It’s Time to Get Educated About Both the Media and the Message

When he dreamed up the two-way wrist television, Chester Gould, creator of the cartoon character Dick Tracy, knew media technologies would become increasingly important to society.

But could Gould ever have imagined that by the summer of 1990, the media--arguably the most powerful force in the developed world--would have nothing better to do than mindlessly hype his cartoon character?

In a refreshing break with the current media lock step, the July-August Utne Reader ignores Warren Beatty and Madonna entirely, devoting its cover and a package of articles to the budding media literacy movement.

The discussion focuses on television, but will leave readers thinking about all media and wondering: If the public’s media sophistication had kept pace with the technology, would folks be so quick to embrace the latest merchandising hoopla? Would they be so willing to elect leaders based on 20-second sound-bites and 30-second commercials?

Utne’s lead item, reprinted from Independent Film and Video Monthly, makes the case for integrating media literacy into the public education system.

It’s a big task.

“Complete media literacy,” the authors write, “means mastery of the electronic media: knowledge of how films, tapes, and records are produced . . . knowledge of the social, economic and political characteristics of the media as they’re currently organized, including a sense of how they developed; and knowledge of the debates over the media’s effects--psychological, physiological and social--as they’ve been perceived by diverse interests and competing schools of thought.”

Another piece explains how that is being done in Ontario, Canada, where media literacy is a mandatory part of the English curriculum. In the class in question, for instance, a teacher shows his students an episode of “Family Ties,” constantly rewinding to let students examine the underlying messages as produced by camera angles or the political slant of the writers’ thinking.

With the ability to use the media becoming concentrated in fewer and fewer corporate hands, the urgency of the public to understand it increases, Ben Bagdikian argues in an article excerpted from the Nation: “The basis of all liberty--freedom of information--is . . . in danger of being polluted, not by chemicals but by a new mutation of that familiar scourge of the free spirit, centrally controlled information.”

Moreover, the power to impart information is growing dramatically as the technology itself becomes more sophisticated; watching television, one writer in the package contends, “is about to become ‘an engineering of pleasure.’ ”

Whether it’s the media or the message that people need to learn about--or both--the notion that people should be better educated about the technology that increasingly is our most important educator makes sense. As the main article in the package argues: “Without a massive effort to bring about media literacy, our ability to practice democracy will remain critically impaired.”

REQUIRED READING

* The savings and loan bailout will cost taxpayers, “who had nothing to do with the S&L; crimes, and did not benefit from them,” at least $3,200 each. The National Cancer Institute developed the anti-AIDS drug AZT, then turned it over to a pharmaceutical corporation, thereby forcing taxpayers to pay twice for the drug. General Motors has spent more than $1.8 million fighting clean air legislation since 1981. Does that litany of complaints have a familiar ring? It should. It’s consumer advocate Ralph Nader, at it again. And he will be at it every month now in Mother Jones, starting with his first essay in the July-August issue.

* Piecemeal preservation of wildlife habitat is not enough. Species of flora and fauna, even various minerals, interact in a healthy ecosystem. The May-June Defenders magazine, published by the Defenders of Wildlife, makes a good case for changing public policy to recognize that. Because, for instance, California’s wilderness areas tend to be in the mountains, “The future looks bright for high altitude lichens. Meanwhile, less than 1% of California’s riparian or stream-side habitat types--the communities with the greatest species richness--are protected.

* Modern Maturity, published by the American Assn. of Retired Persons, has a regular feature called “Minicourse.” This issue, the feature looks at the debate over wilderness preservation. The conclusion: “The old duality of Nature and Civilization is, in some sense, no longer a duality; the two have become an environmental version of the Odd Couple--their fortunes curiously but inextricably linked from now on.”

NEW ON NEWSSTANDS

* Unique, a magazine about popular culture, “without the damning, the criticism, the holier-than-thou attitude that one finds in other magazines,” has arrived--with comedian Dana Carvey’s “church lady” on the cover and a profile of radical environmental crusader Paul Watson, a rock ‘n’ roll photo essay and plenty of reviews inside. Despite its obviously limited budget, the magazine is promising; that a third of its editorial content is fiction almost gives this adventurous effort legitimate claim to its title.