Food ad

In an attempt to get past the popular ads from the last few Super Bowls, I did some real digging. The result is this gem from Australia or New Zealand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDPnZBezwjw

Especially relevant for those of us who took rhetoric last year.

Ads in High School

I have very little recollection of advertising in any school before high school. The only exception would be the book fair, which Betsy covered already (I agree that it is a "pester power" machine).

In high school, I recall the band selling candy (leave it to the band to corrupt our community ;) ), which Lindsey admitted to doing herself. Other than that, the only thing I can think of is the Coke and Powerade (which is owned by Coke) machines. The interesting part is that they were not available during the school day. They were located in a breezeway between the main gym and the little "back gym," where the training room was also located. However, this breezeway would remained locked through the school day, leaving only one access point between the gyms. After the official school day was over, the breezeway would be unlocked. Therefore, the only people using it were athletes, some of the after school clubs, and faculty members. I don't know what the official line is, but I think the lack of access during the school day makes a major difference. I don't think that, correct or not, anyone would dispute that after school and during school activities fall under different philosophies.

I may be wrong, but after I graduated I think they went to having the machines be accessible all day. They were not making enough money with the current strategy, so they could either remove them or maximize profits on them. Of course, they went with the latter.

Media Literacy in the Heartland

Virginia, where I went to high school, has been covered (twice). So I went to one of the few other states with which I have any familiarity of the education system at all; Indiana. My aunt is a high school guidance counselor* there, and one of the things I distinctly remember from taking the tour of that school is an entire (although miniature) television production studio. Several cameras, room and materials for sets, and editing equipment IN A HIGH SCHOOL. This, of course, blew my mind. There is nothing even approaching this in the high schools in Tidewater, so I spent the day whining about how I missed out on a cool opportunity.

So, I got a taste of media literacy in Indiana through personal experience. But what else is there? In order to start looking, I went to the Indiana Department of Education and found a section labeled "Search." This seemed like a good idea, but searching "media literacy" received no hits and searching "media" received over 300, including a weird one about kindergartners using scissors.
http://dc.doe.in.gov/Standards/AcademicStandards/StandardSearch.aspx

I instead began pouring over the pdf version of the standards for high school and ran across a whole section about "Mass Media and Media Literacy Standards" (why this didn't come up in the search is beyond me; probably a conspiracy against helicopter parents or something). I found the description of the section particularly appropriate. It read,

Students study the importance of mass media as pervasive in modern life at the local, national, and global levels. Students recognize the impact of mass media messages through news, entertainment, and persuasion on contemporary society. Students analyze and evaluate the history, governance, and ethical issues of mass media to gain a perspective of how influential mass communication has become. Students prepare for their roles as informed and engaged citizens in a democracy. They use media literacy and communications skills to become writers, speakers, or media producers who address content issues and the impact of mass communication. They become knowledgeable consumers of mass media information.

So they learn how to recognize, analyze, and produce media messages. Sound familiar? So it looks like the Hoosiers** have the right idea. Students look at the history, nature, and ethics of mass media. There are a dozen standards/goals that relate directly to media literacy, stating that "Students use their comprehension skills, knowledge base, and information from various media sources to develop a broad perspective that enables them to analyze and evaluate the meanings of mass communication messages they encounter." They also learn how to research and write about the media, including a study of media convergence.

http://www.doe.in.gov/opd/languagearts/docs/media_standards.pdf

I'd like to post all of the standards on here, because I think they are really well thought out. But, that would be a big waste of this little media space when I stuck the link to the original source in here already. I highly recommend looking at this, as it is very interesting and laid out in such a way that you can read it in 10 minutes.

What I don't know at this point is whether these standards are all reflected in the tests and curriculum. I will have to ask someone with personal experience to get these questions answered. I also didn't look at the standards for the other grade levels, but due to the attention put into these, I imagine that they are also impressive and ambitious.


*I wanted to interview her and get some thoughts on this, because she probably has some great insights. I have not been able to do that yet, but as soon as I do I will update the post.

**The cool stuff that the school has is a big deal, but everything that you've heard about Indiana high school basketball is true (and thus, a bigger deal). The "basketball hero around here is treated like a god" line from Hoosiers; pretty much the reality of it.