Paradox in Arguments about Media in Education

One of the most salient characteristics of children of recent years is their exposure toelectronic media including TV, video games, and computers. On the one hand, critiques arguethat such an environment leave negative influences on children. On the other, there are arguments that such media are in fact useful in providing children with rich experiences in classrooms. Rather than trying to determine which side should be considered correct, I tried in this paper to examine the social construction of opinions and statements as revealed in professional journals, newspapers and theories of mediaeducation. The first section describes a theoretical framework on which some of the important aspects of social concepts of media are related. Based on this framework, the second section analyses how various subjects in the society form opinions and evaluate media. The third section argues that the different perspectives revealed in Section 2 reflect the paradox implanted in the nature of media itself