Truly, this post makes me underscore yet again why I believe media education matters. Some of these are stolen right from the MEF, but are good nonetheless.
Statistics:
- The average American watches over 4 hours of television per day.
- 56% of children ages 8-16 have a TV in their bedroom.
- The average American child sees 200,000 violent acts on TV by age 18.
- The average American youth spends 900 hours in school & 1,023 hours watching TV each year.
- The average American sees 2 million TV commercials by age 65.
- 45% of parents say that if they have something important to do, they are likely to use the TV to
occupy their child.
- Children spend a daily average of 4 hours and 40 minutes in front of a screen - 2 1/2 hours
of which are spent watching television.
- 97% of American children ages 6 & under own products based on characters from TV shows or movies.
- Children ages 2-7 watch television alone and unsupervised 81% of the time.
- Nearly 3 out of 4 teens say that the portrayal of sex on TV influences the sexual behavior
of kids their age. 1 in 4 admits it influences their own behavior.
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Clearly media plays a HUGE part in our life, and so many people are blissfully or willfully ignorant of the part that media, socialization and normalization play in who we are, why we do what we do, and ultimately what we find attractive and what we spend our money on. That's just about everything, so it's worth learning about.
Link to the MEF handouts:
Handouts & Articles | Media Education Foundation
My favorite;
How to be a Critical Media Viewer:
- 1. Remember that all media images and messages are constructions. Ads and other media messages have been carefully crafted with the intent to send a
very specific message.
- Question why certain messages are consistently present in mainstream media and why others are absent.
- Look closely at the appearance of media images: the colors, the editing, the camera angles, the appearance of the people (are they young and happy?), the location, and the sound or type of text.
- Compare media images and portrayals of your surrounding environment with your reality. Make a list of the differences so that you are more aware of them.
- Investigate the source of the media images you encounter. Who owns the network that your favorite television show is on? What else does that corporation
own? How does the ownership structure of media affect the news and entertainment we receive?
- What other stories about the world exist than those you see in the media? (About relationships, health, peace & war, materialism, gender, finances, violence,
globalization, sex, love, etc.)