All resources in Montgomery County Community College OER Award Teams

Reading Ads with a Social Justice Lens

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Children are surrounded – and targeted – by advertisements: on television, the computer, even on their journeys to and from school. Children need specific strategies for reading and talking about advertisements and their impact. Reading Ads with a Social Justice Lens is a series of 13 multidisciplinary mini-lessons that provide such strategies and build critical literacy. The lessons are designed for students in grades K-5 and include suggestions for simple adaptations. These lessons open up important conversations about the relationship between advertisements and social justice. Children will see that they have the power to decide how media will influence them. They will also engage in social justice projects that address some of the unfair messages they find in advertising.

Material Type: Lesson

Industry perspectives in media branding and promotion

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In this presentation from the Institute of Film and Television Studies' Ephemeral Media Workshops Charlie Mawer from Red Bee Media, discusses his company's work on the branding and promotion of television channels; from BBC channels through to new channels like Dave. Presentation produced/delivered: June/July 2009 Suitable for undergraduate study and community education Charlie Mawer, Executive Creative Director, Red Bee Media Charlie Mawer, after a spell of writing comedy, joined a fledgling BBC creative department eventually becoming Executive Creative Director. In 2005 he helped transform the company into Red Bee Media. Since then he has overseen high profile work including the rebranding of BBC1, BBC3, Virgin1 and the network rebranding of UKTV including the IPA gold winning creation of Dave. Red Bee Media works globally with media brands including Disney, Discovery, ESPN, Canal+, and has produced branding for CCTV – China Central Television’s Olympic channel, the host broadcaster for the Beijing Olympics.

Material Type: Lecture

Author: Charlie Mawer

Intro to Mass Media (CMST 102)

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This class is a survey of the mass media, including newspapers, magazines, television, radio, book publishing, music publishing, motion pictures and advertising and how all of those have been affected by the development of the Internet. This course emphasizes the history and structural biases of the mass media, and encourages students to critically analyze the role of media in society, and to become media literate.

Material Type: Assessment, Full Course, Reading, Syllabus

Social Attitudes and Public Opinion

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This course examines the nature of attitudes, beliefs, and values, and the influences which indiviudals' attitudes have upon their behavior. Various theories of attitude organization and attitude change are discussed, and the development of social attitudes is explored by examining the differential impact of the family, the educational system, the mass media, and the general social environment. The changing content of public opinion over time and its relationship to the political system are also discussed.

Material Type: Full Course, Homework/Assignment, Lecture Notes, Syllabus

Authors: Ph.D., Professor Michael Milburn

Economics of the Media

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In the Information Age, media is everywhere. This course will help you make sense of it all, providing insight into the structure of media firms, the nature of their products and how they make money. Is media biased? Is consolidation of media companies bad for consumers? This course will address those questions as well as how the government affects the structure of media through policies such as net neutrality, copyright, TV regulation, and spectrum allocation. This course will provide a general background on the research from economists on media and journalism. There will be a lot of economics and not too much math.

Material Type: Full Course

Authors: Alex Tabarrok, Tyler Cowen

Global Media Perspectives

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This kit provides the materials and background information needed to engage students in a dynamic and constructive process of learning how global media perspectives differ based on country of production, media source, target audience, and political and social context. There are five lessons representing important issues and media documents from: Africa (news and documentary film clips about the food crisis), Latin America (editorial cartoons about immigration), Europe (news and documentary film clips about Islam and cultural identity), India (magazine covers about India's rise in the global economy), and Southeast Asia (websites concerning Islamic majorities and minorities).

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Homework/Assignment, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study

Author: Sox Sperry

Media Constructions of Martin Luther King, Jr.

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This kit explores the ways in which King and his legacy have been portrayed in various media forms. The first lesson follows a chronology of King's life through interactive decoding of rich media documents (comic books, billboards, songs, music videos, etc.). The following lessons use excerpts of Dr. King's speeches from 1963, 1967 and 1968 to examine his views on social change; explore the portrayal of King in magazine covers, advertisements, Web sites, film clips and monuments; and use letters to the editor about celebrating King to explore challenges to change.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Homework/Assignment, Lesson Plan, Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study

Authors: Andrea Volckmar, Barry Derfel, Chris, Christopher Carey, Cyndy Scheibe, Eric Acree, Faith Rogow, Kim Fontana, Lauren Trichon, Moira Lang, Robin Rosoff, Sox Sperry, Sperry, Tanya Saunders

Media Constructions of Sustainability: Food, Water & Agriculture

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This kit explores how sustainability has been presented in the media with a particular focus on issues related to food, water and agriculture. Each of the 19 lessons integrates media literacy and critical thinking into lessons about different aspect of sustainability. Constant themes throughout the kit include social justice, climate change, energy, economics and unintended consequences.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment, Diagram/Illustration, Homework/Assignment, Lesson Plan, Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study

Author: Sox Sperry

Media Construction of War

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This kit analyzes Newsweek coverage of the Vietnam War, Gulf War and the War in Afghanistan. Students will learn core information about the wars in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Afghanistan, how media influences public opinion of current events, and how to ask key media literacy questions and identify bias in the news.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment, Diagram/Illustration, Homework/Assignment, Lesson Plan, Reading, Unit of Study

Author: Chris Sperry

Media Construction of Global Warming

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Lessons teach core knowledge about the science of climate change, explore conflicting views, and integrate critical thinking skills. Students will apply knowledge of climate change to a rigorous analysis of media messages through asking and answering questions about accuracy, currency, credibility, sourcing, and bias. Lessons address basic climate science, the causes of climate change, scientific debate and disinformation, the consequences of global warming, the precautionary principle, carbon footprints, moral choices, and the history of global warming in media, science, and politics.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Homework/Assignment, Lesson Plan, Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study

Authors: Alexander Papouchis, Chris Sperry, Dan Flerlage

Media Construction of Endangered Species

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This kit covers a historical overview of American representations of endangered species from the slaughter of the American buffalo to Palm plantations in Sumatra. It compares conflicting constructions about human/animal relations, rainforest biodiversity, the Northern Rockies gray wolf, frogs and Atrazine. Students decode how the relationship of animals and humans has been portrayed and passed on from generation to generation.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Diagram/Illustration, Homework/Assignment, Lesson Plan, Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy, Unit of Study

Author: Sox Sperry

Women and Media

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In this lesson, students examine the role of women in the media; critique and discuss different portrayals of women in popular culture and focus on how these reflect larger societal and cultural values.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

How Social Media Can Make History

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While news from Iran streams to the world, Clay Shirky shows how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics. A quiz, thought provoking question, and links for further study are provided to create a lesson around the 20-minute video. Educators may use the platform to easily "Flip" or create their own lesson for use with their students of any age or level.

Material Type: Lecture

Author: Clay Shirky

Reporting America at War

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These learning materials are designed to engage students in hands-on activities that stimulate them, and, most importantly, encourage critical thinking in the classroom. These educational activities in this section will provide high school social studies, media education and language arts teachers, as well as college journalism and communication educators with extensive lesson plans, resource materials, and discussion questions to introduce students to the world of war correspondence. Reporting America at War offers students invaluable insights as it allows them to experience the life of a war reporter through the lens and the experiences of such noted journalists such as Christiane Amanpour, Walter Cronkite, David Halberstam, Chris Hedges and Morley Safer. The video explores press censorship, message control, the power of pictures, finding the right words, and works by Ernie Pyle and Edward R. Murrow.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Media and journalism: Covering World News

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TED Studies, created in collaboration with Wiley, are curated video collections – supplemented by rich educational materials – for students, educators and self-guided learners. In Covering World News, media executives, journalists and authors explore how our ability to understand and participate in a global society is helped or hindered by Western media coverage of world events. As technology and a tough economy change the way mainstream media companies do business, will international news be an albatross or an asset?

Material Type: Lecture, Reading, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Authors: Jairo Luco-Ocando, John Steel, Martin Conboy, Scott Eldridge