(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
Kathleen Tyner (1998) argues that the “analysis-production formula creates a spiral of success:
analysis informs production, which in turn informs analysis” (p. 200). Through the process of
deconstructing and reconstructing multimedia texts, students learn valuable lessons about the
codes, conventions, and language of other people’s – and their own – media products (Tyner,
1998). Douglas Kellner and Jeff Share (2007) believe that technology can be used as tools of
empowerment by marginalized or misrepresented populations to tell their stories or express their
concerns, but that technical skills taught without critical analysis will fail in the potential to
creatively challenge dominant narratives. Buckingham (2003) also writes that the “participatory
potential” of new technologies enables students to communicate their voices, contributing to the
“basis for more democratic and inclusive forms of media production in the future” (p. 14).
Above all, enhancing young people’s existing capabilities in analysis and production prepares
them to make informed decisions as consumers and citizens, equipping them with the survival
skills required to navigate the intensely globalized, fast-paced, mediated societies that are
emerging around the world.
The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics as a Global Media Event
In the constant flow of media texts through highly interconnected societies, certain international
affairs have widespread, long-lasting impact. As Roel Puijk (2009) explains,
“Within a short time span [these affairs] generate huge media publicity and capture their audiences in a way
that they feel they are witnessing something of importance unfold. Not only royal ceremonies, but also
issues related to sports, politics, or catastrophes can engage the media and their audiences in a way that
they are remembered decades later” (p. 1).
These global media events seem to serve as “apparent moments of media-induced global
solidarity,” as articulated by Maria Kryiakidou (2008, p. 274). Media education is crucial for
helping young people make sense of, and critically respond to, these types of powerful messages
and spectacles. Media education is especially pertinent when students encounter direct
representations of their own communities as part of these international affairs. Typically,
students have little to no control over the creation and circulation of these images – by news
agencies, entertainment outlets, and advertising companies. Thus, to not only question and
evaluate these images, but to also become their own image-makers, serves to unravel their
subjugated positions in school, in society, and in global media events. Examining the
significance media education in these cases, Tyner (1998) writes that production
“gives voice to students who are otherwise silenced in their schools and communities. It allows students to
represent their experiences and their communities as cultural insiders, instead of the incessant
representation and misrepresentation of them by media producers outside their communities. It allows them
to see the ethical dilemmas presented by representation and media from a much broader perspective than
simple watching, criticism, and evaluation can provide” (p. 185).
As media education should strive to make curriculum relevant to the lives and experiences of
learners, global media events provide a particularly worth entry point to examining one’s own
experience as a ‘cultural insider’.
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