MEDIA LITERACY : En studie om mediepedagogik i forskning och empiri

Titel: Media Literacy - En studie om mediepedagogik i forskning och empiri Författare: Kristin Nilsson, Sofia Ridal Antal sidor: 52 Abstract: In the society of today we are constantly exposed to media messages, and much research investigate people’s interest in the media. Whatever theory we choose to believe in, the facts remain: today the media is a major part of all people’s lives. During our teacher training we have encountered the concepts Media Literacy and Media Education and as future pedagogues of media we are interested in what research can tell us about them. The main aim of this paper was to find out what researchers write about Media Literacy and Media Education and to empirically investigate whether or not teachers in the Swedish secondary school teach about, with and for media. It also aimed to learn what attitudes, thoughts and reflections these teachers have concerning media and learning in school. For these reasons, we decided to begin by conducting a profound research of the state of the art. Secondly, we accomplished qualitative interviews with a total of eight teachers from two secondary schools in a Swedish town. The results of the interviews show that a majority of the teachers who were interviewed, the informants, mainly used media technology as a teaching aid – they taught with media. Furthermore, the results reveal that some of the informants saw the media as something quite frightening, unserious and difficult to understand. By contrast, we found an underlying tendency that the informants had a positive attitude towards media education in schools, and that they were somewhat curious (and eager) to learn more about it. Yet, as for today, the informants’ lack of knowledge of the subject, deficient resources and indistinct directive from higher authority effectively seem to obstruct the development of media education in the schools in our investigation