Media Education in 12 European Countries
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Repository of the Academy's Library Andrew Hart / Daniel Süss (Eds.) Media Education in 12 European Countries A Comparative Study of Teaching Media in Mother Tongue Education in Secondary Schools Research report from the Euromedia Project, co-ordinated by Andrew Hart at the Media Education Centre at the University of Southampton, U.K. Co-ordination of the publication project by Daniel Süss, University of Applied Sciences Zurich, School of Applied Psychology and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich E-Collection of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, 2002 Content 1. Introduction .....................................................................................................................3 Outline of the „Euromedia Project“ (Andrew Hart)....................................................................................3 Media Education in Europe: Common Trends and Differences (Erwin Bernhard, Daniel Süss) .............7 2. The National Reports on Media Education ...................................................................11 Belgium: Media Education in Flemish Secondary Schools. A Study Report (Els Schelfhout) .............11 Britain: Teaching Media in English (Andrew Hart, Alun Hicks).............................................................23 Finland: Media Education in Finland (Markku Varis, Johanna Pihlajamäki, Nina Vuontisjärvi)............33 Germany: Media Education in Germany (Horst Lohl) ...........................................................................44 Greece: Iconic Communication Today and the Role of Media Education (Chrysoula Kosmidou-Hardy) .................................................................................................................55 Hungary: Motion Picture and Media Education in Hungary (Imre Szijártó)...........................................65 Ireland: Teaching the Media in Ireland (Brian O’Neill, Helen Howley) ..................................................78 Norway: Media Education in Norway (Elise Seip Tønnessen)..............................................................88 Russia: Media Education in Secondary Schools in Russia (Alexander Fedorov)...............................100 Slovenia: Media Education as a part of Mother Tongue Teaching (Karmen Erjavec, Zala Volčič).............................................................................................................111 Spain: Teaching Media in Catalan - Teaching Media in Spain (Ricard Huerta)..................................123 Switzerland: Media Education in Switzerland – Determining its Position (Daniel Süss, Erwin Bernhard, Armin Schlienger)................................................................................137 3. Appendix.......................................................................................................................151 Participating Research Teams .............................................................................................................151 Research Instruments ..........................................................................................................................154 This report is dedicated to the memory of Andrew Hart 2 Outline of the Euromedia Project Andrew Hart Global media and global education Media ownership, production and distribution have become increasingly internationalised and even globalised. But educational responses have not kept pace with these developments. There has been much rhetoric but little research about Media teaching and learning. There is therefore a pressing need for comparative studies, so that local research can be examined in a global context. Media culture has expanded massively over the last decades. There is a range of new media: cable and satellite television, home computers, video recorders and camcorders, new 'on-line' interactive services, video discs and other consumer-oriented interactive software. The movement from analogue to digital coding and the consolidation of communications conglomerates has given rise to a growing interpenetration of media, as genres, themes and contents flow from one to another with increasing fluidity. We are entering a multimedia environment which is increasingly enveloping, involving and experienced as an interconnected whole. Technological and statutory developments have led to significant changes in the ways in which young people interact with the media. Various forms of deregulation have led to the increasing availability of specialist and streamed services which no longer fit the traditional models of broadcasting. Technological developments have facilitated increasingly creative participation in media processes and interactions with media artefacts. These practices include 'scratch' video, the use of 'dub' and mixing techniques in live and recorded music and the reworking of still images through digital manipulation. At the same time, computer technology has increased the opportunities for relatively sophisticated production in sound and still and moving images. Increasingly, these are distributed through the Internet, thereby changing the relationships betwet young people and commercial media industries. Optimists see these developments as supporting a more open, diverse and participatory communications system which will offer more choice for audiences, more fluid relationships between producers and users and a more informed and active citizenry. Pessimists fear the exclusion effects of differential access to key resources and competencies and the erosion of boundaries between fantasy, fiction and reality. Many point to the increased problems of regulating children and young peoples' exposure 'unsuitable' representations, especially given the spread of Internet access. Debates between conflicting views about the media of the future have strongly influenced current thinking about appropriate forms of education. This book will show how classroom strategies and practices in different countries are responding to the new technological developments and ideological debates. PURPOSE AND SCOPE The project will offer the first international perspective on the teaching of Media to 14-16 year-old students in the 1990s. in Europe. Each local study will include a general analysis of the development and current situation of Media Education in a specific national context, noting how particular theoretical and practical problems have affected it. By providing detailed case studies of current work in different parts of the world, this project will enable comparative analysis of various Media teaching paradigms and practices in different cultures. It will offer new perspectives on Media teaching, which will enable teachers to examine approaches which differ from their own and to reflect on their own practices with a view to understanding them more fully and enhancing their effectiveness in the classroom. The project seeks to illuminate three major general questions: S How are teachers living in the new multimedia world, in their own lives and in their classroom- practice? How do they see this world in relation to their personal philosophies of teaching? S How are schools responding as institutions? To what extent do school policies recognise the importance of young people's extra-curricular culture? S What influences are exerted by national and local curricular authorities? Do current formal curri- cula encourage engagement with new media technologies? 3 The project's specific research question is: S What are Mother Tongue/L1 teachers doing when they say they are doing Media Education at ages 14-16 in secondary schools? This question will be made operational by focusing on two major sub-questions: S What Media Education aims are apparent? S What forms of Media Education are apparent? In turn, these questions will be broken down into further questions: S who teachers of English\t\1edia are (their experiences, background and training) S how they see themselves in relation to schools and curricula S what they say (and think) about Media Education as a discipline S how they define their own approach to Media Education S what they actually do when they do Media Education OBJECTIVES The project will: S document the different understandings, purposes and practices of Media teachers in a range of international locations S enable comparative analysis of different approaches to Media teaching both within different natio- nal and between different international locations S encourage discussion of appropriate models for different locations and purposes S offer a specific, replicable model for classroom research by other practitioners S facilitate discussion of appropriate methodologies for classroom research in Media Education S provide a basis for the continuing development of Media Education as a discipline and for further research in Media Education. ORIGINS The project is based on the success of the original Models of Media Education Project (1992-93) in England and its international extension as the Models of Media Education Inter-national Project carried out in English-speaking countries throughout the world, (Hart, 1998). The process of observation, discussion and analysis illuminated some of the convergences between English teaching and Media Education and enabled us to examine a range of classroom strategies in some detail. DESIGN As in the original Models of Media Education study, this project will produce two distinct sets of data on Media teachers'