists, is to find ways of establishing the relevance of politics and of connecting the micropolitics of personal experiences with the macropolitics of the public sphere.” 51 One EPFC student did extensive research on the depletions of wetlands in Southern California and wrote an easily digestible and poetic narrative about the issue that was timed with her black and white Super 8mm footage of wetlands. She admitted at the end of the class that she worked harder on this project than any work she had done for school because she was so invested in it. By learning about the natural environment in her community and her proximity to the destruction that was occurring, she made personal connections to an environmental issue. Her reaction was to make more than simply a PSA for the wetlands, but a thoughtful and historical examination of the wetlands in her local community and she used her own voice to personalize the narrative. 253 Production Buckingham insistently argues that production and creation are necessary parts of media education. Just as writing is a further extension of reading literacy, production is a further extension of critical engagement with media. 52 Buckingham writes, “Students of course possess large repertoires of knowledge about ‘media language’...nevertheless their existing knowledge is passive; it has to be made active in order to be used.” 53 Buckingham points out some of the problems that occur with the production aspects of media education, such as an over emphasis on creativity. He sees creativity as a problematic term because it is often considered an innate talent that one is born with, therefore eliminating the need for the learning process. Buckingham seems to be implicitly critiquing a neoliberal, individualizing version of creativity because it abstracts creativity from its material social relations. Jenkins agrees, stating, “Art does not emerge out of whole cloth from individual imagination. Rather it emerges through the artist’s engagement with previous cultural materials.” 54 Along this line, he sees the notion that students will uncover and expose their true selves during production processes as fallible because production is a social process, particularly in a classrooms setting. 55 During the course that I shadowed, each student was allowed to make his or her own project, though the students were welcome to group together if they chose to. In this class, everyone did his or her own final project but the creation space was a very social one. Students, especially those who chose to make animation projects, used their friends in the class as assistants when composing and continually changing their sets between shots. One 254 student used another student from a different school, who she had only met in this class, as the actress in her film. Other students watched and listened to each other’s proposals and projects to give feedback and technical help. During the field trip, students were given cameras and film to take turns shooting what they saw. Kurt, a 13-year-old white male student, was very proud of watching his footage from the field trip to the pow wow. When the teachers finished showing the footage they offered all of the students the opportunity to cut up the film and use it in their final projects. This really alarmed Kurt because he understood the footage he shot to be his personal footage. One of the teachers had to explain how it was shared footage for the class and gave him the option of using it. However, if he chose not to, they would offer it up to other students. Kurt never used the footage and other students used it in combination with their own footage. Watching Kurt change throughout the class demonstrated the importance of this type of education with regard to socialization. According to the teachers, this was Kurt’s second class, and he was a handful in their previous class. He tended to speak out of turn, had issues with sharing and by extension feared germs and chemicals, and had trouble trusting others and equipment. Early on in the class, he had the outburst about the footage he believed was his, and he tended to cut people off when he wanted to speak. He had about five different final project ideas and did not seem too interested in people’s opinions about which one he should choose though he liked talking out his ideas. Eventually, he shot two separate films on Super 8mm, one inside his home with images of his cat and domestic family spaces without 255 people. And the second film was of streets and the park at an accelerated speed. The teacher said this was a big step for him because using actual film seemed too untrustworthy and less reliable than a DV tape especially because they were allotted such a small amount. However he did take a bunch of digital pictures for a back up project in case something went wrong. The teachers were further surprised when he decided that he would allow his film to be hand processed in the class because there was more risk that something could go wrong than if they sent his film to the lab. Because of his fear of chemicals, he even allowed a fellow student to do the processing for him. He was in charge of sitting outside the dark room and timing each step. He became very stressed by the teachers and students who were going back and forth between a room close to the dark room and the Annex warehouse, because they were allowing light to get close to the dark room. He also was very exact and panicked about making sure the student in the dark room stuck to his timing. His film came out nicely and he was very excited about the editing process. However, one of the teachers suggested that he choose to edit by hand and exhibit the film with an actual projector. Kurt dismissed this idea until the teacher set it up to show him. Because Kurt had two films that he wanted to meld together the teacher showed Kurt what they would like superimposed with two projectors. This brought 19-year-old, Cynthia over to admire the work. She asked Kurt a bunch of technical questions and she watched his film with admiration. Kurt appreciated her interest, especially because Cynthia tended to stick to herself and not partake in Wednesday class discussions about projects. He agreed with the teacher that the live projection 256 was better than a digital cut and chose to take on the stress of playing it live during the exhibition. By this time he was very happy with his work, incredibly complimentary of others’ work and a major participator in helping to set up the communal exhibition space. By trusting others and taking risks, Kurt not only learned how social the process of media production is but also was able to value others’ help and opinions. Teaching production can also lead to “how to” lessons on various types of media technology, warns Buckingham. 56 U.S. policy tends to promote this type of literacy in their conception of technological literacy that is more focused on obtaining a practical skillset than critical engagement. At the EPFC, teachers promote a vast array of production processes alongside critical engagement. For example, during a weekend workshop, the teachers set up four different stations of media-making skills, and the students rotated stations. In one station students learned how to make audio recorders, in station two, students learned how to edit by hand and load film onto a projector, and in station three they learned how to hand process film. All three stations taught them technical skills, but the fourth station was a station for storytelling. The teacher spread out a large amount of old photographs and random ephemera like jars and paper flowers. Students chose whichever objects they wanted and told stories through the pictures, while other students and the teacher asked them questions and made suggestions. The EPFC’s diversity of projects and teachers’ skills and interests kept the class from strictly being about mastering the technology. 257 Buckingham suggests that through the use of media genres, students can create media that goes beyond personal reflections and demonstrations of skillsets. He refutes scholars who critique students’ imitations of popular media arguing that imitation is often the best way to learn a subject at first and that often imitation leads to complex suggestive texts that are critical, self-reflexive or ironic. These types of texts make critical comments about other media through their own work. 57 Another way to do this is through remixing or appropriation. As Jenkins explains, “appropriation” refers to “a process by which students learn by taking culture apart and putting it back together...[and] involves both analysis and commentary.” 58 One of the students reappropriated various pictures of nature being destroyed in the media and then sang “This Land is our Land” over the images. The sweet simplicity of her lonely voice singing such a communal song and the repetition of destructive images gave a chilling effect and provided critical commentary about environmental degradation. Most of the students’ films were experimental in subject matter and style. Buckingham argues that the promotion of avant-garde student production can be both positive and problematic. Avant-garde can become its own genre, he argues and often times, students choose to make films of this nature to please the teachers that promote this technique, not fully understanding it as a critical method of filmmaking. 59 As stated earlier, one of the student's criticisms of the course was that students exhibited a bunch of shaky camera nature films at the final screening. This is true; most of the films were avant-garde or experimental nature films that used 258 various techniques that students had witnessed in class screenings. This seemed to be particularly the case with some of the younger newer students’ projects. However, every film was completely different and the teachers spent a lot of time going over the project proposals with the students to ensure that their projects were more complicated than simply juxtaposing nature and the city. Towards the end, if students were running late in their attempts to finish their projects, the teachers were more lenient about what their films were about, but for the most part, the films varied in content and style. One of the major benefits to making experimental films includes the level of play and experimentation allotted within this genre. Most media scholars argue that one of the core components to media education is play, though this seems to be at odds with the formalities of a school setting. 60 Jenkins identifies how play can be useful as a mode of learning. He writes, “Play in the context argued here is a mode of active engagement, one that encourages experimentation and risk taking...” 61 This type of “experimentation and risk taking” may sound similar to market rhetoric that promotes enterprising initiatives and ventures but this kind of play has no economic ramifications. As Jenkins goes on to explain: Part of what makes play valuable as a mode of problem solving and learning is that it lowers the emotional stakes of failing: players are encouraged to suspend some real-world consequences of the represented actions, to take risks and learn through trial and error. Unlike formal schooling that requires accountability through grading and measurement standards, this privatized site of media education provides room for 259 experimentation and play in education. As discussed in greater detail in the previous chapter, neoliberal policies ensure the privatization and freedom of nonprofits like this one can be more flexible in their teaching methods. Neoliberalism therefore fosters flexibility in privatized education programs but does not allow for this type of play within the formal education system that must adhere in neoliberal practices of standardization and test taking. One of the ways to challenge neoliberal education practices is to integrate instances of play into the classroom and school system at large through the use of media in order to enhance the classroom environment and ways children learn. The EPFC’s emphasis on experimental filmmaking, the allotment of resources and teachers’ openness allowed the students to play through experimentation in several different ways. For example, one student scratched her film on purpose and lent it to a friend. This friend made a huge quilt by weaving together negative slides and then projected the scratched film on a loop through the quilted negatives onto a white screen. The final creation, though abstract, allowed the student to play with different types of media and create something completely original. Another student’s project played with audience expectation. She set up a geometric pattern of black and white images photographs and used an all-white photograph as a screen for her Super 8mm screen projection. She purposely played with the timing of this film to force the audience to stay and examine the other photographs while they waited. Through the multiple projects offered in the class and the endless possibilities the teachers gave them to create their final projects, 260 students were able to take risks and experiment in ways that fully engaged them in the material. While both of these projects emphasize attention to media viewing practices and notions of medium specificity, they both lack the critical engagement of larger social frameworks that give it meaning. According to Frederic Jameson, abstraction and fragmentation in cultural work emulate the abstraction of finance capital (his articulation of neoliberalism). He writes: That is precisely what finance capital brings into being: a play of monetary entities that need neither production (as capital does) nor consumption (as money does), which supremely, like cyberspace, can live on their own internal metabolisms and circulate without reference to an older type of content. 62 Just as the neoliberal technology policy in the United States, discussed in Chapter Two, promotes an over-emphasis of acquiring digital skills at the expense of critically engaging with media and its larger contexts, the promotion of this type of abstraction and emphasis on formal qualities also removes the critical components of media education. In another case of the use of abstraction through experimental techniques, one EPFC veteran created poetic film from a novel. She chose to use a novel about a young social outcast girl who has a self-realization that she is actually a bird. Besides two animation projects, this was the only narrative story told by the students in this class; however, it was told in a very abstract experimental way. Using one of her fellow students as the actress, she shot a series of shots of the girl realizing she was a bird and filmed abstract POV shots from the girl and bird. She stripped the narrative down to prose that sounded more like poetry and matched the poetry to the moving 261 images, often using repetition. She was able to take another story and make it her own through her remixing of the writings and visual imagery but she also made it in an experimental aesthetic that the EPFC supported. The EPFC does not discourage narrative work; the teachers that taught this particular class were well versed in experimental art films and therefore many of the examples in class, including teachers’ own work tended to be abstract. It was no surprise to witness more abstract work coming from the students considering the films showcased in class. This speaks to the small privatized and special interests of nonprofit media education. Instead of trying to teach a comprehensive understanding of media forms that cover narrative, documentary and experimental techniques, this class was able to hone in on the teachers’ interests and media that they found best supported how they chose to teach the course. However, I never witnessed a conversation in which EPFC staff prompted this student to take the narrative elements out of her adaptation. In contrast, the teachers asked many questions in hopes of provoking students to articulate what their projects were about. Evaluation Students’ abilities to evaluate work come from analysis and their own experience of creating media. According to O’Neill and Hagen, “Evaluation requires critical and analytical skills, but also knowledge of the cultural, political, economic and historical context in which the particular content is produced” 63 The teachers readily provided the origins or context for most of the films they showed in class. During the first class they showed an avant-garde documentary on the Native 262 American sit-in at Alcatraz. The film featured a bunch of found footage and found voiceover. The students and teachers (particularly of the more vocal Friday class) took part in a lively discussion about the methods used and the information conveyed. The students were just as curious about the sit-in as they were the film, since they had never learned about it in their history courses in school. They were really excited about this film until one of the teachers told them a white male made it, recently. This puzzled the students because they could not figure out if this changed what they thought about the film. The teachers used this film and its context to introduce major questions they would explore in the class, like whose story is it to tell, how does the manipulation of found footage recreate a new story, do experimental film techniques enhance or distract the subject matter, whose stories get left out of official history. Critical response can be a complex process to teach because it is often associated with social and cultural capital. During his own media education research, Buckingham found that often times, critical response was a way for middle class boys, especially, to differentiate themselves from younger or lower class students. He found that their ability to point out weaknesses or faults with popular media gave them status in their peer group. He writes: This use of ‘critical discourse’ represents a valuable from of ‘cultural capital’ and a tangible demonstration of one’s own cultural distinction (cf. Bourdieu, 1984). Becoming critical offers middle class children a means of distinguishing themselves from the ‘others’, and thereby of socializing themselves into class membership. 64 263 Due to EPFC’s desire to support noncommercial media and act as an outlet for experimental and social justice work, the organization as a whole tends to be critical of commercially popular media. By contrast, EPFC is understood as a space that fosters experimental and documentary work. This does not mean students and teachers do not enjoy certain forms of popular media outside of the EPFC but commercial media did prove marginalized in the “Origins” course. They used a clip from one commercial film, Smoke Signals (1998), a Miramax production about a young Native American. When the teachers stopped the clip, the Wednesday class actually groaned for the first time because they were becoming immersed in the traditional Hollywood narrative, unlike the Friday class that was much less interested in discussing it because there were less technical and stylistic questions to be asked. This was particularly noticeable with the EPFC veteran students. Though from different schools and ethnic and class backgrounds there was a clique of about eight to ten students that had bonded through the Center over their common cultural interests that provided them with cultural capital in the class. They often talked about the underground music they made and listened to, which complimented their more experimental film aesthetic choices. They tended to sit in the back of the class often on the couches behind the theater seats and ask provocative and often thoughtful questions about the complex films that were being screened. In the beginning they tended to control the screening discussions and class activities, like mapping the areas they where from but by the time it came to shooting and editing many of them were behind schedule and spent class time hanging out with one another, and using 264 the last few weekend lab hours to edit their projects. This class was as much about the projects for them as it was about being part of social and cultural space. In observing them, I never found them outwardly rude to younger or newer students but their comfortableness in the space and cultural knowledge made them stand out. The experimental and less well-known screenings were matched by the organization and teachers knowledge about using less well-known equipment. The organization specializes in renting out Super 8mm and 60mm cameras and projectors along with digital cameras. The teachers employed these older mediums and offered the students the chance to use Super 8mm cameras accompanied by hand processing tutorials in the course. The EPFC’s emphasis on older manual filmmaking techniques counters the U.S. neoliberal policy focus on youths’ need to acquire newer digital skillsets to succeed in the global workforce. For the EPFC, media education is about more than digital technology training but also about an appreciation for visual and audio culture and experimentation with different formats and mediums. According to student surveys before the class began, using a Super 8mm camera was one of the more exciting aspects of the class. The same surveys that discussed the use of Super 8mm also discussed an interest in art. There was a correlation between these two for the students. Many of the films screened in class, including the teacher’s work were shot on film. Because of the increasing rarity of film and the appreciation for it at EPFC more cultural capital was given to students who used the Super 8mm cameras. 265 In contrast, a younger student had a more difficult time aligning his tastes with the EPFC. The youngest student in the course, Kevin, a 12-year-old Latino boy who had taken one other course before this one, was very excited to make his own film. When proposing his project, it was evident he was more interested in processes than themes. During the first week of proposal discussions he came in with the intention of making a stop motion film with his Legos. When asked by a teacher how the theme of “Origins” fit into his project, he could not answer but figured Legos were ideal objects for stop motion. The following week he came in wanting to make a film about “foreshadowing”. He had learned what the concept meant in school and thought it was such a grand idea that he wanted to film the foreshadowing process but every time he tried to explain what it meant he had to check the piece of paper in his pocket. He was one of the most eager students and one of the first to shoot his project. I was surprised to find him watching his footage on trains one day, since nowhere in class discussion did he explain his interest in shooting trains and I could not make out its connection to the class theme. The footage was very well shot and he smiled proudly while watching it. There was much discussion with a teacher about how he was going to add sound to the project and how that might place the film within the theme of the class. He was having trouble deciding what to do, so the teacher asked him what his favorite films were, hoping these films could give him inspiration. He said his favorite films were spy action films in which stuff blew up and he named his favorite film, a Hollywood B-level action flick. The class erupted in laughter from their computer stations and the teacher’s response was simply, 266 “Really?” Part of the reason for the teacher and class’s response was because the Hollywood film he mentioned was not a good one and part of the reason was because this space and its aesthetic and politics existed so far from Hollywood blockbuster action films. Such an obvious display of affection for this type of film was not socially or culturally respected in this space and the unfortunate humiliation prevented Kevin from being able to critically engage with his media preference. At another point in the semester when his computer was taken from him before the class ended because it was one of the traveling laptops, he sat in the theater seats by himself and loudly played a song from a female pop star; this received complaints and looks partly because it was disruptive and partly because it did not fit within the space but no one asked him to turn it off. As David Buckingham points out, one of the major problems with contemporary media education is the lack of attention given to popular culture or the teaching of supposed “high art” in opposition to popular culture. 65 In Chapter Three, I illustrate how Hungary’s public school media education program suffers from the desire to teach high art films while leaving popular culture out of the curriculum. The EPFC’s egalitarian beliefs and casual “do it yourself” ethos prevents this organization from prioritizing or canonizing specific art films but as a privatized site, this organization can be selective in the media it chooses to screen and promote. Teaching Buckingham’s concepts, production, language, representations and audiences can all be applied to popular culture texts. Plus deconstructing production and consumption practices through critical readings, processes of ideological coding 267 and decoding, remixing and acknowledgement of what makes viewing and using popular culture pleasurable deepens youth’s understanding of media. Therefore avoiding critical engagement with popular media somewhat aligns the EPFC with neoliberal policy discourse that also dodges critical understandings of media education, though the EPFC does teach critical discourse for nonmainstream media. The neoliberal structure that promotes big media industries to produce and distribute popular culture also maintains the privatized nonprofit status that allows the EPFC to prioritize nonmainstream media and refrain from providing youth with examples of how critical discourse can be utilized to both enjoy and deconstruct popular culture media. Kevin challenged the typical EPFC’s media practices but because of the support, flexibility and openness of the EPFC model, Kevin was very proud and happy with his final product. He eventually decided with the help of the teacher to look into the origins of his childhood love of trains and used his mother’s, father’s and his own voiceover to discuss his childhood infatuation with trains. The flexibility of the organization in general and the teachers in particular was demonstrated in the EPFC’s initial approval and support for his train footage. The voiceover best fit within the class theme, however, teachers and assistants made other suggestions as well, including the use of garage band software to make a soundtrack. The teachers tried to articulate Kevin’s film within the theme of “Origins” while he chose to make a film about industrial machines, transportation, and passage from one place to another—the very opposite of nature, birthplace and genesis—and yet in dialectic 268 tension with the theme. Because of the EPFC’s emphasis on challenging the status quo and experimentation, its model tends to be open to interesting tensions such as this one. The EPFC final projects were exhibited in a gallery setting, which separated its students’ work from the traditional commercial film screenings in a theater. The teachers for this course decided to change up the usual exhibition practice for EPFC classes, which traditionally consists of an exhibition of films at the Center in a typical cinema theater format. Because they allowed students to create projects that were not strictly films but could also be installations, they decided a gallery exhibit seemed more practical. The teachers and directors created four separate viewing areas at the Annex. They set up two tents in the warehouse. One tent housed the installation pieces and the other became an intimate space with rugs for the projection of 8mm films. The other part of the warehouse screened half of the digitally edited projects on a large white wall with recycled theater seats. Students came and helped decorate the space with tea lights, fabric and cyanotypes. Outside they used their traveling media education bus as a backdrop for a white screen and set up a bunch of recycled classroom seats with desks from the University of Southern California for the other half of the digitally edited films. After people socialized and ate, Davanzo invited everyone to the desks to introduce the EPFC and then handed the microphone over to the teachers who introduced the class and students. Then the night of screenings began with a 19-year-old, Asian male student’s film and the live accompaniment from his band. From that point on, the 269 inside doors were open and people were able to wonder from station to station. This type of exhibition was practical but also special. The students’ work was not only given time but space to emphasize its importance. I would argue that this exhibition though comparable to a museum set up was actually quite the opposite. Unlike the quiet space of a museum, this space was loud and alive with different sounds from films and guests and different languages spoken. Students could discuss their work with guests and play with some of the installation pieces. The student who made her film about corn even popped bags of popcorn for her audience. There was also an extremely large potluck that fed over 200 guests. Every student contributed to the feast with family favorites like fried chicken, homemade guacamole, and vegan macaroni and cheese. The event was a community affair that was less about demonstrating one’s cultural capital as it was about coming together and sharing films and admiration. Much like the class experience, this exhibition experience provided the students with the freedom to navigate through the space and final projects in whichever way they chose. Conclusion This nonprofit institution’s media educations strategies demonstrate both production and critical engagement in a social and participatory space. Because the communal space created by the EPFC staff and participants, many students take multiple classes. It becomes a place for them to learn, feel accepted and respected, and socialize with like-minded people. The egalitarian and unconventional nature rooted in this organization fosters a space to question mainstream neoliberal 270 practices and spotlights youth and nonmainstream media at the margins of a neoliberal system. At the same time, as a private institution, it has its own set of aesthetic and political beliefs that could not register in a less insular setting, like public schools. I concluded my final surveys for the children with the question: “How would you feel if you school offered a course like this?” Many students answered this question by saying they would energetically take it. One student answered quite simply and sadly, “I would have liked school.” For a lot of the students, the filmmaking aspects of the class were not what set this class apart from school courses. A good portion of students commented on the extra-filmic parts of this course like the openness of the space and community that it fostered. These extra- filmic characteristics set this organization apart from the students’ school classes. One student even stated, “It would be absurdly uniformed and spiritless, we would probably be taught more technical aspects of media.” This again points to scholars’ argument that if media is to be taught in schools, it must be done in a different way than what Freire refers to as the banking model. Referring to computers, but applicable to all media-making equipment, Larry Cuban writes: The introduction of information technologies into schools over the past two decades has achieved neither the transformation of teaching and learning nor the productivity gains...For such fundamental changes in teaching and learning to occur there would have to have been widespread and deep reform in schools’ organizational, political, social and technological contexts. 66 By providing students with the freedom and trust to use equipment and by engaging them in discussions about complex topics and problem solving, on a small scale, the 271 EPFC has provided students with communication, critical thinking and technical skills that may not necessarily connect and sometimes even contradict the technological literacy U.S. policy officials promote, but nonetheless, this educational process provides them with insight on media and their world. Regardless of whether these students grow up and participate in media careers, the skills taught at the EPFC about and through media help them become active cultural citizens that listen and watch what is going on in their communities and world. The Center provides them a space to learn how to speak and be heard through visual media tools and informed dialogue about subjects both near and far from them. 272 Chapter Five Endnotes 1 Henry A. Giroux, Stealing Innocence: Youth, Corporate Power, and the Politics of Culture (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 83-105. 2 Henry Jenkins, Media Convergence: Where Old and New Media Collide, Revised Edition (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2008), 270. 3 David Buckingham, Media Education: Literacy, Learning and Contemporary Culture (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2003), 1. 4 Jenkins, Media Convergence, 13-14. 5 George Yudice, The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in a Global Era (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 25. 6 Ibid., 25. 7 Ibid., 12. 8 Echo Park Film Center, “EPFC Mission and History,” accessed April 23, 2012, http://echoparkfilmcenter.org/about%20us/mission.html. 9 Alison Butler, Media Education Goes to School: Young People Making Meaning of Media & Urban Education (New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2010), 52. 10 Paolo Davanzo and Lisa Marr, interview at the Echo Park Film Center, Los Angeles, California, March 2007. 11 Brian Goldfarb, Visual Pedagogies: Media Cultures In and Beyond the Classroom (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 120. 12 Davanzo and Marr interview. 13 Echo Park Film Center, “Echo Park Film Center: Home,” accessed April 20, 2012, http://echoparkfilmcenter.org/index.html. 14 Kyle Conway, “Small Media, Global Media: Kino and the Microcinema Movement,” Journal of Film and Video 60, no. 3/4 (2008): 61. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., 60. 17 Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi and Ali Mohammadi, quoted in Conway, 60. 18 Conway, 60-61. 273 19 Kathryn Ramey, “Between Art, Industry and Academia: The Fragile Balancing Act of the Avant- Garde Film Community,” Visual Anthropology Review 18, no. 1-2 (2002): 23. 20 Daniel Hurewitz, Bohemian Los Angeles and the Making of Modern Politics (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007), 23-24. 21 Ibid., 24, 79. 22 Hurewitz, Bohemian Los Angeles, 83. 23 Ibid., 80. 24 Ibid., 161. 25 Hurewitz, Bohemian Los Angeles, 161. 26 Ibid., 13. 27 Holly Willis, “Cinetheque Paradiso: The Echo Park Film Center is film school, microcinema, more,” LA Weekly, November 27, 2003, http://www.laweekly.com/index.php?option=com_lawcontent&task=view&id=2193&Itemid=9. 28 “Neighborhoods of the City of Los Angeles Population and Race 2000 Census,” Los Angeles Almanac, http://www.laalmanac.com/population/po24la_2000.htm, and “Neighborhoods of the City of Los Angeles Population and Race 2010 Census,” Los Angeles Almanac, http://www.laalmanac.com/population/po24la.htm, accessed November 2011. 29 “City of Los Angeles Communities Median Home Value – Specified Owner-Occupied Housing Units 2000 Census and 2006 Estimates,” Los Angeles Almanac, accessed April 2007, http://www.laalmanac.com/LA/la58.htm. 30 Robert Greene, “Fighting High Rents: In LA? Good Luck,” LA Weekly, April 28, 2005 http://www.laweekly.com/general/features/fighting-high-rents/701/. 31 Cyanotype is a photographic printing process in which “paper is sensitized with an aqueous mixture of ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide.” Students would take various natural and filmic materials, like 35mm film, and place it on the paper in the sun. The image of the shape placed on the paper will appear as a blue print on the paper. This photo process was developed in the early 1840s by Sir John Herschel, and by the 1870s commercial paper, such as the paper used at the EPFC, was available for retail. Glen D. Lawrence and Stuart Fishelson, “UV Catalysis, Cyanotype Photography, and Sunscreens,” Journal of Chemical Education 76, no. 9 (1999): 1199. 32 Henry Jenkins, Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education in the 21st Century (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009), xiii. 33 Ibid, 32. 34 Sonia Livingstone, Children and the Internet (London, UK: Polity Press, 2009), 192. 274 35 Paolo Freire and Donaldo Pereira Macedo, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30 th Anniversary Edition. (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000), 71-81. 36 Ibid., 72. 37 Ibid., 79. 38 Ibid., 87. 39 Ibid., 109. 40 Goldfarb, Visual Pedagogies, 111. 41 Noah Kelly, “Pow Wow Wow Yippee Yo Yippy Yay,” Union Weekly, March 14, 2011, 6. 42 The names of the youth have all been changed to protect their privacy. 43 Brian O’Neill and Ingunn Hagen, “Media Literacy,” in <kids online> Opportunities and Risks for Children, eds. Sonia Livingstone and Leslie Haddon (Bristol, UK, Polity Press, 2009), 229. Livingstone, Children and the Internet, 84. Butler, Media Education Goes to School, 4. 44 Patricia Aufderheide, in Livingstone, Children and the Internet, 184. 45 Buckingham, Media Education, 54-61. 46 Ellen Seiter, The Internet Playground: Children’s Access, Entertainment and Mis-Education (New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2005), 9. 47 Livingstone, Children and the Internet, 186. 48 Buckingham, Media Education, 57. 49 Jenkins, Confronting the Challenges, 99. 50 Seiter, Internet Playground, 35-36; Jenkins, Confronting the Challenges, 12-13; Buckingham, Media Education, 218-221. 51 Buckingham, The Making of Citizens: Young People, News and Politics (London, UK: Routledge, 2000), 221 (emphasis in original). 52 Buckingham, Media Education, 49. 53 Ibid., 132. 54 Jenkins, Confronting the Challenges, 55. 55 Buckingham, Media Education, 127-129. 56 Ibid., 131. 275 57 Ibid., 134-136. 58 Jenkins, Confronting the Challenges, 55. 59 Buckingham, Media Education, 136-137. 60 See Seiter, Internet Playground; Jenkins, Confronting the Challenges; Buckingham, Media Education; Livingstone, Children and the Internet; Mizuko Ito, Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children’s Software (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2009). 61 Jenkins, Confronting the Challenges, 40. 62 Frederic Jameson, “Culture and Finance Capital,” Critical Inquiry 24, no. 1 (1997): 252. 63 O’Neil and Hagen, in Livingstone and Haddon, eds., <kids online>, 231. 64 Buckingham, Media Education, 110. 65 David Buckingham, Beyond Technology: Children’s Learning in the Age of Digital Culture (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2007), 97. 66 Larry Cuban, Oversold & Underused: Computers in the Classroom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 195. 276 Chapter Six: Conclusion Media Education, ‘What’s it worth to you?’ 1 A young man strides down a road accompanied by upbeat music. Flower and vine illustrations follow his steps and climb up walls until he stops at a street art portrait. He looks at the portrait and then at his notebook, which has a similar street art design on the cover. The flowers disappear, as do the street art images on his notebook and the wall. Soon he too vanishes into a ball of dust and transforms into a computer rendered image of a man with an almost featureless face. He falls through a hole on the live action street and reappears on a simple computer generated road. His journey down the road begins with a graffiti sign on a billboard that states, “art is everything.” The sign disappears. No decorated drawings or designs accompany his journey; instead solemn music ushers him down the never-ending road. As he walks, U.S. federal and state spending amounts pop up on the side of the road complemented by corresponding images. Computer animated drawings of war weapons and vehicles appear with the price of war. Two dancers disappear as he walks by and a group of musicians get angry and kill one another. Eventually the young man walks into a classroom in the middle of the road. Once inside the room he turns back into his live action self, relieved to be off the road. As he sits down and opens his notebook the classroom comes alive with drawings and vibrant music and color. The video comes to an end with statistics that show how underfunded schools 277 are in United States and an explanation of funding cuts in school art programs. The last quote reads, “Isn’t it funny that without art, the whole world seems to vanish, what’s it worth to you?” 2 This video, titled Vanishing, was made through Adobe Youth Voices and can be viewed on the program’s website. The young producers made a political statement arguing against cuts in school art programs by emphasizing how important art is not only to the individual artist portrayed in the film but also to society at large. The youth creators depicted a dry and unpleasurable world in the computer-rendered version to reinforce, in the case of the musicians, how cultural practices create solidarity and community among people. This video’s reflexive message about the importance of culture and art, through the process of media making demonstrates how valuable youth find creative expression. The video also demonstrates how integral schools are for the promotion of art and cultural educations. Youth learn about the world, create their own identities and interact through the use of cultural forms like media. Giroux argues in Corporate Culture: The politics of culture provide the conceptual space in which childhood is constructed, experienced and struggled over. Culture is the primary terrain in which adults exercise power over children both ideologically and institutionally. Only by questioning the specific cultural formations and contexts in which childhood is organized, learned and lived can educators understand and challenge the ways in which cultural practices establish specific power relations that shape children’s experiences. 3 In this dissertation, I articulate models of effective media education. These models enable youth to think critically about the cultural formations and contexts that affect them and their social relations, while also providing them with opportunities to 278 create and use media in pleasurable and empowering ways. I also set out to grasp the ideological and institutional influences that affect youth media education from the macro level of regional and national policy to the micro level of parental, teacher and community influences. In his book about the importance of cultural practices in social movements, T.V. Reed acknowledges the significance of political economic forces: “Giving culture a stronger footing…will allow us to better understand the interactions of all of these interwoven forces. But, in turn, without addressing structural forces, particularly political economy, analysis of the cultural dimension is itself radically incomplete.” 4 Just as political economy affects social movements, it influences cultural education; therefore, I interweave an analysis of the structural forces behind media education with an analysis of the cultural policies and practices taking place in the United States and European Union in order to provide a comprehensive picture of the challenges this subject matter encounters in a globalized society that highly values media and digital technology. Cultural citizenship becomes an ideal framing mechanism for discussing youths’ rights to be seen and heard, no matter their nationalities, race, ethnicity, religion or gender. Because youth are not of legal age to vote, culture often becomes their way of contributing to and interacting with their societies. Giroux explains: ...culture is political to the degree that it gives rise to practices that represent and deploy power, thereby shaping particular identities, mobilizing a range of passions, and legitimating precise forms of political culture. Culture in that instance becomes productive and is inextricably linked to the related issues of power and agency. 5 279 Having a comprehensive understanding of media allows youth to better express themselves and interact with and through media. Whether they are expressing themselves, through YouTube videos that they create, the news they read and publically share through social networking sites, or their use of media platforms like chat rooms and fan sites to communicate with others, youth are engaging in networks beyond their personal relations. Media can be used to promote solidarity at the same time it can further emphasize and create conflict between people of different races, genders, and nationalities. Youth can learn respect for differences of opinions and beliefs through media literacy programs because access to various media forms and content expose youth to different people and cultures. Both the AYV and EPFC programs demonstrate how media education can teach tolerance and respect by exposing youth to people and cultures outside of their usual relations and interactions. The Adobe program connects youth and educators from all over the world through their yearly summit and promotes the sharing of youths’ work from different programs around the world. The EPFC introduces and exposes youth to various cultures and people by creating a close knit communal space in a diverse metropolitan city and introducing young people from different socioeconomic backgrounds to each other and alternative filmmaking practices. Both programs highlight the integral relationship between media and society. Media has an affect on how youth make sense of the world; consequently, a class about media is a class about society at large. 280 Because media literacy promotes individualizing responsibility for media use and consumption, certain scholars argue against prioritizing this practice because it inadvertently proposes a neoliberal solution to deregulatory measures. In Media Regulation, Livingstone and Lunt explain that communication political economist, Robert McChesney, finds media literacy practices to be a distraction from understanding and trying to change unequal power relations. 6 As I have argued throughout this dissertation, a strong media literacy plan teaches people about media industry, policy strategies and their rights as citizens and consumers of media. In this dissertation, I have demonstrated how important an understanding of the political- economic structures in the European Union and the United States are to understanding how media literacy has been conceived of as a subject and taught, therefore integrating McChesney’s main concern, “who will control media and for what purpose?” 7 with effective examples of how media literacy can challenge unequal power relations by equipping youth with the knowledge and skills to think and act according to their beliefs and interests. By no means do I see the examples I have discussed in previous chapters of media literacy practices and policies radically changing the political-economic structure in place, but I do see media literacy practices and policies as a way to alter for the better the unbalanced power relations with regard to media practices. Both the CHICAM program and the AYV program have provided disenfranchised youth with access to media for communicative and creative purposes. These programs not only teach people how to use media to be heard but also promote 281 the socialization of media education by fostering relationships between people from various socio-cultural and national backgrounds. The EPFC and Los Altos Digital Design classes reinforce how important qualified and caring educators are in administering and creating curriculum that both motivates students to be engaged and teaches them valuable lessons at the same time. With regard to policy, though the E.U. media literacy policy suffers from Eurocentricism, the European Union’s ability to create a clear framework for media literacy that is comprehensive yet also dynamic enough to keep up with the ever-changing media technologies provides member states and schools with accessible guidelines and motivations for integrating the subject matter into curriculum. And the U.S. policy initiatives, though technologically focused, still have made important strides in providing classrooms and libraries with access to Internet connections. All of these strategies and efforts to equip youth with a media education help them become more aware and active in participating in political (making a PSA), economic (learning valuable problem solving and technical skills), social (communicating with others) and cultural (using media for creative purposes) practices that ultimately help make them cultural enfranchised citizens of the world. Based on what I have learned through researching and investigating the media literacy policies and practices in the United States and European Union, I propose suggestions for how to improve media education polices in both regions. Because the European Union already has a media literacy framework and support from the European Commission and European Parliament for promoting media 282 literacy in all member states, my suggestions for the European Union are smaller and more specific. First, the European Union needs to rid its framework, studies, discussions and rationale for media literacy of its Eurocentric statements and qualifications. Though I believe that the European Union has set an important precedent in the world by advancing media literacy from a supranational governance position to a divergent group of member states, the European Union ultimately problematizes media literacy by proposing a common European connection and implicitly tying it to the media discourse, making the media literacy agenda untranslatable to other locales around the world and people within the region who do not necessarily identify as European. Opening up media literacy framework so that critical thinking about media includes the questioning and understanding of European cultural heritage is an important step toward a more multifaceted examination of media. Also, while I think the media literacy framework does a good job of breaking down the various environmental and personal factors that affect a person’s media literacy, adding one more layer to the environmental foundation of the media literacy pyramid would strengthen an understanding of the discourse. As it currently stands, the media literacy pyramid acknowledges the political, industrial, educational and nonprofit support needed for access to a media education, but not larger environmental factors like race, class, nationality and gender that also play a role in a child’s ability to access a media education. For example, the attention a child may receive in class or his or her ability to afford lunch affects his or her ability to focus on learning any subject matter, including media education. Adding larger 283 environmental issues to the pyramid that indirectly impact media education would strengthen the framework because, as stated earlier, the relationship between society and media is deeply intertwined. In the United States, I suggest that the Department of Education create a commission on media and technology education. Similar to how Bell set up the National Commission of Excellence on Education in the eighties, which was comprised of state and local government appointees, academics, and private and nonprofit sector employees to examine the U.S. education system, the current Department of Education should also reach out to people from these various sectors related to media and education. Likewise, the Department should refrain from putting federal employees on the media education commission in order to avoid criticism from states rights advocates who believe the federal government should leave education to the states and local districts. The commission should commence after the Department of Education spearheads a conference for those invested in media and technology education. This conference should include a wider net of scholars, practitioners, educators and policymakers whose thoughts and ideas could help the commission. Scholars and practitioners from STEM, the humanities and social sciences should be included in the conference and on the commission so that different perspectives on media can be utilized to create a multifaceted framework. The commission’s goal should be to create a media education framework that is both comprehensive and flexible so that it can guide teachers yet allow them freedom in figuring out how best to integrate the subject matter into their lesson plans. I think 284 this framework or set of guidelines should not be considered requirements, since again, creating standards and curriculum are outside of the federal government’s purview; instead this framework should act as a supportive key for this twenty-first century discourse. This key should be more detailed than the ISTE guidelines, which the federal government refers to now, and should not overtly focus on the technical components of a media education. In order to come up with these guidelines, the commission should examine programs in schools, like the Digital Design program in the Los Altos School District as well as after school programs like the AYV and EPFC programs in order to evaluate how such teaching techniques and strategies could be integrated into a larger scale, public education system. Besides creating a recommended framework that clearly breaks down media education for educators and students, I also think the commission should propose the creation of a resource website for teachers and educators. The website should provide the commission’s media literacy framework and reiterate media education’s importance as a subject matter. It should also be organized in a clear fashion according to the guidelines set up by the commission. For each guideline, examples or links to how to teach the specific information should be available. For example, a link to Adobe’s Essentials curriculum would be available under media making skills. I think there should also be a forum on the website for teachers and educators to communicate with one another, provide examples and ask questions. This website should also have a section that promotes free software programs that teachers can use. Because of Sheena Vaidyanathan’s knowledge of computer science, she was able to 285 find the free software to teach her students, but not all teachers have access to that knowledge, therefore this website could be an extremely helpful resource for teachers and educators interested in incorporating media education into their lesson plans but who may be unsure of how to go about it. In my interview with Vaidyanathan, she explained to me that she frequently combs the web for other programs like hers in order to learn from other teachers but she has a difficult time finding information about such programs. The site would allow her to share her practices and also gain advice from other teachers. While I think creating a central website for educators is the best way to spread some of the effective teaching and operational strategies that I witnessed in my case studies, I want to highlight certain practices here that could translate well from after school to in school curriculum. First, the importance placed on the communal and social aspects of media education by AYV and EPFC should also take place in schools. Because technology and media resources are often difficult for many schools to purchase, creating lesson plans that pair youth up or require group work would be efficient and helpful in teaching youth how to work with media and communicate with others. All of Adobe’s Youth Essentials lesson plans include collaborative work. So though teachers and educators may not be able to afford Adobe equipment to follow through with most of the lesson plans provided, these plans can be utilized as starting points for teachers to formulate their own collaborative media making plans. The AYV case study demonstrated how important it is for classrooms to have compatible software and hardware. Access to affordable 286 hardware proves challenging for schools; however, finding ways to use free software like Vaidyanathan was able to do is a smart way to save on costs. All three programs also emphasized and welcomed contributions from the children. Instead of using what Freire referred to as the banking model of learning, teachers should create a space that welcomes youth contribution. 8 When it comes to media, children often know certain information or possess skills that teachers do not, and a teacher’s ability to learn from his or her students helps keep information fresh and new and validates children’s knowledge and interests. I also propose that schools emphasize student exhibition. All three U.S. programs supported an exhibition process that, as Buckingham asserts, is the initial step for youth empowerment because the display of youths’ creative work recognizes the importance of their voice, whether social, political or cultural and advances youth participation in society. 9 Schools exist to teach youth valuable skills and knowledge that help them interact and engage in society. Kathryn Montgomery argues that scholars and educators need to rethink children’s relationship to media and society in the age of digital media. She writes: The features of interactive media are especially appealing to young people because they tap into such key developmental needs as identity exploration, self-expression, peer relationships, and independence. As children come of age in this new digital media environment, the values, behaviors, and practices they adopt will stay with them into adulthood, helping to shape the next generation of media and its relationship to the public. 10 Both schools and media affect youth’s understanding of their role in society. Incorporating media into school curriculum helps youth to understand that media are 287 not simply commodities but also effective tools for communication and creative expression that promote meanings and significances that can be used for societal, cultural and political participation. Schools are the ideal location for youth to learn with and about media because most youth have access to schools. While undocumented immigrants may face more obstacles in securing public education for their children, often times these youth still attend schools. Schools teach youth to be skilled thinkers and workers in society. Youth learn to interact with their peers and adults, learn about the past and present world and their rights as citizens. Because of globalizing forces, like markets, migration and media, citizens’ actions, communication and access transcend national and regional borders. Media becomes a way for youth to learn about people, places and histories outside of their own personal networks and understandings. But media are subjective tools with different meanings and significances that should be questioned and studied like other school subjects. While media scholars have looked outside of the classroom for ways to understand how youth are using and learning media and digital technologies, public schools are still one of the few institutional systems that intends to promote equality through education to youth of all races, religions and gender. Therefore media scholars and other media literacy proponents should actively find ways to integrate media literacy into schools. Such an education can alleviate the anxieties of technology in the classroom and youths’ use of various forms of media during leisure time. If it is through media and communication technologies that we receive and project news and information in order to be informed and active citizens, we must 288 know how to use such mediums, while thinking critically and discerning the information presented through them. 289 Chapter Six Endnotes 1 “Adobe Youth Voices: Vanishing,” Adobe Foundation, accessed April 23, 2012, http://youthvoices.adobe.com/youth-media-gallery/themes/5-globalization/media/171. 2 Ibid. 3 Henry A. Giroux, Stealing Innocence: Corporate Culture’s War on Children (New York, NY: Palgrave, 2000), 4. 4 T. V. Reed, The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 315. 5 Henry A. Giroux, Public Spaces, Private Lives: Beyond the Culture of Cynicism (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001), 21. 6 Peter Lunt and Sonia Livingstone, Media Regulation: Governance and the Interests of Citizens and Consumers (London, UK: Sage Publications, 2012), 130. 7 Ibid. 8 Paolo Freire and Donaldo Pereira Macedo, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30 th Anniversary Edition (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000), 72. 9 David Buckingham, The Making of Citizens: Young People, News and Politics (London, UK: Taylor and Francis: 2002), 56. 10 Kathryn C. Montgomery, “Balancing the Needs of Young People in the Digital Marketplace,” Journal of Children and Media 5, no. 3 (2011): 334. 290 References Adobe Foundation. “Adobe Youth Voices: About Us.” Adobe Foundation. November, 2011. http://youthvoices.adobe.com/about/. —. “Adobe Youth Voices: Curriculum.” Adobe Foundation. Accessed November, 2011. http://essentials.youthvoices.adobe.com/curriculum.aspx. —. “Adobe Youth Voices: Curriculum: Video.” Adobe Foundation. Accessed November, 2011. http://essentials.youthvoices.adobe.com/curriculum/video- curriculum.aspx. —. “Adobe Youth Voices: Measuring Impact: Evaluation Data Supports Contributions Framework.” Adobe Foundation. Accessed May 21, 2012. http://youthvoices.adobe.com/about/evaluation-data/. —. “Adobe Youth Voices: Vanishing.” Adobe Foundation. Accessed April 23, 2012. http://youthvoices.adobe.com/youth-media-gallery/themes/5- globalization/media/171. —. “Adobe Youth Voices: Youth Media Defined.” Adobe Foundation. Accessed November, 2011. http://essentials.youthvoices.adobe.com/our- philosophy/youth-media-defined.aspx. Adobe Systems. “About Adobe.” Adobe Systems, Inc. November, 2011. http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/. —. “Adobe fast facts.” Adobe Systems, Inc. November 2011. http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pdfs/Adobe_Fast_Facts_3_20 11.pdf. Antoine, Frederic. “Media Industries and Education: What Mutual Interests, and for What Purpose?” In EuroMeduc: Media literacy in Europe: Controversies and Challenges, edited by Patrick Verniers, 48. Brussels, 2009. Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large. Minnesota: Minnesota University Press, 1996. —. Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006. 291 Bryant, Chris. “Hungary Passes Controversial Media Law.” Financial Times, Dec. 21, 2010. Buckingham, David. The Making of Citizens: Young People, News and Politics. London, UK: Routledge, 2000. —. The Making of Citizens: Young People, News and Politics. London, UK: Taylor and Francis: 2002. —. Media Education: Literacy, Learning and Contemporary Culture. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2003. —. Beyond Technology: Children’s Learning in the Age of Digital Culture. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2007. —. “The Future of Media Literacy in the Digital Age: Some Challenges for Policy and Practice.” In EuroMeduc: Media literacy in Europe: Controversies and Challenges, edited by Patrick Verniers, 13-23. Brussels, 2009. Butler, Allison. Media Education Goes to School: Young People Make Meaning of Media & Urban Education. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing, 2010. Canclini, Garcia. Consumers and Citizens: Globalization and Multicultural Conflicts. Translated by George Yudice. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 2001. Celot, Paolo, ed. “Study Assessment Criteria for Media Literacy Levels: Final Report.” Brussels: EAVI, 2009. CNN Money. “100 Best Companies to Work For.” CNN Money. November 2011. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/bestcompanies/2011/snapshots/65.h tml. Collins, Allan, and Richard Halverson. Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America. New York, NY: Teacher’s College Press, 2009. Conway, Kyle. “Small Media, Global Media: Kino and the Microcinema Movement.” Journal of Film and Video 60, no. 3/4 (2008): 61. Cuban, Larry. Oversold & Underused: Computers in the Classroom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. 292 Culp, Katie McMillan, Margaret Honey, and Ellen Mandinach. A Retrospective on Twenty Years of Education Technology Policy. Washington, D.C.: US Department of Education, 2003. Dalby, Douglas. “Growing Antitax Stoicism Wearing Thin.” The New York Times, March 19, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/world/europe/growing-antitax- movement-shows-irish-stoicism-wearing-thin.html. de Block, Liesbeth, and David Buckingham. Global Children, Global Media: Migration, Media and Childhood. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. de Block, Liesbeth, and David Buckingham. “Children in Communication about Migration: Final Report.” Luxemburg: Office of Official Publications for European Communities, 2007. http://cordis.europa.eu/documents/documentlibrary/100124371EN6.pdf de Smaele, Hedwig. “More Europe, More Unity, More Diversity? The Enlargement of European Audiovisual Space.” European Studies: A Journal of European Culture, History and Politics 22: 113-134. Digital Art for All. “Los Altos School District's CSTEM Program.” Digital Art for All. November, 2011. http://www.digitalartforall.com/lasdcstem/. Dobkin Hall, Peter. “Inventing the Non-Profit Sector: 1950-1990.” In The Nature of the Nonprofit Sector, edited by Steven J. Ott, 119. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000. Donadio, Rachel. “Greek Voters Punish 2 Main Parties For Economic Collapse.” New York Times, May 6, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/world/europe/greeks-vote-in- parliamentary-elections.html Downey, John. “Full of Eastern Promise? Central and Eastern European Media after 1989.” In Electronic Empires: Global Media and Local Resistance, edited by Daya Kishan Thussu, 59. London, UK: Arnold, 1998. EAVI. “EAVI: About Us.” The European Association for Viewers Interests. Accessed February 21, 2012. http://www.eavi.eu/joomla/about-us. 293 —. “EAVI’s Mission & Background.” The European Association for Viewers Interests. Accessed February 21, 2012. http://www.eavi.eu/joomla/about- us/mission. —. “EAVI: Collection of Citizen Signatures.” The European Association for Viewers Interests. Accessed February 21, 2012. http://www.eavi.eu/joomla/component/content/article/41/66-collection-of- citizens-signatures. EAVI and Danish Technological Institute. “Testing and Refining Criteria to Assess Media Literacy Levels in Europe: Final Report.” European Commission, 2011. http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/literacy/docs/final-report-ML-study- 2011_en.pdf Echo Park Film Center. “EPFC Mission and History.” Echo Park Film Center. Accessed April 23, 2012. http://echoparkfilmcenter.org/about%20us/mission.html. —. “Echo Park Film Center: Home.” Echo Park Film Center. Accessed April 20, 2012. http://echoparkfilmcenter.org/. Einstein, Mara. Media Diversity: Economics, Ownership and the FCC. Mahwah, NJ: Laurence Erlbaum Associates, 2004. El-Tayeb, Fatima. “The Birth of the European Public: Migration, Postnationality and Race in the Uniting of Europe.” American Quarterly 60, no. 3 (2008): 649-660. European Commission. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, The Council, The European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. “A European Approach to Media literacy in the Digital Environment.” Brussels: European Commission, 2007. —. “Media: Europe Loves Cinema.” Accessed February 6, 2012. http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/index_en.htm. —. “Media Literacy Questionnaire.” European Commission, 2006. Accessed August 5, 2010. http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/literacy/consultation/consultation2006_en.h tm. 294 —. “Report on the Results of the Public Consultation on Media Literacy.” Accessed August 5, 2010. http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/literacy/consultation/consultation2006_en.h tm. —. “Studies on Media Literacy.” Accessed August 5, 2010 http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/literacy/studies/index_en.htm. —. “Youth in Action Programme: Programme Priorities.” Accessed April 11, 2012. http://ec.europa.eu/youth/youth-in-action-programme/programme- priorities_en.htm. European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. “Directive 2010/13/EU of the European Parliament and the Council of 10 March 2010.” Official Journal of European Union, (2010): 7 para. 60. FCC. “In the Matter of Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service Report and Order.” Corrected Version, Docket no. 97-157, 222 (1997): para. 431. —. “FCC Enables High Speed, Affordable Broadband For Schools and Libraries.” News release, September 23, 2010. —. “A National Broadband Plan For Our Future.” GN Docket no. 09-51 (2010): para. 9. —. “Sixth Report and Order FCC 10-175: In the Matter of Schools and Libraries Universal Service Support Mechanism.” CC Docket no. 02-6. Firestone, William A., and Roberta Schorr. Introduction to The Ambiguity of Teaching to the Test: Standards, Assessment, and Education Reform. Edited by William A. Firestone, Roberta Y. Schorr, and Lora Frances Monfils. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004. Fones-Wolf, Elizabeth A. Selling Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism 1945-1960. Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1994. Freedman, Des. The Politics of Media Policy. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2008. Freire, Paolo, and Donaldo Pereira Macedo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Edition. New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000. 295 Giroux, Henry A. Stealing Innocence: Corporate Culture’s War on Children. New York, NY: Palgrave, 2000. —. Stealing Innocence: Youth, Corporate Power, and the Politics of Culture. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. —. Public Spaces, Private Lives: Beyond the Culture of Cynicism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001. Goldfarb, Brian. Visual Pedagogies: Media Cultures in and beyond the Classroom. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002. Greene, Robert. “Fighting High Rents: In LA? Good Luck.” LA Weekly, April 28, 2005. http://www.laweekly.com/general/features/fighting-high-rents/701/ Gronbjerg, Kristen A., and Lester Salamon. “Devaluation, Marketization, and the Changing of Government-Nonprofit Relations.” In The State of Nonprofit America, edited by Lester M. Salamon, 454. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute Press, 2002. Habermas, Jurgen. “Making Sense of the EU; Toward a Cosmopolitan Europe.” Journal of Democracy 14, no. 4 (2003): 96. Harcourt, Alison. “The Regulation in Media Markets in Selected EU Accession States in Central and Eastern Europe.” European Law Journal 9, no. 3 (2003): 328. Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. Empire. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000. Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005. Himmelstein, Jerome L. Looking Good and Doing Good: Corporate Philanthropy and Corporate Power. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997. Holt, Jennifer. Empires of Entertainment: Media Industries and the Politics of Deregulation, 1980-1996. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011. 296 Horvath, John. “Alone in the Crowd: The Politics of Cybernetic Isolation.” In Culture @nd Technology in the New Europe: Civic Discourse in Transformation in Post-Communist Nations, edited by Laura Lengel, 78. Connecticut: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 2000. House Committee on Education and Labor. The Obama Administration’s Education Agenda Hearing before the Committee on Education and Labor, 111th Cong., 1st sess., 2009, S. No. 111-23, 10. —. The Future Of Learning: How Technology Is Transforming Public Schools Hearing before the Committee on Education and Labor, 111th Cong., 1st sess., 2009, S. No. S. No. 111–28, 9. Hurewitz, Daniel. Bohemian Los Angeles and the Making of Modern Politics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007. Hursh, David. “Neo-liberalism, Markets and Accountability: transforming education and undermining democracy in the United States and England.” Policy Futures in Education 3, no. 1 (2005): 4. Imre, Aniko. Identity Games: Globalization and the Transformation of Media Cultures in the New Europe. Boston, MA: MIT Press, 2009. International Benchmarking Advisory Group. Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring US Students Receive A World-Class Education; Executive Summary. Washington D.C.: National Governors Association, 2008. ISTE. “The ISTE NETS and Performance Indicators for Students.” International Society for Technology in Education. Accessed February 20, 2011. http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Student_2007_EN.sflb.ashx. Ito, Mizuko. Engineering Play: A Cultural History of Children’s Software. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2009. Ito, Mizuko, et al. Hanging Out, Messing Around, And Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010. Jameson, Frederic. “Culture and Finance Capital.” Critical Inquiry 24, no. 1 (1997): 252. Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2006. 297 —. Media Convergence: Where Old and New Media Collide, Revised Edition. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2008. Jenkins, Henry, Ravi Purushotma, Margaret Weigel, Katie Clinton, and Alice J. Robison. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. Jordan, Amy B. Is the Three-Hour Rule Living Up to Its Potential? An Analysis of Educational Television for Children in the 1999/2000 Broadcast Season. Philadelphia, PA: The Annenberg Public Policy Center, 2000. Kelly, Noah. “Pow Wow Wow Yippee Yo Yippy Yay.” Union Weekly, March 14, 2011. Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York, NY: Metropolitan Books, 2007. —. No Logo, 10th Anniversary Edition. New York, NY: Picador Press, 2010. Krugman, Paul. “The Lesser Depression.” The New York Times, July 21, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/22/opinion/22krugman.html Kunkel, Dale. “Policy Battles over Defining Children’s Educational Television.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 557 (May 1998): 40. Lanczi, Andras, and Patrick O’Neil. “Pluralization and the Politics of Media Change in Hungary.” In Post-Communism and the Media in Eastern Europe, edited by Patrick H. O’Neil, 84. London, UK: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1997. Lawrence, Glen D., and Stuart Fishelson. “UV Catalysis, Cyanotype Photography, and Sunscreens.” Journal of Chemical Education 76, no. 9 (1999): 1199. Learning Point Associates. “Understanding the No Child Left Behind Act: Technology Integration.” Learning Point Associates. http://www.learningpt.org/pdfs/qkey3.pdf. Lenkosky, Leslie. “Foundations and Corporate Philanthropy.” In The State of Nonprofit America, edited by Lester M. Salamon, 356. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute Press, 2002. 298 Lievens, Eva, Jos Dumortier, and Patrick S .Ryan. “The Co-Protection of Minors in New Media: A European Approach to Co-Regulation.” UC Davis Journal of Juvenile Law & Policy 10, no. 1 (2006): 98. Livingstone, Sonia. “Children and their Changing Media Environment.” In Children and Their Changing Media Environment: A European Comparative Study, edited by Sonia Livingstone and Moira Bovill, 316. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001. —. Young People and New Media: Childhood and the Changing Media Environment. London, UK: Sage Publications, 2002. —. Children and the Internet. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2009. Livingstone, Sonia, and Leslie Haddon, eds. “Appendix B: Children and Parents Online by Country.” In <kids online> Opportunities and Risks for Children, 254. Bristol, UK: Polity Press, 2009. Los Altos Educational Foundation. “Los Altos Educational Foundation: Who We Are.” Los Altos Educational Foundation. Accessed November, 2011. http://laefonline.net/who-we-are. —. “Los Altos Educational Foundation: Our Supporters.” Los Altos Educational Foundation. Accessed November, 2011. http://laefonline.net/our- supporters/corporate-matching. —. “Los Altos Educational Foundation: Our Programs.” Los Altos Educational Foundation. Accessed November, 2011. http://laefonline.net/our-programs. Los Angeles Almanac. “City of Los Angeles Communities Median Home Value – Specified Owner-Occupied Housing Units 2000 Census and 2006 Estimates.” Los Angeles Almanac. Accessed April, 2007. http://www.laalmanac.com/LA/la58.htm. —. “Neighborhoods of the City of Los Angeles Population and Race 2000 Census.” Los Angeles Almanac. Accessed November, 2011. http://www.laalmanac.com/population/po24la_2000.htm. —. “Neighborhoods of the City of Los Angeles Population and Race 2010 Census.” Los Angeles Almanac. Accessed November, 2011. http://www.laalmanac.com/population/po24la.htm. 299 Lubecka, Anna. “Economic, Sociocultural, and Technological Contexts in the New Europe.” In Culture @nd Technology in the New Europe: Civic Discourse in Transformation in Post-Communist Nations, edited by Laura Lengel, 34-35. Connecticut: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 2000. Lunt, Peter, and Sonia Livingstone. Media Regulation: Governance and the Interests of Citizens and Consumers. London, UK: Sage Publications, 2012. Mamadouh, Virginie, and Herman Van Der Wusten. “Financial, Monetary and Governance Crisis: An Outlook on the Euro(zone).” Tijdscrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 102, no. 1 (2011): 112. Manna, Paul. School’s In: Federalism and the National Education Agenda. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2007. —. Collision Course: Federal Education Policy Meets State and Local Realities. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2011. “Martin Schulz: Different cultures are Europe’s Great Heritage.” Euronews, March 22, 2012. http://www.euronews.com/2012/03/22/martin-schulz-different- cultures-are-europe-s-great-heritage/ May, Steven K., George Cheney, and Juliet Roper. “The Overview” In The Debate Over Corporate Social Responsibility, edited by Steven K. May, George Cheney, and Juliet Roper, 5. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007. McGuinn, Patrick J. No Child Left Behind and the Transformation of Federal Education Policy, 1965-2005. Kansas: University of Press of Kansas, 2006. “Media Habits: Kid’s Talk.” New Media Age, February 24, 2011. Metiri Group. “National Education Technology Trends: Innovation Through State Leadership.” State Educational Technology Directors Association, 2010. http://www.setda.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=6&name=DLFE- 669.pdf Miller, Toby. Cultural Citizenship: Cosmopolitanism, Consumerism and Television in a Neoliberal Age. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2007. Miller, Toby, and George Yudice. Cultural Policy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004. 300 Miller, Toby, Nittin Govil, John McMurria, Richard Maxwell, and Tina Wang. Global Hollywood 2. London, UK: British Film Institute Publishing, 2005. Montgomery, Kathryn C. “Children’s Media Culture in the New Millennium: Mapping the Digital Landscape.” The Future of Children 10, no. 2 (Autumn- Winter 2000): 157. —. “Balancing the Needs of Young People in the Digital Marketplace.” Journal of Children and Media 5, no. 3 (2011): 334. Morley, David. Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity. New York, NY: Routledge, 2000. Morley, David, and Kevin Robins. Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries. London, UK: Routledge, 1995. The National Commission on Excellence in Education. A Nation At Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1983. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. Washington D.C.: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010. National Science Foundation. Fostering Learning in the Networked Worlds: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge: A 21st Century Agenda for the National Science Foundation, (2008). http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2008/nsf08204/nsf08204.pdf. Ngai, Mae M. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004. —. “Birthright Citizenship and the Alien Citizen.” Fordham Law Review 75, no. 5 (2007): 2523. North, Peter. “Should Crisis-Hit Countries Leave the Eurozone?” Economic Sociology_The European Electronic Newsletter 12, no. 2 (2011): 23. O’Neill, Brian, and Ingunn Hagen. “Media Literacy.” In <kids online> Opportunities and Risks for Children, edited by Sonia Livingstone and Leslie Haddon, 229. Bristol, UK: Polity Press, 2009. 301 Oswell, David. “Media and Communications Regulation and Child Protection: An Overview of the Field.” In International Handbook of Children, Media and Culture, edited by Sonia Livingstone and Kristen Drotner, 480. London, UK: Sage, 2008. Papathanassopoulos, Stylianos, and Ralph Negrine. European Media: Structures, Policies and Identity. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2011. Partnership for 21st Century Skills. “Partnership for 21st Century Skills: About Us.” Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Accessed November, 2011. http://www.p21.org/about-us. Ramey, Kathryn. “Between Art, Industry and Academia: The Fragile Balancing Act of the Avant-Garde Film Community.” Visual Anthropology Review 18, no. 1-2 (2002): 23. Reed, T. V. The Art of Protest: Culture and Activism from the Civil Rights Movement to the Streets of Seattle. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2005. Reding, Viviane. Minors and Media: Towards a More Effective Protection. Brussels: European Union, September 10, 2003. http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/03/400 Reilly Dowd, Ann, and Jennifer Reese. “How Washington Can Pitch In: George Bush wants to be Education President. He Gets A for Rhetoric; Incomplete for Action. States Must Lead. There is not Much for the Administration to Do.” Fortune Magazine, May 28, 1990. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1990/05/28/73588/ index.htm Robertson, David Brian. Federalism and the Making of America. New York, NY: Taylor and Francis, 2012. Rosaldo, Renato. “Cultural Citizenship and Educational Democracy.” Cultural Anthropology 9, no. 3 (1994): 402. —. “Cultural Citizenship in San Jose, California.” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 17, no. 2 (1994): 1. Rotella, Carlo. “Class Warrior.” The New Yorker, February 1, 2010, 29. 302 Salamon, Lester. “The Resilient Sector.” In The State of Nonprofit America, edited by Lester M. Salamon, 25-26. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institute Press, 2002. Sarikakis, Katherine. “Mediating Social Cohesion: Media and Cultural Policy in the European Union and Canada.” European Studies 24 (2007): 65-90. Schiller, Dan. Digital Capitalism: Networking in the Global Market System. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000. —. How To Think About Information. Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2007. Schlesinger, Philip. “A Cosmopolitan Temptation.” European Journal of Communication 22 (2007): 413. Seiter, Ellen. The Internet Playground: Children’s Access, Entertainment and Mis- Education. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2005. Shore, Cris. “Whither European Citizenship?: Eros and Civilization Revisited.” European Journal of Social Theory 7, no. 27 (2004): 29. Stohl, Michael, Cynthia Stohl, and Nikki C. Townsley. “A New Generation of Global Corporate Social Responsibility.” In The Debate Over Corporate Social Responsibility, edited by Steven K. May, George Cheney, and Juliet Roper, 30. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007. Surowiecki, James. “An Avoidable Crisis.” The New Yorker, Dec. 5, 2011. http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2011/12/05/111205ta_talk_surowie cki Tsaliki, Liza. “The Construction of European Identity and Citizenship Through Cultural Policy.” In European Studies: Media and Cultural Policy in the European Union, 24, edited by Katherine Sarikakis, 158. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007. Tunstall, Jeremy. The Media were American. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008. UNESCO. “Grunwald Declaration on Media Education.” UNESCO. Accessed August 10, 2010. http://www.unesco.org/education/pdf/MEDIA_E.PDF. 303 Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona. “Country Profile, Hungary, V4.0.” In Study on Current Trends and Approaches to Media Literacy in Europe, 2007. http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/literacy/studies/index_en.htm. —. “Country Profile, United Kingdom, V4.0.” In Study on Current Trends and Approaches to Media Literacy in Europe, 2007. http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/literacy/studies/index_en.htm. —. “Media Literacy Profile: Europe.” In Study on Current Trends and Approaches to Media Literacy in Europe, 2007. http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/literacy/docs/studies/country/europe.pdf —. Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona. Study on Current Trends and Approaches to Media Literacy in Europe, 2007. Accessed August 5, 2010. http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/literacy/studies/index_en.htm. U.S. Census Bureau. “U.S. Census Bureau, State and County Quick Facts: Los Altos, California.” U.S. Census Bureau. Accessed November, 2011. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/0643280.html. U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. No Child Left Behind: A Desktop Reference. Washington, D.C.: US Department of Education, 2002. —. Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology. Washington, D.C.: US Department of Education, 2010. —. “Archived: Discounted Telecommunications Services for Schools and Libraries E-Rate Fact Sheet.” Accessed January 11, 2012. http://www2.ed.gov/Technology/comm-mit.html. The White House. “Education Technology Improves Student Performance.” The White House. Accessed February 12, 2011. http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/edtech/perform.html. —. “Education Technology Roundtable.” The White House. Accessed February 12, 2011. http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/edtech/roundtable.html. —. “Education Technology Roundtable.” The White House. Accessed February 12, 2011. http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/edtech/roundtable.html. 304 Willis, Holly. “Cinetheque Paradiso: The Echo Park Film Center is film school, microcinema, more.” LA Weekly, Nov. 27, 2003. http://www.laweekly.com/index.php?option=com_lawcontent&task=view&i d=2193&Itemid=9. Wood, Donna J., and Raymond E. Jones. “Research in Corporate Social Performance.” In Corporate Philanthropy at a Crossroads, edited by Dwight Burlingame and Dennis Young, 54-55. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996. Young, Brigitte. “Economic Governance in the Eurozone: A New Dawn?” Economic Sociology_The European Electronic Newsletter 12, no. 2 (2011): 12. Young, Dennis, and Lester Salamon. “Commercialization, Social Ventures, and For- Profit Competition.” In The State of Nonprofit America, edited by Lester M. Salamon, 431-432. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institute Press, 2002. Yudice, George. The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in a Global Era. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.

Abstract (if available)

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

Unsettled media: documenting refugees and Europe's shifting borders along the Balkan Route

PDF

Well-being domesticities: mediating 21st-century femininity through physical, mental, and emotional lifestyles

PDF

Dead zones: human mobility and the making of media nationalism

PDF

Aftermarkets of empire: South Korean popular music and global logics of race and gender in the U.S. media industries

PDF

Why Harry met Sally: coupling narratives and the Christian-Jewish love story

PDF

Special cultural zones: provincializing global media in neoliberal China

PDF

Nationalisms in the era of global quality TV: how SVODs main/stream the local

PDF

Emergent media technologies and the production of new urban spaces

PDF

Existential surplus: affect and labor in Asian diasporic video cultures

PDF

Labors of love: Black women, cultural production, and the romance genre

PDF

Father, son, and the holy dollar: rebuilding the American Dream in post recessionary reality television and mommy blogging

PDF

Riddles of representation in fantastic media

PDF

The virtual big sister: television and technology in girls' media

PDF

Women showrunners: authorship, identity and representation in US television

PDF

Critical media literacy in K-5 classrooms: three teachers' commitment to equity and access

PDF

Comic books incorporated: industrial strategy and the legitimation of lowbrow media

PDF

The social media dilemma in education: policy design, implementation and effects

PDF

¡Que naco! Border cinema and Mexican migrant audiences

PDF

Critical game literacies and Afrofuturist development

PDF

Screens on the move: media convergence and mobile culture in Korea

Asset Metadata

Creator Rosales, Jennifer Ann (author)

Core Title Policy and practice: United States and European Union media and technology education

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Cinema-Television (Critical Studies)

Publication Date 07/13/2012

Defense Date 06/11/2012

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag education policy,media literacy,media policy,neoliberalism,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Marez, Curtis (committee chair), Imre, Anikó (committee member), Mayer, Doe (committee member)

Creator Email jennrosales@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-58283

Unique identifier UC11290048

Identifier usctheses-c3-58283 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-RosalesJen-947.pdf

Dmrecord 58283

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Rosales, Jennifer Ann

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA