Join us for our first ever graduate symposium virtual round table! Our graduate symposium consists of students from around the world, who are conducting graduate research on media literacy. After refining their research focus with our executive director, Yonty Friesem, as a part of an informal, six-month virtual media literacy course, they are now ready to share their research with the Media Ed Lab community!
DATE: Wednesday, April 30, 2025
TIME: 12PM EST | 5pm GMT | 10:30pm IST
LOCATION: Register for Zoom HERE
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Salome Apkhazishvili
“Age invisibility paradox” and how media literacy can help with successful aging
Unlike other primary identity markers, research on age received a monolithic scholarly attention. We frequently hear about age as a demographic variable, but rarely we see it as a communicative construct. Discussions of age often center on older adults, emphasizing negative experiences associated with aging – despite the reality that aging begins in the womb. Even the seemingly simple question, “How old are you?” can provoke discomfort, whether subtly or visibly. In her seminal work, Barbara S. Lawrence (1996) defined age invisibility paradox, as collective ignorance to researching and acknowledging age despite overwhelming evidence of its impact on how we perceive our own aging.
In this round-table session, I will first explore multiple definitions of age, and examine how these definitions shape our beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and relationships. I will then share a few examples of how age is constructed in media and outline a preliminary framework connecting media literacy to the concept of successful aging.
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Ying Li
Teaching Critical Media Literacy in The Secondary English Classroom
Today’s students are immersed in multiple media worlds and surrounded by misinformation and intentional falsehoods. It is imperative for teachers to enhance students’ critical media literacy competencies to interrogate the relationships between media and audiences, power, and knowledge. The purpose of this study was to examine how an English Language Arts (ELA) teacher implemented critical media literacy in the classroom, how the teacher viewed her role in teaching critical media literacy, and what challenges the teacher encountered in critical media literacy teaching. A qualitative case study was conducted in a high school ELA classroom over one academic semester to explore the ELA teacher’s experiences teaching critical media literacy via interviews, classroom observations, and focal student interviews. Findings suggest that the ELA teacher has positive attitudes and professional knowledge to guide students in critically navigating media information and questioning domain power and values. However, the ELA teacher also encountered affordances and barriers in critical media literacy instruction due to students’ belief bias, online remote teaching, digital environment, and limited resources. This study has both practical and theoretical implications for future work aiming to explore ways to prepare teachers to integrate critical media literacy in their future classrooms. Future research on implementing critical media literacy should also examine how secondary school teachers implement critical media literacy in different subjects.
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