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Multidimensional and Multicultural Media Literacy – social challenges and communicational risks on the edge between cultural heritage and technological development∗ Vítor Reia-Baptista (University of Algarve, Portugal) Índice always signs of correspondent multicultural media literacy phenomena. We also know, 1 Transmitting cultural heritage and from earlier contexts and attempts to com- constructing knowledge along with bine media, technology and literacy inside media culture2 different cultural environments of different 2 The case of Thomas Edison, the cin- societies and public communication spheres, ema and the educational technology that the «empowerment» effect that could be paradigm3 expected to arise from those exposure situa- 3 The case of John Grierson, still the tions is not always a factor of cultural en- cinema and the ethics of documentary5 richment and, on the contrary, it assumes too 4 The case of new multimedia, global many times the character of some alienation media literacy and multiculturalism7 phenomenon or, at least, an alienator mode Bibliography 10 of media appropriation. This statement seems to be rather actual for the different younger generations living During quite some time, we have been all over the world among New Environments “observing some of the new environments of Media Exposure 1 , such as the internet, mo- of media exposure” and we may probably bile phones, different «pod» devices and mo- say, by now, that the multidimensional forms bile television, which have become a ma- of media exposure that can be experienced jor and eventually the richest part of the daily through the usage of different tech- youngsters’ cultural daily way of life, i.e., nologies and technological devices are not their wider and multidimensional media cul- ∗Publicado em Empowerment Through Media tures built upon their daily media consump- Education: An Intercultural Dialogue, Nordicom, tion and appropriations, representing, in fact, Gothenburg, 2008. their main culture. 1 Reia-Baptista, 2006. Still their entertaining, communicative 2 Vítor Reia-Baptista and social lives also comprehend older me- Within these, at first sight, «old» and «new» dia, especially open signal and satellite tele- contexts, we must be prepared to explore vision, video-games, personal hi-fi devices the balance between challenge and risk, that and films, among others. Nevertheless, their follow along with the opportunities of this appropriations and usage patterns of these new global age, with an open mind, being media technologies are in many ways rather prepared to learn alongside the youngsters specific, so one of the main risks, in a me- that are already native users of multiple lan- dia literacy context, is the danger of genera- guages and technologies, but also being pre- lisation about common patterns of appropria- pared to share with them our inherited multi- tion. However, one general feature in our at- cultural multidimensional knowledge and li- titudes towards these media cultural effects teracies related to other general subjects like has been taking them as they were often am- ethics and civic values. bivalent: television is still seen both as edu- Such an approach is absolutely necessary cational and as a drug; mobile phones are in order to achieve a more developed degree perceived both as a nuisance and as a life- of a global stage of Media Literacy, which, in saver; computer games are viewed both as turn, may contribute to a better multicultural learning tools and as addictive timewasters and multiethnic human understanding. In the and film has been looked at since the very context of global communication in which beginnings of the 7th art as a medium of great we all live today, such an adequate level of educational power as well as a medium with Media Literacy is, according to many of its an enormous range of escapism dimensions. most accepted definitions, in fact, rather dif- In fact, some results from different research ficult to achieve without a wide multicultural projects2 show that these new media envi- perspective, but, on the other side, Multicul- ronments and their appropriations imply, in turalism, how broad or narrow we may de- a very high degree, multiple dimensions of fine it, is a concept that simply can not exist different usage representing different added today without a strong media component, in- values of media cultureand literacy. Further- cluding its most basic elements of media cul- more, digital television and broad band con- ture. nections open access to many more chan- nels and multiple mobile devices allowing a much wider usage of music, images, games, 1 Transmitting cultural heritage communication patterns and on-line cultural migration across different platforms expan- and constructing knowledge ding enormously the range of contents – along with media culture challenges and risks – available in every so- ciety, either they still preserve a strong cul- Probably, as I’ve said before3, since mankind tural heritage or strive after patterns of fast knows itself as mankind that such knowledge technological development and adaptation. has been constructed and expressed through 2 For example like MEDIAPPRO, Reia-Baptista et different narrative layers of mediated com- al, 2006. 3 Reia-Baptista, 2006. www.bocc.ubi.pt Multidimensional and Multicultural Media Literacy 3 munication, structuring themselves upon a- are, have been and will probably remain to nother and giving origin to new patterns of be essential to the processes of collective narrative strategies along with new commu- memory preservation, cultural transmission nication instruments and media devices such and general knowledge construction, which as new gestures, sounds, images, words, lan- represent, all of them, really important di- guages, discourses and all the new chan- mensions of global cognition processes for nels of communicative diffusion and expo- any society that aims to develop, along with sure, from ancient theatre to modern film, or its citizens, a deep sense of participation to- post-modern mobile audio and video decons- wards better and richer concepts of citizen- tructed messages within computer proces- ship, either they may be eastern, western, sing networks, e.g. like «You Tube», «My northern or southern cultural related con- Space», or «Second Life», i.e. the media cepts. in general as we know them in their evo- So, let us then observe some significant lution until today. In fact, when we speak cases of factual media literacy construction, about new media, we are generally spea- from an historical and a multicultural point king about devices that have emerged in our of view, to see if we can draw any relevant daily life environments rather recently, but conclusions that may help us to understand that managed rather quickly to reshape some the media cultural processes, challenges and of our ancestral habits of personal commu- risks, that we may be facing in these new me- nication and our most common communica- dia environments of our daily mediated life. tive patterns of different multicultural media usage. Many times, at a first glance, these new patterns of communication and media 2 The case of Thomas Edison, usage seem to be so complex that we feel tempted to claim that we are entering, with the cinema and the educational them and via them, into a new paradigm of technology paradigm personal and social communication. And it may well be so, that is why we must observe Since the very beginning of film history that and study them from different perspectives film enthusiasts of all kinds, but specially in- and considering their different role within dustrialists and other film enterprisers, have different cultural, social, artistic, industrial, been rather optimistic about the large pos- economical and political contexts , but when sibilities of using films in educational envi- we observe these new patterns a little closer, ronments. Thomas Edison, for example, is we can notice that although they are deve- supposed to have said in the early twenties: loping devices and postures upon new com- "I believe that the motion picture is destined plex and differentiated channels and patterns to revolutionize our educational system and of communication, those very same new en- that in a few years it will supplant largely, if vironments of media exposure may not have not entirely, the use of textbooks."4 developed, necessarily, so many new narra- tive functions that would differentiate them 4 As quoted by Cuban, 1986, p. 9. from older media. These narrative functions www.bocc.ubi.pt 4 Vítor Reia-Baptista As we know today, it did not happen e- very peculiar pedagogical aspects according xactly that way. But, in spite of the failure to its screening forms. We know, for exam- of the prophecy, there are many other links ple, that the same cinematographic sequence and connections that have been established on a celluloid film strip and on a video tape between motion pictures and education un- required different screen situations and of- till our days, and I think that this process fered different pedagogical approaches. We is faraway from being accomplished. Those also know, from the fields of Communication connections are not always clear enough, or Sciences, that any film, as a mass commu- so well known in the cinematographic and nication medium, although screened within educational fields, whose agents are, gene- a non-specifically educational context, as- rally and intuitively, aware of the existence sumes always some general pedagogical as- of some links of mutual influence, but who pects, which maybe called the pedagogical do not act so often, at least consciously, in charge of film. These aspects are mainly consequence of their presence and their im- of two different kinds: a supposed educa- plications as major factors of different pro- tional effect of a general ethic character and a cesses of acquisition of media literacy. real educational effect of a, mainly, semantic It seems, then, that there is at least one character.

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