High school social studies teachers are always struggling to "cover the content" while addressing an ever-expanding set of additional demands. The Common Core expects literacy instruction to be incorporated into social studies. NCSS's new C3 Framework emphasizes teaching students to ask questions, evaluate sources, and communicate…

This paper highlights the results of a project, in which a group of students, who were enrolled in an African American film criticism course at a large university in Southern California, participated in a community engagement project that incorporated visual and media literacy skills acquired in the classroom setting. The parameters of the project…

Through television, many different images of ethnic, cultural, and ability groups are presented. Different people perceive these images in different ways. These perceptions affect how people value themselves and judge and interact with others. This article first summaries research on TV images and people's meaning and reaction to them. Second, it…

The communication technologies of television and common carriers have an important correlativity to message formation, due to their ability to bring the public information at lightning speed. Historicity, the science of writing history, can be used by the television critic in order to critique national and international broadcasting. Blacks,…

Argues that films and documentaries are useful in promoting critical analysis and classroom discussion. Discusses films that are effective teaching tools. Warns that some films may provide only one side of a story, and teachers must be careful to present a balanced discussion. Includes sources for obtaining these films. (AJL)

Describes a college course on the sociology of sport, in which students reflect on their own experiences and practices in sport, engage in critical analysis of the taken-for-granted values and assumptions associated with sport, and do construct analysis and deconstruction of televised sport as it promotes certain interests and marginalizes others.…

Contemporary society is an "information society" where much of the information has a visual nature. This text uses semiotic and psychological concepts to help students gain understanding of how meaning is found in visual phenomena and how minds process images. Focus is upon mass media and popular culture. Theoretical discussions are…