Featuring tools, activities, and insightful stories from a CIA analyst and instructor with 30+ years' of experience, this practical and engaging book supports busy educators to teach the lifelong skills of news and media literacy to their students. Based on existing curriculum and teaching standards, this guidebook shows how social studies and…

This activity highlights the concept of cultural hegemony, illustrating it by a reflection on the images of success and successful people portrayed in the media. The purpose of the exercise is to introduce students to this concept, and for them to examine how hegemonic views of others and the self affect the way they conceptualize success and…

We live in a climate ripe for noise: Media outlets and 24-hour news cycles mean that everyone with access to a computer has access to a megaphone to broadcast their views. Never before in human history has an opinion had the opportunity to reach so many so quickly regardless of its accuracy or appropriateness. Of course, it's difficult to hear…

This article highlights a series of activities designed to elicit students' mathematics-related beliefs, particularly those related to gender. As a result of the activities, females in upper-level classes rated themselves as having less confidence than males, and viewing a movie clip was sufficient for some students to modify their descriptions of…

Suggests that mass media advertisers are responsible for the creation of our modern mythologies. (JL)

Even in today's age of predictions and projections, children still need to be taught about the importance of voting. A short historical unit provides facts about past elections, voting rights, and close elections. Activities to reinforce these teachings are offered. (DF)

Argues that the mass media deprivation experience is a potent means with which to sensitize students to the seductive, yet iron-fisted, grip of the mass media. Offers advice with respect to guiding the experience; describing typical before and after reactions; and identifying theoretical discussion issues. (SR)

Describes an instructional activity to teach middle school through college students how to critically analyze health-related infomercial messages and content; identify techniques commonly used in infomercials to persuade customers to purchase products; identify how and why these techniques can be misleading and unreliable; and discuss benefits and…

Introduces the Mass Media Mistake, an exercise in which students engage in a healthy skepticism of chemistry in the printed world, rewrite the example correctly, and discuss the consequences of the original error on the unsuspecting reader. (Contains 13 references.) (ASK)

Presents an exercise in which students interview various groups of citizens--church leaders, school officials, government and business leaders--in order to give students a broader understanding of the definitions of obscenity and community standards. (HTH)

Maintains that before any real teaching can take place, art teachers must combat "visual fatigue,""media bombardment," and "sensory overload." Describes each of these phenomena and offers practical advice for overcoming their effects. (JDH)

Summarizes sources on popular culture which can be used in designing a composition course centered around a mass culture theme. (MM)

Describes a research assignment (called "photo-elicitation") in a graduate course on the role of photography in society in which students interview people similar to the subjects in the photographs to discover how the photographs affect them. Includes material from one research project interviewing three recovering drug addicts responding to Larry…

Teachers and teacher educators must become more aware of the civics lessons instilled by the media and must learn to teach students how to use, rather than be used by, the media "curriculum." Four strategies for integrating media civic education into the teacher education curriculum are outlined. (PP)

Written to appeal to a general audience that wants to think more deeply about the nature of the media, their messages, and their effects on both individuals and society, this book serves as a broad introduction to the thinking that ties educators together in the common goal of educating a media literate generation. It is written from a critical…