Thank you for the opportunity to make this presentation. I would like to
begin by telling you about myself and the organization I represent.
My name is Dan Blake. I am a high school teacher in Surrey. I teach English
and Journalism to students in grades eight through twelve.
I am president of the Canadian Association for Media Education. C.A.M.E.
was formed by a group of teachers and media professionals and was
incorporated as non-profit society in August 1991. We have about one
hundred members, mostly in the Lower Mainland. Our membership includes
representatives from the National Film Board, The Knowledge Network,
Pacific Cinematheque, I.D.E.R.A., MediaWatch, and Adbusters.
We are affiliated with other provincial media education organizations
through the Canadian Association of Media Education Organizations
(C.A.M.E.O.)
Our objectives are:
- to educate Canadians about the media:
- to promote media education
- to encourage Canadian cultural expression in the media
I would like to mention some of the activities that we have been engaged in
recently. In the fall of 1993 we hosted three forums: Kids and TV: How to
Cope?; TV Advertising: The Bottom Line; and, TV News: Who Decides, and
How?. The panelist for the forums were prominent members of the academic,
media, and business community. We collaborated with the Vancouver Film
Festival to promote the Dream Matinee Series.
In the Spring of 1994 we signed a contract with the Ministry of Education
to produce a Conceptual Framework for Media Education. A copy of the
framework document is in your package. The framework was made available to the curriculum review committees that began meeting in the fall of '94
with instructions to incorporate suggestions for media education into all
curriculum areas. This work is ongoing. C.A.M.E. also produced a Resource Sampler with information and teaching strategies to help teachers get started in media education. We are currently working on our second Resource Sampler.
C.A.M.E has collaborated with various groups to bring prominent speakers
such as John Pungente, S.J. , Len Masterman, and George Gerbner to Vancouver to speak to parents and teachers. In the summer of '94 C.A.M.E. members were involved in organizing a two week summer institute for teachers wishing to get started in media education. This summer S.F.U. offered its first credit course in media education. The course was very successful and S.F.U. plans to offer it again next year.
In October of '94 C.A.M.E. was a co-sponsor of a teleconference on Violence
in the Media.
Discussion.
This brings me to the reason for attending this hearing. Research suggests that it is probably impossible to establish a direct causal connection between specific acts of violence as seen on television and similar acts performed by individuals On the other hand nobody would deny that TV affects people. What is not clear is what is the nature of the effect of TV and how does it work.
To begin to understand these questions we need to know something about how
video/film is made. In media education we talk about codes and conventions.
Please bear with me if this seems overly simplistic to you. A close up shot
of a face is used to evoke a particular emotional response: joy, sadness,
pity, fear and so on. We know this works. Children know it works too, but,
it is unlikely that they have ever considered why. This is but one small
example of a convention employed by cinematographers and
directors.Understanding why we feel certain emotions allows us to control
them. It also enhances our understanding and appreciation of the creator of
the film/video.
C.A.M.E. believes that helping young people understand how the media work (
and particularly TV) will help them deal more effectively with how the
media affects them. We believe that this knowledge and understanding can
be taught and we further believe that school is the appropriate place to do
it.
Our lives are saturated with media images. Much of our understanding of the
world comes to us through television. It is imperative that we learn to
"read' it in much the same way that we would say that it is imperative to
learn to read books.
C.A.M.E. believes that the question of the effects of violence in the media
has to be seen as part of the larger question of the effects of the media
on our whole life. That is not to say that there isn't a place for the 'V'
chip and other devices that control access to programmes that contains
gratuitous violence. There is. By the same token there is a need for
regulation; either self regulation or government imposed guidelines. And,
of course, as educators, we heartily endorse the idea of parents taking a
more active role in monitoring what their children watch on television. But
violence, gratuitous or otherwise, exist within a context: economic,
social , political, and educational. For young people to learn to deal with
depictions of violence they must learn to understand the part it plays in
all of these contexts.
C.A.M.E. believes that media education offers the possibility to begin this
process. We urge you support initiatives at all levels that help parents,
teachers and schools begin to implement education about the media in the
schools. The government of Ontario has mandated media education at the
secondary as part of the English curriculum. Alberta and Saskatchewan have
also taken a number of initiatives to get media education into the
classroom. Here in B.C., as I indicated earlier, the government has begun
the process of integrating media education into all curriculum areas and
for all ages.
But there is still a long way to go. Out of 40,000 teachers in B.C. barely
a couple of hundred have any experience of teaching about the media. We
need pre-service courses for teachers-in-training and in-service for those
already teaching. We need teaching resources. Most of all we need a firm
commitment from all levels of government to support an educational system
that teaches children to understand the part that the media play in
constructing the world in which we live.
Thank you for the opportunity to address you. I wish you well in the task
that you have undertaken.
Addendum
The Canadian Association for Media Education ( C.A.M.E. ) was formed by a
group of teachers and media professionals and was incorporated as
non-profit society in August 1991. We have about one hundred members,
mostly in the Lower Mainland. Our membership includes representatives from
the National Film Board, The Knowledge Network, Pacific Cinematheque,
I.D.E.R.A., MediaWatch, and Adbusters. Although most of our member are classroom teachers we also have members in the universities and colleges.
We are affiliated with other provincial media education organizations
through the Canadian Association of Media Education Organizations
(C.A.M.E.O.) Our objectives are:
In the fall of 1993 we hosted three forums: Kids and TV: How to Cope?; TV
Advertising: The Bottom Line; and, TV News: Who Decides, and How?. The
panelist for the forums were prominent members of the academic, media, and
business community. We collaborated with the Vancouver Film Festival to
promote the Dream Matinee Series.
In the Spring of 1994 we signed a contract with the Ministry of Education
to produce a Conceptual Framework for Media Education. A copy of the
framework document is in your package. The framework was made available to the curriculum review committees that began meeting in the fall of '94
with instructions to incorporate suggestions for media education into all
curriculum areas. This work is ongoing. C.A.M.E. also produced a Resource Sampler with information and teaching strategies to help teachers get started in media education. We are currently working on our second Resource Sampler.
C.A.M.E has collaborated with various groups to bring prominent speakers
such as John Pungente, S.J. , Len Masterman, and George Gerbner to
Vancouver to speak to parents and teachers. In the summer of '94 C.A.M.E.
members were involved in organizing a two week summer institute for teachers wishing to get started in media education. The presenter was John Pungente. This summer Simon Fraser University offered its first credit course in media education. The course was very successful and S.F.U. plans to offer it again next year.
In October of '94 C.A.M.E. was a co-sponsor of a teleconference on Violence
in the Media. Other highlights include collaborating with the Global
Education Project (B.C.T.F.) to produce units on images of media and
development.; a forum on new directions in library services in world of
cyberspace; and bringing Geoff Pevere to Surrey for their annual convention
in March '95.
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