How Should Adolescents Critically Use Digital Media?
Andrea Quijada, the speaker in the above video, says in order for adolescents to critically use digital media successfully, it is critical that they possess deconstruction questions in order to identify the underlying messages, meanings, and biases in the media. David Buckingham, on page 48 of his article titled Digital Media Literacies: Rethinking media education in the age of the Internet, lays out the four conceptual aspects of digital media that can be used to help form these deconstruction questions. Buckingham’s four conceptual aspects are Representation, Language, Production, and Audience (Buckingham, 2007, pg. 48). The modern day adolescent should possess the ability to use these four conceptual aspects in order to form their own deconstruction questions when critically analyzing digital media in order to be better informed.
The first conceptual aspect is Representation, which deals with the questions such as “who is being represented in this article?” “Who is not?” Take for example an article found on the Reader’s Digest website titled “14 Cheapest Days of the Week to Do Absolutely Anything”. The author of this article, Juliana LaBianca, lists out fourteen things that are normally expensive, such as getting gas and going to Disney World, and gives the day of the week on which to do these things because it will be cheaper to do. So, who is being represented in this article? This article was obviously written with budget minded people in mind. This is an example of how an adolescent can look at what the article is representing.
The second conceptual aspect is Language. Analyzing the language that an article or ad uses is essential to developing deconstruction questions. Andrea Quijada uses a Payless Shoes ad in her video. The ad contains the language “reading, writing, color coordinating” This language could be interpreted to mean several different things, which Quijada points out. Another example is in Warner’s article “Critical Digital Literacies”. Warner says that on Instagram, the only thing that distinguishes from an ad and from social media is the word “sponsored”. If the adolescent is not paying attention and does not catch this small piece of language, they might not be able to distinguish between what a celebrity, such as Beyoncé, is posting, and an advertiser trying to subtly push a product (Warner, pg. 147).
The third conceptual aspect is Production, which is essentially “who is communicating to whom, and why” (Buckingham, 2007, pg. 48). Take this ad from the National Rifle Association
Say that an adolescent student is given an assignment dealing with the history of gun debates in America. Using the concept of Production, one can see that this article was produced by the National Rifle Association. In the initial deconstruction, the reader can see that the NRA was trying to communicate to parents about their kids’ safety, but the ad fails to say why. After further research, the reader would find that this ad came out during the gun debate six years ago, and used then-President Barack Obama’s children as an example of what they saw as his hypocrisy regarding guns because his children were protected by secret service, and he was skeptical against placing armed guards in schools. After viewing the full ad, the reader can then deduce that the ad was produced for gun owning, conservative parents concerned with the safety of their children (Lothian, Preston, 2013).
The fourth and final concept is audience. Essentially what this means is that the adolescent needs to ask themselves “who is the audience that this media is intended for?” Who the audience is determines the previous three aspects of critically using digital media. So if the audience is a conservative leaning audience, then that piece of digital media will be produced in a way that represents that audience and it will use language that the audience can identify with.
In conclusion, an adolescent reader should critically analyze digital media using Buckingham’s Four Principles: Representation, Language, Production, and Audience. This will allow the reader to become more informed, and more discerning when it comes to analyzing text in a digital medium.
References:
(Course)
Buckingham, David. “Digital Media Literacies: rethinking media education in the age of the internet” Research in Comparative and International Education. Volume 2. November 1, 2007.
Warner, Julie. “Critical Digital Literacies”. Adolescents’ New Literacies with and through Mobile Phones. Peter Lang.
(Outside)
Lothian, Dan. Preston, Mark. “White House Blasts NRA Ad as Repugnant”. CNN. January 16, 2013. www.cnn.com
Quijada, Andrea. “Creating Critical Thinkers Through Media Literacy”. TEDTalks. February 19, 2013. www.youtube.com
