Thanks to JoBEM editor, Susan Brinson, who offered me the opportunity to write
a rejoinder to W. James Potter’s essay on the State of Media Literacy. Potter begins
his response to my essay by alleging that my identity and track record limit the
value of my perspective on the field. After justifying his own editorial choices in
terms of breadth, balance over time, balance across scholars, and description over
prescription, Potter then suggests that my critical perspective regarding his work is
an indication of my own lack of media literacy.
I begin my rejoinder by wishing that Potter addressed my principal argument,
where I claim that his review examines media literacy from a too-traditional mass
communication perspective, rooted in the media effects tradition, and as a result,
it neglects much important recent work from this increasingly global and
interdisciplinary community of scholars and practitioners. When media literacy
is conceptualized primarily as a response to presumed negative media effects,
pedagogy shifts from its roots in constructivism to become essentially persuasive.
Some educators aim to deliver a message about privacy or reputational issues on
the Internet, desensitization and media violence, the limiting world view offered by
gender stereotypes, the dangers of media ownership, or the emotional manipulation
embedded in fast food advertising. They can do so in ways that promote analysis
and metacognition as well as divergent, critical thinking, or they can deliver a voluminous
collection of facts, carefully assembling a compelling persuasive message
using rhetorical strategies that position students as spectators who, more or less
inevitably, will be expected to adopt the ‘‘right’’ perspectives on key issues (or at
least be able to reproduce them on an exam). The robust and meaningful tension
at the heart of the empowerment-protection debate derives its potency from these
concerns.
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