This article addresses practices of textual appropriation in computer games made by young people. By focusing on how young people's production work makes reference to popular media texts, it examines the basis on which such work claims to be legible as a game text: how it claims to be literate in the context of an after-school game-making club.…

Postmodern media culture widens the gap between school and children's external environments; it challenges the critical objective of media education. Students' efforts at media production manifest a more playful concept of knowledge and learning, requiring a more comprehensive postmodern approach to media education. (Contains 47 references.) (SK)

Discusses the "Teletubbies" television show's appeal to older children and to adults. Suggests that the debate that has been generated around it raise significant questions about the relations between childhood and adulthood and about the nature of literacy in media-saturated societies. (RS)

Discusses adolescents' lack of interest in news and relates it to their apathy and cynicism about wider social and political issues. Examines whether the news media are to blame for this situation, and to what extent they might help overcome it. Discusses how news media, and the social and political issues they represent, can be made relevant to…

What is the value and what are the consequences of students gaining access to "critical" academic discourses about the media? Ideally, the acquisition of an academic discourse should make it possible for students to reflect on their own experience in a systematic and rigorous way. Nevertheless, a critical discourse about the media may…

Summarizes recent debates concerning the use of popular culture and media within the English curriculum. Presents an approach to using media in fostering understanding the way meaning and taste are socially constructed. Describes research aimed at developing an account of reading as social process. (HB)

Notes that news media use has declined in recent years, particularly among young people. Offers a critical review of research on the changing role of journalism in political socialization. Evaluates calls for popular alternatives to conventional forms of news and for a postmodern conception of citizenship and the public sphere. Concludes that more…