Language and Literacy: Media Strand

Critical Interpretation and Sourcing

  One of the most important aspects of media literacy for me is critical interpretation.  So what is media literacy and how is it critically interpreted?  According to the Ontario curriculum Media literacy is "the study of the art and messaging of various forms of media texts" (Ontario Curriculum Grades1-8: Language, p.13).  This means the study of any media that intends to communicate a meaning to an audience whether it is done through texts, graphics, sound, or digitally.  So then what does critical interpretation of media mean?  Critical interpretation means the ability for students to differentiate between fact and opinion, evaluate the credibility of the sources, understand biases, what audience the media is targeted to, and why the media was produced.  It is these critical thinking skills that to me are the most important to get right when teaching media literacy, as it can help form the foundation for how your students take in all forms of media.

  In class we viewed a short Taco Bell commercial, in which elderly people act "young" while enjoying Taco Bell.  You can find the video embedded below.  What I liked about this exercise is that it deals with something that people experience every day: advertisements.  Having students watch, read, or view advertisements is an excellent way of interpreting what a target audience is and why it was produced.  This activity could also be taken a step further.  It has become a recent trend among online news sites and even magazines to have sponsored articles rather than intrusive ads.  These could make excellent examples of how to critically interpret media.  I would have the students read the sponsored article without telling them it was sponsored by a specific corporation or organization.  After they had read it and had received their opinions on it, I would then reveal that is was sponsored, and then re-evaluate what they thought of the article now.  This would be an excellent lesson in discovering biases, evaluating credibility, sourcing, while also continuing to question who the media was produced for and why.


  In our digital age where we are bombarded with information on a daily basis it is critical that we develop good critical interpretation skills for our media.  We must be able to educate students so that they are properly prepared to evaluate all this new media from its biases to its intended audiences.  From my experiences and time spent in my tech class I have learned of scavenger and treasure hunting activities.  Both are exercises in researching, sourcing, and evaluating credibility.  The only difference is that scavenger hunts provide students a webpage to search through and a treasure hunt gives students a search engine to use.  I would love the chance to use a scavenger hunt activity to teach media literacy, by providing a webpage, a quote, and a claim associated with it students would have to go to these pages I provided and search them to see if these quotes and claims are valid or not.  The activity can also be expanded upon by requiring additional independent research to determine its validity, potentially due to me leading them to sites with bogus information.

  Overall I believe that media literacy and the ability to critically intemperate different forms of media is a important life skill in the 21st century.  As educators we must find new and engaging ways we can use different media to illustrate these skills.