Media Education

Media education is a type of pedagogical utilisation of the media intended to teach the critical-reflective use of all media. Where media become important for human socialisation as a means of information, entertainment, education and day-to-day organisation, they become the subject of media education – the media are the subject and object of education. Media education concerns all communication media and their combinations made possible by the so-called New Media. These communication media are constituent parts of all texts, regardless of the technology: the word, printed/spoken, graphics, sound, stills and moving pictures. The so-called New Media (including the Internet), being developments and combinations of the above modules, are essentially technologies that serve their distribution and have an effect on several social dimensions. Critical reflection on the possible effects is also included in media education.

In the digital age, the principles of media education are the same as they’ve always been, but the existence of cyberspace is adding new and challenging questions. How, for instance, does technology affect how we relate to others? Is new technology enriching or undermining culture, learning and a sense of community? What roles do ownership, control and access play? What are the challenges in regulating a global, borderless medium like the Internet? Keeping such lines of thinking in mind, this book is written in order to reach out to teachers, students, parents and administrators alike.