July 27, 2008
TECHNOS QUARTERLY Summer 2002 Vol. 11 No. 2
Character Education and Media Literacy—Finding Common Ground
By Scott D. Herrington and Cindy C. Emmans
Media literacy and character education are two hot topics in education that have become closely intertwined, perhaps unwittingly. Knowledge and understanding of media-media literacy—can be a successful strategy for promoting critical thinking and intelligent decision making about risky behaviors.
The Realm
For many children today, the family is not the primary moral teacher. Nor is the church the moral educator that it once was. Trends such as rising youth violence, increasing dishonesty, growing disrespect for authority, peer cruelty, decline in work ethic, sexual precocity, growing self-centeredness, and ethical illiteracy are on the rise (Noll, 1999). Developmental psychologist Thomas Likona, a leading supporter of a new character education movement, suggests that this decline of American youth is the result of a decline of the family and troubling trends in youth character (1991). Parents, clergy, and teachers do not have to look far to find a plethora of examples of media that blatantly denigrate respect, responsibility, trustworthiness, fairness, caring, and civic virtue. For instance, Playboy Playmates competed on a special episode of NBC's reality TV show Fear Factor, and ABC-TV aired a Victoria's Secret Fashion Show (Goodale, 2002). This prime-time television show was so explicit that the network decided it should blur out areas of the models' bodies!
These issues, along with others relating to honesty, violence, sex, cruelty, and drug and alcohol abuse, might prompt school administrators, teachers, and parents to scrutinize their schools' philosophy, culture, and curriculum. These questions should be asked: Does the school have a moral purpose? Can virtue be taught? Should the shaping of character be as important as the training of intellect? Should value-charged issues be discussed in the classroom? (Noll, 1991, p. 82). Increasingly, schools are responding to society's deep moral troubles and are adopting curricula that are designed to help students not only be smart but also be good. Character education is one such curriculum. Whether it is defined as ethics, citizenship, values, or personal development, it is making a comeback—and many of its proponents would suggest it holds the solution to the decline of American youth.
Likona, in his essay, “The Return of Character Education,” states that “we are seeing the beginnings of a new character education movement, one which restores ‘good character’ to its historical place as one of the central and desirable outcomes of the school's moral enterprise” (Noll, 1991, p. 85). While all educators, theorists, politicians, and the general public do not agree on the merits of what Alfie Kohn refers to as “narrowly defined” character education programs, i.e., a particular style of moral training, most would agree with his broad interpretation that character education is “almost anything that schools might try to provide outside of academics, especially when the purpose is to help children to grow into good people” (Noll, 1991, p. 91).
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The top image is actually two advertisements: one for JC Penney, and the other for Buffalo jeans. Both ads portray distinctly anti-intellectual values and imagery that suggests girls need to keep their pants half undone and thrust out their breasts. The Millers Outpost ads, with their overt suggestion that girls should have their pants half undone while males need not, is another excellent example of how media promotes negative values through their advertisements. Media, as propagators of values, are not going to be responsive to the individual child's needs. |
A curriculum making its way into educational mainstream is media literacy, or media education. In general terms, it is the ability to critically consume and create media, and it is becoming an essential skill in today's world. While character education (in the narrow sense) has numerous critics, media literacy has great appeal to teachers, students, and parents. Schools that are considering the implementation of a character education program, or schools that are already implementing one, should consider incorporating a media literacy program into their curriculum as well. The realm of today's youth is so super-saturated with value-laden media that if parents, teachers, and religious leaders fail to include media literacy skills within their curricula, sermons, or table talk, they risk neglecting one of the most powerful influences in the lives of today's youth.
The importance of media literacy as it relates to character education is summed up by Pat Kipping:
Media literate people know how to act; they are not acted upon and as a result, they are better citizens. The goal of media education is to produce good citizens, not good consumers. Media literacy is not so much about changing the media, rather it is about changing people's attitudes, reactions, and feelings in response to it. Mass media and communications will increasingly dominate tomorrow's world. Today's generation and generations of the future will need to understand how the mass media influence society, influence their character, and their values. (2001)
Character Education- A Movement within the Realm
To understand the need for media literacy to be included in any character education program, one must first delve into exactly what character education is and what it attempts to promote within the school setting. Theodore Roosevelt claimed that, “to educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” The modern notion of character education is well-rooted in substantive educational research of the past. In the 1970s, Lawrence Kolberg linked ethical growth to levels of cognitive maturity, and Louis Raths developed and refined “values clarification.” More recently, William J. Bennett asserted that, “If we want our children to possess the traits of character we most admire, we need to teach them what those traits are and why they deserve both admiration and allegiance” (Noll, 1991, p. 83).
Another highly respected author on the subject is Thomas Likona, who, in his book, Educating for Character (1991), argues that society is faced with a decaying social fabric and that schools which hope to build character in their students must do so in a comprehensive all-embracing approach that uses all phases of school life to develop character. Brandon Centerwall, a medical researcher, argues that a good source of moral values has four characteristics: first, it must present a consistent and coherent value system; second, the propagator of the value system must be able to protect the child from harm; third, the propagator must be able to enforce the value system and exert sanctions; finally, the source of good values is someone who will “be there” for the child—someone who will be responsive to the individual child's needs (New Mexico Media Literacy Project, 2002).
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Aspen Declaration on “In July 1992, the Josephson Institute of Ethics convened in Aspen, Colorado, a diverse group of ethicists, educators, and youth-service professionals to find ways to work together and boost their character-education efforts. The declaration that concluded this meeting would form the intellectual foundation for the CHARACTER COUNTS! movement, started by the Institute the following year.”
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The Aspen Declaration on Character Education (see sidebar at right) is an interesting glimpse into this national trend. This declaration was put together in July 1992 under the auspices of the Josephson Institute of Ethics, and it became the basis for the Character Counts! movement that was launched in 1993.
Rushmore M. Kidder, noted journalist and founder and president of the Institute for Global Ethics in Camden, Maine, provides a thoughtful analysis of core ethical values and notes that character has two components: values and behavior. He contends that when values and behavior come together seamlessly, the result is the highest form of character. He further asserts that individuals who lack character are those who can't bring themselves to do what's right — “either because they lack moral courage or because their values are so flaccid and impoverished that any action based on them is also morally anemic” (“The Two Components of Character,” 2002). By contrast, individuals with a strong character are those who “walk their talk, keep their promises, do what's right.” For Kidder, the bottom line is that a minimalist set of core shared values is integral to the human experience, not because of any religion, but because we are human. He concludes that character is rooted in core moral values.
A conscientious effort must be made to help guide young people toward good moral conduct and decision making. If it is true that youth reflect the character and conduct of society, we must accept that media is an enormous influence within this realm. Likona differentiates between moral values and non-moral ones. Examples of moral values include honesty, responsibility, and fairness. Values such as these carry an obligation. They tell us what we should do, and that we must abide by them even if we would rather not. He further breaks these down into universal (values that bind all people everywhere because they affirm our fundamental human worth and dignity) and non-universal (values which do not carry a universal obligation, i.e., duties specific to one's religion). In contrast, non-moral values carry no obligation; they express what we want or like to do (1991). So if schools wish to develop character, it is essential that they provide a moral environment that accents good values and keeps them in the forefront of everyone's consciousness.
The difficulty with this is that character doesn't function in a vacuum; it functions in a social environment that often suppresses moral concerns.
Senator Max Cleland, in his essay “Strong at the Broken Places,” notes that “although character development is, first and foremost, an obligation of families and the efforts of faith communities, schools, youth, civic, and human service organizations also play a very important role in supporting family efforts by fostering and promoting good character” (“Character Now More Than Ever,” 2002). Cleland, like Kidder, asserts that the elements of trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship transcend cultural, religious, and socioeconomic differences.
Likona argues that the environment in which millions of today's youth live often lacks quality moral teaching and if schools don't teach moral education, hostile influences will rush in to fill the values vacuum (1991). The hostile influences he is referring to include the myriad forms of mass media. Dr. Ron Taffel and Melinda Blau note in their book, The Second Family, that “[n]ature abhors a vacuum, and over the last decade the great, roaring hurricane of the kid-centered mass-media culture has rushed in to fill the psychic void that beleaguered, bewildered parents have unwittingly created” (2001, pp. 24-25). They use the term “second family” to represent the peer power and the media-driven pop culture that is so influential in the lives of today's youth. They suggest to parents, teachers, and clergy that the key to dealing with this second family is to be aware of its power and to guide kids down paths that are less destructive.
Mass Media-Controlling the Realm
Mass media occupy a prominent place in the lives of children. The typical elementary school child spends 30 hours a week in front of the television set. By age 16, the average child in today's world will have witnessed an estimated 200,000 acts of violence on TV (Likona, 1991). By the time that same child is 18 years old, approximately 40,000 sexually titillating scenes will have been viewed. It should come as no surprise that many young people growing up in this kind of media culture are stunted in their moral judgment (Likona, 1991). Jean Kilbourne, author of Can't Buy My Love, states:
Huge and powerful industries—alcohol, tobacco, junk food, guns, diet—depend upon a media-illiterate population. Indeed, they depend upon a population that is disempowered and addicted. These industries will and do fight our efforts with all their mighty resources. And we will fight back, using the tools of media education which enable us to understand, analyze, interpret, to expose hidden agendas and manipulation, to bring about constructive change, and to further positive aspects of the media.
According to Victor C. Strasburger and Ed Donnerstein, the relationship between media violence and real-life violence is direct and indisputable. Research indicates that aggressive habits are often learned early in life, and once established, they are resistant to change. These habits are predictive of serious adult antisocial behavior. When a child observes media violence, it can have harmful lifelong consequences. While research has not directly correlated media sex to real-life sexual activity, it is not difficult to surmise that it could (2000).
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Some Things You Should Know about Media Violence and Media Literacy
Source: American Academy of Pediatrics Web site, http://www. aap.org/advocacy/childhealthmonth/media.htm |
The American Academy of Pediatrics (2002) Web site offers its visitors an overview of information on media violence. Their research indicates that media violence can lead to aggressive behavior in children; cartoon violence is actually greater than violence during prime time; media violence is especially damaging to young children as they cannot easily tell the difference between real life and fantasy; and media violence often fails to show the consequences of violence (see sidebar at right for complete list). Furthermore, a study by Dr. Jeffrey G. Johnson of Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute found that adolescents who watched television more than seven hours per week were more likely to commit an aggressive act when they were older (Kolata, 2002).
This prevalence of violence in mass media has not only created a more violent society, it has negatively impacted a favorite teaching instrument of the world's great moral educators: stories. Likona argues that stories, read or told, teach the young attraction, rather than compulsion. They invite thought and reflection, rather than imposing external images. Storytelling is a beautiful way to engage and develop the emotional side of a child's character (1991). Highlighting the erosion of traditional stories, George Gerbner, president and founder of the Cultural Environment Movement, comments that “for the first time in human history, most children are born into homes where most of the stories do not come from their parents, schools, churches, communities, and in many places even from their native countries, but from a handful of conglomerates who have something to sell.”
Furthermore, according to Likona, television, movies, and supermarket magazines collectively send the message that sex is the primary and indispensable source of human happiness and that sex between uncommitted persons is standard human behavior. He describes this as a kind of psychological sexual abuse of children. Children are, from very early ages, immersed in a culture that douses them with sexual information and images they are not developmentally ready to deal with. Lack of family structure, negative influence of the mass media, and poor role modeling by adults all lead to increased teen sexual activity and teen pregnancy (1991).
Throughout history the family, school, and church have been responsible for the moral education of children. In the 20th Century, however, the mass media became primary shapers of values. Within mass media, none is more omnipresent than television. At its best, television is a window on the world and its treasures, but at its worst, it is what Likona describes as a "rising tide of cultural sleaze." It bombards the young with poor values and diverts them from family relationships and healthy pursuits. As a result, television is a great moral mis-educator in the lives of children. Children should acquire their moral values through human interaction; instead, television robs parents and children of crucial conversation.
In her riveting book, Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher notes that
Parents are not the primary influence on adolescent girls. Instead girls are heavily swayed by their friends, whose ideas come from the mass media. The average teen watches 21 hours of TV each week, compared to 5.8 hours spent on homework and 1.8 hours reading. The adolescent community is an electronic community of rock music, television, videos, and movies. The rites of passage into this community are risky. Adulthood, as presented by media, implies drinking, spending money, and being sexually active. (1994, p. 82)
She further points out that mass media's goal is to make money from teenagers. On the other hand, parents have the goal of producing well-adjusted and happy adults. These two goals are incompatible. Children these days have been surrounded by media since birth and have been inundated with sophisticated advertising, which constantly tells them that happiness comes from consuming the right products (Pipher, 1994). Controlling the effects of the realm of mass media is an enormous challenge, one that bears on families, religious institutions, and yes, schools.
Media Literacy—Analyzing and Evaluating the Realm
It is evident that the character of today's youth is highly influenced by the mass media. What are not evident, however, are specific strategies and skills within the character education programs to deal with the well-documented effects of media. This is ironic, as there are many references to the effect of media on people's attitudes, mores, morals, and values within the literature dealing with character education. Neil Postman, author of numerous books on media and society, makes the point that “we must learn that every time we consume any technology something good and bad happens. The task is to know both. The curriculum of text-based discourse, i.e., schools, is in absolute opposition to that of mass media” (New Mexico Media Literacy Project). If Postman's conclusion is correct, then it is absolutely critical that students are taught media literacy. Media literacy can make the difference as to whether kids end up being tools of the mass media, or mass media ends up being a tool for students. Robert W. Denniston, of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, points out that
[w]hile media campaigns and other prevention strategies are essential ingredients for reducing substance abuse among adolescents, it is simply not possible for any federal agency, state organization, or private sector group to reach all young Americans with compelling and frequent messages about the dangers of drugs. So, instead, we must help give our young people the essential critical viewing skills to assess those messages—both direct and indirect-that glamorize drug—taking behavior, so that youth can see through the glitz and glamour to the underlying social ills of substance abuse, and to prepare their own prevention messages for peers, parents, and opinion leaders. We are learning that media literacy can provide this vision and skill in a powerful way. . . . (http://www.samhsa.gov/)
Students need to be taught the difference between fiction and fantasy. Only with appropriate guidance can we expect our young people to understand that not everything they see or hear through the mass media is real, appropriate, or desirable. Television and film, newspapers, books, and radio have an influence over individuals that was inconceivable a hundred years ago. The power of modern-day media giants such as AOL Time Warner, Viacom, and Disney burdens schools, teachers, and parents to listen, read, and watch. They must analyze and evaluate everything they are bombarded with. Media literacy courses can give young people the power to recognize the difference between entertainment and television that is just bad—and to glean the information they need to make good decisions.
No longer is it enough for students simply to read and write; they must also become literate in the understanding of visual images. Media literacy enables children to spot a stereotype, isolate a social cliché, differentiate analysis from banter, and distinguish facts from propaganda. Back in 1982 UNESCO made the bold assertion that young people must be prepared for living in a world of powerful images, words, and sounds. Information is the realm of the 21st Century, and media literacy must be a basic tool for citizenship in it. Jean Kilbourne, in her captivating book Can't Buy My Love, comments on the state of media education:
[T]he United States is unique among Western nations in that there is a virtual absence of media education in schools. Preliminary evidence suggests that media education programs can diminish violence and drug use among children and adolescents. Computer and video games could also be used for pro-social learning. At the very least, elements of media education should be incorporated into already existing drug education and sex education programs in schools. (2000)
Adding Media Education to the Curriculum
This absence of media education in the schools is something that can and should be addressed; media literacy is an essential skill in today's world and it falls to the schools (appropriately enough) to ensure that students gain the skills they need. Media literate individuals are better able to decipher the complex messages they receive from television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, billboards, videos, and the Internet. Teachers of media literacy will have to be very careful with what they choose to include in their lessons. Age appropriateness and social norms must be considered. One of the most interesting features of media literacy is that we are constantly bombarded with advertisements, up to 3,000 a day, and therefore have a constant stream of new material to study and analyze.
The drive to include character and values education into today's school curriculum has both proponents and opponents. Regardless of where one stands on this issue, what cannot be denied is the profound place that mass media occupy within this realm. Schools that currently include character education in their courses of study or have its hallmarks embedded in their mission statement and goals cannot hope to achieve success without considering the impact of media on students' values, morals, and lifestyle choices. Character education—be it specifically taught in schools, preached in churches, mosques and synagogues, or discussed around the dinner table-is not going to be effective unless specific media literacy skills are taught as well.
Media literate people understand that television is designed to convey ideas, information, and news from someone else's perspective. They clearly understand that specific techniques are used to create emotional effects and reactions, and they can identify these techniques in the myriad forms that they take. Media literacy offers the young alternative sources of information and entertainment. They end up using the media for their own advantage and entertainment, and they are not used by the media.
There is no escaping media, but there is the opportunity to educate students to understand not only the surface content of media messages but also the deeper and often more important meanings beneath the surface. As Strasburger and Donnerstein point out in “Children, Adolescents, and the Media in the 21st Century,” no parents in their right minds would allow a stranger to come into their home to teach their children or adolescents for 3 to 5 hours a day . . . yet the media do exactly that (2002). Media literacy needs to be incorporated into school curricula because it will empower today's youth and, as Plato suggested, it will lead children away from images which lead to ignorance and toward that which leads to knowledge.
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Resources and References
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American Academy of Pediatrics (2002) Aspen Declaration on Character Center for Substance Abuse Prevention Cleland, M. “Strong at the Broken Places” Goodale, G. (2002, February 1). Kidder, R. M. “The Eagle and the Kilbourne, J. (2000). Can't Buy My Kipping, P. (1996, January/February). |
Kolata, G. (2002, March 29). New York Times, A20. Likona, T. (1991). Educating for Character. New York: Bantam Books. New Mexico Media Literacy Project. [On-line]. Available: http://www.nmmlp.org. Noll, J. W. (Ed.). (1991). Taking Sides—Clashing Views on Controversial Educational Issues. Guilford, CT: Dushkin/McGraw-Hill. Pipher, M. (1994). Reviving Ophelia—Saving the Souls of Adolescent Girls. New York: Ballantine Books. Posner, G. J. (1995). Analyzing the Curriculum. New York: McGraw-Hill. Strasburger, V. C., & Donnerstein, E. (2000, February). “Children, Adolescents, and the Media in the 21st Century.” Adolescent Medicine: State of the Art Review, 11. Taffel, R., & Blau, M. (2001). The Second Family: How Adolescent Power is Challenging the American Family. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. |
Scott
Herrington has taught English language arts and world geography at the
American School of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, since 1993. In summer 2001,
he attended the New Mexico Media Literacy Project Catalyst training in Albuquerque
and has since developed a passion for promoting media literacy at his school
and within his community. Email him at sh2dub@emirates.net.ae.
Cindy
Emmans is an educational consultant based in San Diego. Her areas of expertise
include K-12 technology integration and distance education at the master's
degree level. She has written about Internet ethics (see TQ
9:1), which in turn spawned an interest in the necessity of media literacy
for students. Email her at emmansc@cox.net.