Television Literacy Curriculum in Action: a long‐term study |
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| Authors: | Lois J Baron |
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| Institution: | Concordia University , Montreal |
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| Abstract: | A major concern in the area of television's effect on children has been how children interpret both the content and form of the medium. As a form of representation, television has its own code. Messages are transmitted by manipulating this code. The last decade has seen a growth of interest in ways of combating the influence television has on children by increasing their awareness and understanding of the conventions of the medium. The research described here is a media literacy project that takes children ‘behind the scenes’ of television's ‘magic’ by providing them with the opportunity of producing a programme for community access cable television. This was accomplished by having two groups of grade five children experience a 10‐week media literacy curriculum. Following the curriculum phase, one group ‘produced’ a programme for telecast at the local cable studio. Pre‐, post‐, and long‐term media literacy tests were administered to the two groups and a control group. Results reveal that not only did the groups who had experienced the media literacy curriculum perform significantly better on the test, but also that their scores improved significantly between post‐and long‐term testing. In conclusion, the media literacy curriculum led to significant increases in understanding of media‐related concepts. |
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