N.H. students' better at assessing what's missing after media-literacy training, research finds

A total of 300 Concord, N.H., high-school students tracked in a 10-year study of media-literacy education effects showed quantifiable improvements in academic achievement, according to results presented by Renee Hobbs, a Temple University professor and researcher at a media-literacy conference in Cambridge, Mass, on Oct. 27, 2007.

Seven teachers took part in the curriculum study, which involved allocating their junior year to media-literacy focused English curriculum. The methodology and outcomes are described in Hobbs' book, published in March, "Reading the Media: Media Literacy in High School English."

Hobbs studied reading reading compensation and writings skills, through classroom observation, 21 hours of transcribed interviews and samples of student-made videos. Among books in the 11th-grade curriculum were: Orwell's 1984, Shelley's Frankenstein, Star's Glued to the Set, Kesey's One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest, Junger's The Perfect Storm, Anderson's Feed and Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. Films included Tough Guise, All the President's Men, High Fidelity and Bamboozled.

A key finding of Hobbs' research -- graduates of the Concord media-literacy track were much better at figuring out what was missing from news accounts -- i.e., the "frame" of the author -- then a control group of Concord teens.  Hobbs also tried to measure the students' reactions to advertising, their critical viewing skills, their civic engagement and their reading comprehension and analysis.

Hobbs concludes the program was effective because it was initiated by the faculty themselves, yet supported by the superintendent, it was carefully planned, a vibrant school library and media center participated and there was involvement by reporters and editors from the family-owned daily newspaper, the Concord Monitor. Students seemed especially engaged because they perceived the curriculum to be relevant to life outside school, she added.

Hobbs has three worries, however. One is that video-production-based media literacy efforts will replace traditional print reading literacy efforts for "at risk" students who teachers think are unlikely to ever read well. A second is students will develop a general "anti-media" attitude if teachers don't emphasize critical thinking and skepticism rather than cynicism. Finally, she says educators need to avoid the temptation to silo efforts as analysis, practice or production, instead of blending all three.