International Journal of Media and Information Literacy

40-52

Authors: Slimane Aboulkacem, Lory E. Haas, Abigail R. Winard

Part of being a 21st century citizen is experiencing the polarization and the divisiveness of the world, especially across digital social spaces. We live in a new media environment that is personalized for everyone. Additionally, today’s media life is characterized by the speed of information production, consumption, as well as and often absence of trustful information sources. Information is available in unprecedented amounts at the touch of a fingertip and finds us through an armada of digital services. Hence, the purpose of this research is to explore the perceptions and practices of 268 pre-service teachers from Algeria and the USA. Responses to four open-ended questions, which were part of a mixed methods survey, were analyzed for this study. These questions were posed to investigate pre-service teachers’ views of today’s news, its sources, and how they proceed into verifying and sharing information. The findings revealed that students indicate they verify information but did not share how they verify sources other than frequent use of Google search engine. Moreover, friends, family members, and Facebook comments were found to potentially sway the pre-teachers’ opinions or even sometimes determine their news believability.

66-71

Authors: Art Silverblatt

The ability to develop a critical distance from the messages being conveyed through the channels of mass communication is of vital importance. However, the value of Media Literacy education extends beyond media analysis, furnishing critical thinking skills for people who are in danger of losing the ability to come to independent conclusions based on the systematic assessment of evidence. According to Renee Hobbs and Richard Frost, media literacy education enhances critical thinking across a broad range of disciplines: The first large scale empirical study measuring the acquisition of media literacy skills in the United States concluded that incorporating media message analysis into secondary level English language arts curriculum … improved students’ reading, viewing and listening comprehension of print, audio and video texts, message analysis and interpretation, and writing skills. In addition, it should be emphasized that that the discipline of Media Literacy is essentially apolitical. Media Literacy educators teach people how to think, not what to think. What determines the validity of an analysis is the following: 1) the systematic application media literacy methodologies; and 2) the contentions must be supported with concrete examples (e.g., television episodes, films, and social media threads). Instead, the discipline of Media Literacy furnishes individuals with the skills to develop an independence of thought so necessary to the survival of democracy.

3-10

Authors: Olga Gorbatkova, Anastasia Levitskaya

The article is devoted to hermeneutical analysis of the film Dead Poets Society (1989, directed by Peter Weir). Reviews of Russian and foreign film critics are included into the analysys. The author presents the historical, ideological, political, social and cultural contexts, that influenced the film production; the main characters, the narrative structure and techniques used by the media text's producers. Interpreting the results of hermeneutical analysis of the film Dead Poets Society the authors come to conclusion that: – the media text clearly shows the main trends of the state policy in the educational, social and cultural fields; – the plot does not directly reflect the important events in the political life of the country, but there is a certain trace. Socio-political, economic objectives, ideological upbringing, religious education to varying degrees are reflected in the storyline of the media text (fundamental values are family, religion, love, loyalty, justice, generosity, kindness, mutual assistance, ability to take responsibility for actions, etc.); – the plot is immersed in the educational process, only slightly touches on love themes and is absolutely devoid of sex scenes; – the media text's concept is: socio-moral struggle (for personal happiness, love, truth, right for self-identification, freely express one's thoughts and ideas, etc.); confrontation against teachers' dullness, conservatism, bureaucratic approach; – this media text gives the idealized image of the teacher: intellectual, competent, respectful communicator of humanistic moral values and norms of behavior; – students' activity is centered around education and self-identity; – this media text promotes the humanistic ideal of a romantic character, attractive for the high moral and human qualities; – the film's authors present a strict social distance between teachers and students; unwavering authority and respect for the teacher, the prestige of the teaching profession in the eyes of students.

18-29

Authors: Svetlana Nedelcheva

This study focuses on the multumodal devices in representing migrants along the Balkan route in Bulgarian online news during the “migrant crisis” of 2015/2016. It reveals a broader sense of the term ‘text’ in describing the migrants including both verbal text and pictorial display of their social activities. They are seen as ‘social actors’ with particular social relationships between them and the people in the countries they pass through. A series of conceptual mappings characterizes the excerpted material: WATER metaphor, COMPETITION metaphor, EUROPE IS A PERSON metaphor, THE CRISIS IS A PERSON metaphor, EUROPE IS A HOUSE metaphor. The visual representation corresponds to the verbal one, therefore giving the reader a sense of objectivity of the news. Mostly the image of the refugees in the news is positive. The poor conditions they live in on their way to Europe are discussed with sympathy and compassion, consistent with Bulgarian foreign politics.

61-67

Authors: Chi-kim Cheung, Connie Chau

We live in a world that is saturated with mass media, consumed on a daily basis. Students spend a lot of time on media and they are susceptible to the messages conveyed by the media. What can teachers do? Schools must help students develop their analytical and critical thinking skills, so that they can evaluate critically information that relates to important issues that affect the community and the implementation of media literacy education is called upon (Cheung, 2004; Considine et al., 2009). Through the questionnaire survey and also interviews of teachers, this study identifies the major reasons and problems of implementing media literacy education in English curriculum at junior secondary level. Most of the teachers perceived the flexible content of English language and the close relationship between the teaching of English four skills and media literacy education were factors favoured the implementation in the English curriculum. And the major limitations observed by the respondents are: the lack of time, heavy workload and the lack of teacher training.

79-89

Authors: Alexander Fedorov

The analysis of the articles of magazine Cinema Art – 1967 identified the following key film criticism trends: - Despite the folding thaw effects, the magazine tried to keep the ideological position of the late 1950s – early 1960s; - The authors of the magazine tried to analyze the most notable works of the Soviet cinema, even criticized certain shortcomings in the films of famous and influential at that time masters of the screen; - Paying tribute to the inevitable Soviet propaganda rhetoric, the magazine could afford to publish informative theoretical and sociological discussion, and the texts of outstanding script; - However, in some cases, the magazine could (perhaps by order "from above") cause painful a critical blow to the talented work screen. In general, the Cinema Art (1967) was a kind of typical model of the Soviet humanities journals (with the entire obligatory bow to censorship) that try to stay in the position of "socialism with a human face".

99-103

Authors: Imre Szíjártó

The starting point of the study is that blogs show peculiar culture-historical processes determined by web2 communicational medium, represented in the film comprehension strategies and language use of the authors speaking. The study examining comprehension strategies represented in the texts of blogs. Electronic environment has thoroughly altered possibilities of public address: while it was critics of journals who spoke about films, literature or theatre before Internet appeared, nowadays we are faced with imperspicuous variety of sites. Democratisation of communication has its impact on meaning formation practice of reception communities, after all on the processes of the formation of the cultural canon. It is worth dealing with the topic in media-language and art pedagogical context as on the one hand we are witnesses of the transformation of the language of film critics, on the other hand schools have to adapt pre-knowledge and the interpretation strategies of students formed by blogs.

3-8

Authors: Irina V. Chelysheva, Galina V. Mikhaleva

The article presents a brief review of basic approaches to media education in Russia from the genesis to present-day conditions of Russian media pedagogy. The historical analysis of media education in Russia has shown that Russian media education tradition relies on several dominant theoretical approaches such as the semiotic, culturological, aesthetic, ethical, sociocultural and critical thinking development conceptions. The study of artistic value of media production, a close link between the aesthetic approach with spiritual and moral education of the rising generation, reliance on children’s creative skills have provided the basis for many media education models realized in contemporary Russia. Contemporaneous researches focus on studying media culture, various media effects and forms of media addiction, Internet safety and digital competences. Media culture as a vast layer of human culture is also in the focus of media researches. The solution to these problems depends both on teaching the younger generation basic computer skills for digital safety and on elaborating strategies for developing children’s media competence, spiritual and moral values, critical thinking and analytical skills, social skills in the world of media culture. Potential research prospects of media education involve further development of scientific media education centers and schools promoting the investigation of urgent media pedagogy issues.

16-37

Authors: Alexander Fedorov, Anastasia Levitskaya

Based on media education activities’ techniques, the authors taught a media education course during the full academic year. The research objective was to trace the changes between the levels of students’ media competence in a control and in an experimental group. The determination of the media competence’s levels was based on the classification of the indicators of the development of an individual’s media competence developed by our research team. Media competence implies the accumulation of motives, knowledge, abilities, and skills (indicators: motivational, contact, information, perceptual, interpretative / evaluative, practice-operational / activity, creative), facilitating the use, critical analysis, evaluation and communication of media texts in various forms and genres, the analysis of complex processes of media functioning. In line with this interpretation of the media competence, the students were asked to answer 5 units of questions and do the assignments. 90 students (average age of students: 20–21 years old) participated in the experiment: 45 students (14 male and 31 female) of the control group, who did not attend the media education course, and 45 students (14 male and 31 female) of the experimental group, who attended media educational classes. Our research showed that at the beginning of an academic year there was no significant difference in the levels of media competence development between the students of the control and experimental groups. The ratio of young men and women in the control and experimental groups, in our opinion, is typical for Russian pedagogical universities, where for many decades male students have consistently been a minority (from 10 % to 30 % of a class). The classification of the media competence's development indicators developed by us turned out to be an effective tool for comparative analysis between the control and experimental groups. This analysis has proved the effectiveness of the model developed by us and the methodology for fostering students' media literacy (the level of media competence of the students who took and passed a one-year course in media education was four times higher than the level of similar indicators in the control group).

46-58

Authors: Reynaldo Gacho Segumpan, Joanna Soraya Abu Zahari

Interpretive discussions on asynchronous online interactions in an Omani academic setting seem to be muted in the literature. The purpose of this phenomenological research was to understand the meanings constructed by Omani International Business Administration (IBA) students enrolled in Electronic Commerce (MANG2402) class as regards their confabulations using Facebook as a platform of interaction. We examined the written reflective narratives of 25 IBA students describing their lived experiences of asynchronous online marketing exercise during Spring 2015 Semester at the College of Applied Sciences – Rustaq, Sultanate of Oman. Our analyses of data surfaced the following main themes: (a) Facebook Engagement as a Space for Information Dissemination; (b) Facebook Engagement as a Node for Building Relationships; (c) Facebook Engagement as a Boost for Business Engagement; (d) Facebook Engagement as a Concave of Knowledge and Skills which consisted of the following sub-themes: Acquiring Subject-specific Knowledge, Gaining General Knowledge, and Developing Communication Skills; and, (e) Facebook Engagement as an Avenue for Wholesome Entertainment

75-107

Authors: Alexander Fedorov

Film criticism was prestigious job in the USSR. At that time there was no Internet and critic can be published only on paper. And this was due to: 1) a professional status of the author (in this case it had to be, as a rule, a graduate film critic, art historian, journalist, or have higher education in the humanitarian field); 2) with a rigid selection and censorship of texts and themes. The author analyzes how western cinema was reflected in the mirror of the Soviet critics (for example, thematic books’ collection of Myths and Reality: 1966-1989). This, in particular, problems of ideological struggle, and the political censorship in the socio-cultural context of the 1960s–1980s and on how Soviet critics, specializing in foreign films, to respond to these factors. The author concludes that were characteristic of the official Soviet cinema studies, facing the material foreign movie: 1) sympathetic support "progressive western filmmakers", 2) sharp criticism of "bourgeois tendencies and perversions", 3) criticism of bourgeois society. The eleventh edition of the collection Myths and Reality showed, finally, that the Soviet film studies of the late 1980s was ready for deprived ideological bias in analysis of foreign cinema. This line was continued in the post-Soviet years, no longer in the Myths and Reality, but on the pages of scientific journals Film Criticism Notes and Cinema Art, in the film encyclopedia devoted to the western screen, in numerous monographs, the authors of which have become and authors of Myths and Reality.

116-121

Authors: Galina Mikhaleva

The problem of media culture and media literacy of the younger generation is becoming increasingly urgent nowadays in view of the growing and ambiguous effects of present-day digital technologies and their content on a personality and society development. Media educated citizens with a high level of information and media culture are one of the strategic European educational and sociocultural objectives. This is especially relevant for children and youth since a low level of media users’ information and media culture may actualize the risk of younger audiences being manipulated by some destructive forces, whichsometimes leads to asocial behavior among children and teenagers. The research objective is to analyze psychological and pedagogical strategies for maximizing the benefits (developing, educational, instructional, cultural, etc.) of information and communication technologies for children and young people, and strategies for minimizing online risks and potential harm. Hence, the main aim of contemporary media education is a media educated personality with a high level of digitalliteracy and media culture that is indispensable for safe and socially significant self-fulfillment, sociocultural and personal development in ICT mediated cross-cultural communication.

128-145

Authors: Milena I. Tsvetkova

A reason for this research is the 70th anniversary from the death of the first theorist of the reading Nicolas A. Roubakine (23th of November 1946), with which expires the period of protection of the copyright on his works and their transition into the public domain. The real aim of the analysis is identification of the actual problems in the field of the mass communication and reading, which can be solved with the method of the bibliopsychology, created by Roubakine at the beginning of ХХth century. The methods answers to the requirements of theoretical study with application of the methods deduction and extrapolation in the system „problem – decision“, accompanied by a secondary research conducted through selective monographic method, document method, scientific critics of sociological researches, secondary data analysis and overview of scientific publications, available in the libraries worldwide. They are lead fifteen sharply conflict zones in the sphere of the reading, those regulation and management requires bibliopsychological approach. During the process of the study are determined two unpopular contributions of Nicolas Roubakine towards the theory of the communications – he creates the communication formula with “The 5 W“ decades before Harold Lasswell and formulates the method of bibliopsychological archeology a half century before the appearance of the discipline media archeology. The possibilities of the bibliopsychology aren’t still used, although it is a subject of study of other sciences as library science, bibliography, psycholinguistics, linguistics, psychology. The modern attempts for development of this scientific discipline are insufficient. Very often the attention of the researchers is directed towards other sciences because the examined subject is considerably more complex.