Sunday, July 15, 2012

Media Literacy helps Children to lead a Healthy Lifestyle


Media Literacy has become an important part a child’s education, yet there are many children that aren’t receiving that education.  Media literacy has long been viewed as unimportant or something that a child should be getting at home.  But with advertisers becoming increasingly more aggressive in their ad campaigns teachers need to make sure that they are making Media Literacy a priority in their classrooms.  There are eight key concepts that advertisers want you to believe:
1.       All media are constructions
2.       The media construct reality
3.       Audiences negotiate meaning in the media
4.       Media have commercial implications
5.       Media contain ideological and value messages
6.       Media have social and political implications
7.       Form and content are closely related in the media
8.       Each medium has a unique aesthetic form.
Each concept is important for the media to get their point across to people.  They are not just trying to tell you about the product, they are trying to make you feel like you have no other choice but to purchase the product.  Knowing what the media is trying to do can help all of our students make better more informed decisions when becoming active consumers.  Kids today have a terrible sense of what their true body image should be and advertisements are the key driving force behind this.  They see beautiful people having fun and think they need to be doing the same things.  This has led to a rise in risky behaviors and has put our children’s health at risk.  Investigating these items further will help increase your student’s awareness when it comes to everyday decisions, helping them lead a more healthy and happy lifestyle.
Thanks,
Chad

4 comments:

  1. Great blog! I agree with you completely that students see people on TV, in movies, or in magazines and they believe and feel that they have to be that way. Well that is fine but the majority of the time, those people that they see are the best role models to be looking up to. I enjoyed reading your blog.

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  2. Nice idea to incorporate this into your class. So needed.

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  3. I like this a lot. I do a short advertising unit right around the Super Bowl, mainly because of the ads that are used the SB. It is difficult for many of my kids to analyze the ad. They don't realize they are being sold something. But when they recall the ad, many times they recall the product and that it sounds like something they would buy or use. Kind of scary how good advertisers really are at selling products.

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  4. Social Media is really pushing our kids to unreal expectations, thank you for being a positive influence on your student population. Our students need to know that they are perfect just the way they are. :)

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