Purpose: Interest in using popular movies in higher education has flourished, but determining their actual impact remains tricky. Some studies suggest these movies can positively affect student satisfaction, yet many criticize this method as ineffective or lazy. Our study compared two ways of using popular movies -- watching them in class versus a…

As video games become a ubiquitous part of today's culture internationally, as educators and parents we need to turn our attention to how video games are being understood and used in informal and formal settings. Serious games have developed as a genre of video games marketed for educating youth about a range of world issues. At face value this…

Can parents identify leadership lessons in children's media and use them to teach their children leadership? Thirty participants were asked to answer questions about leadership in children's media before and after watching clips of a popular G-rated children's movie. The results from the questionnaire indicated that parents do recognize leadership…

This paper examined the effect of sexualized portrayals of female artists in music videos on college students' perceptions of date rape. 132 college students were randomly assigned to view a music video that contained either high or low levels of sexuality and sexual objectification and were then asked to rate the guilt of the male in a scenario…

Since May 24, 2006 millions of people have seen the movie "An Inconvenient Truth." Several countries have even proposed using the film as an educational tool in school classrooms. However, it is not yet clear that the movie accomplishes its apparent goals of increasing knowledge and concern, and motivating people to reduce their…

This paper examines the portrayal of women university academics in American films from the 1940s. It applies analytical tools from a critical methodology to access the socio-cultural ideas and values attributed to the female professoriate during what is a period of great change for women in American society. This analysis reveals that the values…

Multicultural education emerged from the political struggles of the 1960s and 1970s and advocated the inclusion of women and ethnic and racial groups in school curricula and children's media. Recently multiculturalism has evolved to include a critical perspective by focusing on stigmatized social identities such as race, class, sexuality,…

A framework for media education that helps students enhance their understanding of the media and use their knowledge to influence individual and community action is proposed. It is experienced that the problem with educating children against, rather than about, the media is the assumption that students are passive audiences of the media, lacking…

Many current models of television viewing regard viewers either as passive receptors, active participants, or addled dupes. A study proposed a more flexible model for television viewing research. The study used the television program "St. Elsewhere," an example of "meta-television" (television programming which contains hidden…

What and how do students learn from motion pictures, and how does this knowledge interact with the history they learn in school? This is a complex problem-space and one that has seen little empirical research. To lay the groundwork for exploring these questions, a pilot study utilized a qualitative methodology in which high school students viewed…

Focuses on ways in which a group of high school students responded to fine art and other forms of visual culture, such as advertising images, cartoons, and propaganda posters. Discusses three emergent themes in student responses: (1) purposes of imagery; (2) interpretation of images; and (3) relationships among images. (DSK)

This article reports the results of a content analysis of the debut season of the reality television show, "The Apprentice." All 15 episodes were examined to determine the role that communication competencies played in competitors' success or elimination. Results indicate that the ability to persuade effectively was most critical to winning tasks,…