I love this concept of different interpretations that Buckingham mentioned in his article. Even with his outlined "key concepts" of Production, Language, Representation, and Audience, it's very clear that there are many different interpretations and viewpoints that can be explored while in the classroom. This is what I love most about this article: each of these concepts are open to being interpreted by both teacher and student in the classroom.
This reminded me of a book we read in my Teaching Composition (English) class last semester: Duck! Rabbit! This book, from beginning to end, explored how you can look at just one photo and see two (or more!) different perspectives.
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I think this is the most important concept to grasp when teaching media within the secondary (or any) classroom. Students must know from the start that there are different ways that media is viewed and interpreted - by those who create it, as well as those who are subjected to it.
In Buckingham's article, he discusses his 3rd concept of Representation and how to study it effectively:
Studying media representations means looking at:
Realism - is this text intended to be realistic?
Telling the truth - how do media claim to tell the truth about the world?
Presence and absence - what is included and excluded from the media world?
Bias and objectivity - do media texts support particular views about the world?
Stereotyping - How do media represent particular social groups?
Interpretations - why do audiences accept some media representations as true, or reject others as false?
Influences - do media representations affect our views of particular social groups or issues?
(Buckingham, 58)
I think this third concept really ties in all four of these concepts together - in order to study media and use it in an educational setting (whether as teacher or student), you must understand that there are a number of different viewpoints, stereotypes, interpretations, influences, and so on. I want to ensure that my students also understand that media is not always truthful - and teach them how to use these different interpretations to gauge what in the media is fact, and what is mere opinion.
I think one really cool activity to do in my classroom is just a straight-up media exploration unit on reviews. Students, after having the opportunity to watch a stage version of a play or musical (i.e. Shakespeare, that's an easy one with many different interpretations that are easily accessible), will write their own reviews for the play. After this, we will watch a film adaptation of the same title, and read a number of reviews for the play AND musical from professional (and just personal) sources (i.e. blogs, newspapers, TV stations, etc.). Then we can stage a debate of those who are for film vs. stage adaptation and, based on their own opinions + the reviews they have read, they can discuss which is a better representation of the text. This could go in a number of different directions - discussing what exactly makes this a good/bad representation. Is it there one better form of media through which to view the text? How does the difference in language change the production and the audience's views of this? How does the difference in audience (cutting and re-shooting for a crew on film vs. for a live audience on stage) change the production, and is one way better than the other in getting what they believe the playwright's intended themes are? Why? The debate could be endless! This would be such a fun way to explore different viewpoints and interpretations that are a result of these different forms of media.
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Just as all these different viewpoints exist, I also want to be sure to emphasize in my classroom that in many contexts (especially, in many ways, in the theatre classroom), there is more than one "correct" answer or interpretation, just as with a page from the Duck! Rabbit! book above. The first way I can see applying this in my own classroom is simply by trying out and exploring different acting and directing styles when working on a piece. I think of how especially in devising a piece with my students, kind of like the process of BYU's "Gone Missing", I would love to explore with them finding these different interpretations of what different people say in interviews in the process of devising the piece. We can discuss both media representations AND languages (concepts 2 and 3 of Buckingham's) as we decide how to translate interviews into monologues, and perform them for an audience. How does the second-hand interpretation change the way the audience will perceive it? How will the addition of different forms of media (i.e. how in "Gone Missing" they used Instagram, hand-held photos, other displays of media) change the way the audience will view it? How can we adjust the language (i.e. in cutting out words of a monologue, pausing at different times, varying tone of voice, etc.) to get a specific point across?
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I could go on and on and on. The reason I chose to focus just on the concept of differing interpretations is for this very reason - you can go in so many different directions with it! And while you can attempt to get your audience to see something in a specific way by the way you adjust your language or your representation of how you present it, there are always going to be people that will either refuse or be unable to see things the way you want them to see them. I think it would be really neat to do a series of activities in the classroom that can expound upon this very point. For example, we could do something that I did in a directing class once, where George Nelson showed us three strikingly different film interpretations of "Romeo and Juliet". In doing something similar to this, we could open up a dialogue about these interpretations - of which there are SO many to choose from! We could spend entire class periods simply debating or discussing (as Buckingham did in his Simpsons case study) how different characters were portrayed; how the use of language differed between the different interpretations; what themes you could pull from each film; etc.
As Buckingham states near the close of his article, "...the approach adopted in these units is clearly oriented towards preparation rather than protection" (67). The different ideas and interpretative views I mentioned I feel emphasize this very idea - that students need not be shown there is any one specific way of doing things (protecting them), but rather we must subject them to these different interpretations, and allow them to explore them in their classrooms (preparation). The more we give them opportunities to explore in this safe space, combining freedom of choice with use of media interpretations, the more diverse they will have the ability to become as they leave the theatre classroom and look out into the world around them - with all the different interpretations and views - and be able to decide for themselves what they would like to believe...instead of letting the media or any one specific interpretation choose this for themselves.
I really like how Laura brings focused on Buckingham’s representations section. When I read this section, my thought was that I could use something like this to teach nonfiction to my class. When teaching nonfiction, it’s important to help students realize that what is on the page is not solid 100% truth for everyone, even though it may be for the person that wrote it. Truth is dependent on the person and the representation of it. Having this discussion would hopefully be the beginning of helping students not take what’s on the page for granted and to challenge them to think more critically about what they read.
ReplyDeleteBesides being used to analyze literature, I think that this sort of conversation could be used to talk about the power of language. When I read Buckingham, I thought of this joke:
An English teacher wrote the words, "Woman without her man is nothing" on the blackboard and directed his students to punctuate it correctly.
The men wrote: "Woman, without her man, is nothing."
The women wrote: "Woman! Without her, man is nothing."
This could start a conversation about how the way we represent the things we are writing about, even if it’s something as simple as grammar, makes a big difference in the messages we represent.
In both these situations, I think that using and studying media is what is going to really send these messages home. I find that using pop culture to help kids remember rules and important topics is a really good way to teach because the students will be more likely to remember because they have something to connect the content to. So, instead of just talking at my students and telling them that reality is based on representation, I could use the cool book that Laura wrote about, or I could show different clips from the “Romeo and Juliet” movies that Laura wrote about.
After showing them the differences, I think it’s also important for them to experience the creating process so that they can experience making conscious choices about how to represent something. Perhaps I could do this by reading a poem together as a class and then, without discussing the poem, assign everyone to create something to represent what they got out of the poem. When students show up with different interpretations, we could have a discussion about how none of the representations are necessarily wrong, that all present truth for the creator, but how they are different.
I also thought that Buckingham’s second example, “Selling Youth” (63-64) was a really good way to talk about how the media chooses to represent their products has different effects. The only thing I wouldn’t do in this proposed lesson is the part where he has students to try and watch as many advertising breaks at home as possible. While I understand the goal he has in mind, I don’t think that encouraging students to watch “as many TV advertising breaks at home as possible” is a good way to have our students spend time.
And Laura—your last thought was right on the dot. I fully believe that teachers need to have critical conversations with their students so that they can explore these issues in a safe environment. Doing so will only, as you and Buckingham said, prepare the students for the future.