Media Literacy, Education, Communication in Brazil

Abstract:

"Media education ("educación para la comunicación"...) refers to the special educational programs developed by teachers and other community leaders in order to prepare children and adolescents for receiving and managing in a critical way all media messages they come across, as well as to be able to produce messages using the available information tools..."

"[I]t's true that media education has recently become an important subject for many non-profit organizations, the Brazilian education system - more than 45.000 public schools in all, plus 10.000 private schools - has not yet been able to prioritize media education as a part of its curriculum. Media education has been legitimized as an important subject and the new legislation is calling for its improvement, but the schools have been slow to change.

"Why has this process been so slow? Are teachers the main obstacles in getting media education implemented in their classrooms? Or is such a resistance part of a structural gap between Education and Communication?

"...The teachers' behavior towards media is a consequence of our contemporary culture that insists in taking TV and all other media for that matter (including computers) exclusively as cheap forms of commercial entertainment unfit for the classroom. This attitude has essentially barred media education from receiving any kind of serious attention from important decision makers in school...

"Academic researchers are using innovative new ways to study the impact of the media on children. At the same time, a number of media producers have been dealing with children and their problems in a different, more constructive manner. As a consequence of this synergy, we have new approaches to media education developing.

"Under the theoretical perspective of the "mediation theory," largely adopted in Latin America, media have been recognized as kinds of social actors, performing side by side with family, school, church and other cultural protagonists. Researchers, especially from psychological and pedagogical camps, are reevaluating the weight of media impact in a new way.

"The children's and adolescents' groups [associated with] CAAP [have articulated the following beliefs and aspirations]:

1. "Considering that the educational system has not provided expertise to their faculties to improve media criticism, and considering that the educators don't know exactly what to do with media education, we, kids and young people, claim to the government and to the Universities a need for improvement of teachers' skills in dealing with media and its messages. This and only this will lead to more effective communication and media production in our schools.
2. "Considering that the social interest in empowering children's rights has become the main motive of the merged commitment of government, school and social movement in relation to media education, we, young kids and adolescents, are in favor of an open strategy of media literacy. Through this, we hope to become owners of our own voices. We appreciate what non-profit organizations are doing to preserve and promote children's communication rights.
3. "We agree that the best way to do media education is to improve media production.
4. "We defend the press freedom concept to media and its professionals, as well as to all society members and institutions, especially the young people.
5. "We denounce television's main purpose of maintaining a "culture of violence," whose only goal is transforming each and every kid into a consumer. What the world needs is a media system working to empower citizenship."