resources

 
You will find excerpts from the mediamanual in English here:
 

 

Dietmar Schipek, Renate Holubek Model for Successful Media Education

Findings from the analysis of the practice of the media literacy award [mla]: Since the 2001/02 school year, the media literacy award [mla] has been awarding prizes to best practice projects from European schools. We have evaluated and archived for research purposes around three thousand media projects that have been sent in since then. Every year the most creative teams are given a media literacy award [mla]. We have constructed a model for successful media education from these years of experience and would like to present it here.

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Magdalena Tschautscher: Participants in the [mla] as opinion leaders in school media education.

Participants in the [mla] as opinion leaders in school media education. Results of the study “Media literacy in school media projects”
 
In the theoretical part of the study on the importance of the media literacy award [mla] various approaches and phases of development of media literacy are thematized. This examination forms the basis for the empirical part for which a quantitive online survey was made with teachers that had taken part in a media competition of the Federal Ministry of Education, Art, and Culture. Data was collected on theoretical knowledge about media literacy, the self-assessment of one’s own media literacy, the importance of the competition in the process of dealing with the subject, and the personal opinion about media competitions of this nature. The study showed that, in the main, teachers who took part in the [mla] knew a great deal about media literacy and that they also used this knowledge in practice.

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Renate Holubek, Dietmar Schipek: Medienbildung – Media Literacy

Personality development and individual abilities to cope with life are closely connected with media and their communication domains. Digital media infl uence young peoples’ everyday life in many diff erent ways. This raises the question as to which skills young people have to acquire in order to be able to orient themselves in our democratic society.

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Renate Holubek - A critical analysis of media education practices in Austria

Since 1996 the project work done within the framework of the Media Education Department has been collected, archived and evaluated (media literacy award). What can be clearly seen from these project works are the transformations that have taken place in the school culture, the learning culture as well as the general diagnostic changes in our society. It is less the aspects of contents and themes that have been affected - we will return to that in a moment - rather what can be observed is that there is a less formal way of dealing with everyday cultural phenomena that are apparently also an important part of a learning culture in transition. At the other end of the spectrum, from the presentations to the public as 'best practices' at different events and media festivals, it seems that an almost virtuoso level of dealing with media technology, media aesthetics, culture and politics has emerged over the years.

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Dieter Baacke: From Reading Aloud to the Web

From Reading Aloud to the Web
The media worlds of young children.

The generation of young children (between 0 and 5 years old) grow up in media worlds that do not only differ from those of previous generations but also transport quite different learning and experiential conditions from the children’s room into the class room. The children of today live with books to be read aloud and computers on an equal basis; here there is no competition but rather a relationship of complementarity. When they are encouraged appropriately children grow up in comprehensive “media worlds” in which neither reading aloud nor the children’s programme nor even communication via internet can be excluded. Through self-socialisation and the family young children today learn important elements of their communicative and interactive being-in-the-world. The task of the school will be to process these new experiences psychologically but also didactically.

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Barrie McMahon: Combat, Castles and Culture: An Alien’s View of Austria

Combat, Castles and Culture: An Alien’s View of Austria. (No. 14, December 1995)

In 1973 the Australian family McMahon tours Europe. Austria was one of the stops. Even before he arrived Barrie knew what awaited him in Austria – he had already put himself in the picture—through the media—before he left home ...
Starting from the impressions gained on this trip, the author, manager of the Cross Curriculum Branch of the Education Department of Western Australia, analyses the roll of media in the construction of reality and creation of meaning.

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Rebecca Taub: Snapshots from Spain: Spanish impressions about Austria

Snapshots from Spain: Spanish impressions about Austria (Heft Nr. 55, März 2006)

"It is my understanding that Austrian media contribute to the formation of a somewhat erroneous or simply one-sided self-image of Austria and its role within the European Union. Spanish impressions and views about Austria challenge Austria’s self-concept by showing how Spanish citizens view this country and its role in the EU."

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Ulrika Sjöberg: Mediated childhoods in multicultural families

Mediated childhoods in multicultural families (Heft Nr. 61, September 2007)

The term mediated childhood emphasizes the role of media and their importance for young people in everyday life and the need to understand today’s childhood if we want to gain more knowledge about the role of media among young people. But we must also take into account the media in order to understand childhood. This working paper has aimed at understanding how families stranded between the Greek and Swedish cultures make use of various media in daily life. Several issues of relevance have been touched upon when trying to grasp the media practices among these families and the main research findings are summarized below.

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Yasemin İnceoğlu: Introduction of Media Literacy Course in Turkey’s Curriculumz

Introduction of Media Literacy Course in Turkey’s Curriculum (Heft Nr. 61, September 2007)

Turkey, a country which has not yet completed its process of democratisation, is still far away from being a media literate society with the slow advances taken for the development of its infrastructure, debates on human rights and fundamental freedoms.

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Karmen Erjavec und Zala Volcic: Ten years of Media Education course in ...

Ten years of Media Education course in Slovenia (Heft Nr. 61, September 2007)

"From 1996 on, the Media Education course is officially and formally a part of an educational curriculum – from kindergarten to university levels. The course in-volves an examination of the techniques, technologies and institutions that are a part of media production and consumption, and furthermore, provides the ability to critically analyze media messages, and the recognition of the active roles that audiences play in making meaning from media messages."

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Matteo Zacchetti: Media Literacy: A European approach

AMedia Literacy: A European approach (Heft Nr. 61, September 2007)

„Our main objective will be to highlight and promote good practices in media literacy at European level. Our policy will build on the results of the work of the Media Literacy Expert Group."
Matteo Zacchetti, European Commission DG Information Society and Media.

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Veroniki Korakidou: A Snapshot from Greece

A Snapshot from Greece (Heft Nr. 55, März 2006)

The writer reflects upon images and sounds in her head ("carols, yodel, and cows, mooing peacefully in vast meadows"), when thinking of Austria. A Google search and some attempts to visualize the images help her to sort out the various impressions.

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EDUCATING FOR THE MEDIA AND THE DIGITAL AGE

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, Vienna, 18-20 April 1999

Media Education - Why? attempts to offer rationales for the absolute necessity of integrating media education in formal education. Media Education - How? shows the multicoloured variety of good practices in the participating countries. Media Education - Strategies for the Future? tries to open up new perspectives for the century to come.
The present documentation is part of a conference package on intensifying media education. “Educating for the Media and the Digital Age” was organised and co-ordinated by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs, UNESCO, Paris, and the Austrian National Commission for UNESCO in April 1999.

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Media Education without Frontiers

The following documents (1999-2005) highlight the efforts of experts to agree on a common definition and objectives of media education. Recommendation (UNESCO Conference, Vienna 1999) makes an attempt to create an overall construction which includes all media from the written word to the new technologies. The Sevilla group (2002) confirmed the recommendation with some modifications: the most essential being that not only the written, but also the oral word is a medium subject to critical analysis.
The European Charter for Media Literacy is the most recent initiative to create permanent cooperation and exchange of opinions.

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Edgar J. Forster: Does Media Violence Make Daily Violence Invisible?

Reformulations of the Perennial Topic of “Television and Violence”

The contradictory results of media impact research give rise to justified doubts about media violence invariably producing violent behaviour. Television is more complicated: the conveyed messages are equivocal. TV is part of identity formation. What we see has very much to do with our experiences in daily life. Also, violence is a complex phenomenon working at different levels. Not every kind of violence is visible and it may well be that forms of hidden violence are more dangerous than the violent images actually shown.

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Alexander Fedorov: Austrian Issue in the Mirror of Russian Media (1945 – 1955)

(Heft Nr. 50, Dezember 2004 – Schwerpunktthema: “2005 – ein Jahr der Jubiläen”)

“Austria occupied a very modest place in Soviet media. For example, I counted that from 1946 to 1956 the USSR produced about a dozen openly anti-American films. There were even more anti-Nazi films about the horrible period of 1941-45. Meanwhile the Austrian issue was represented only in a few official documentaries, mainly dry information about the diplomatic and state negotiations.“ – Media reports of these negotiations form the emphasis of this contribution. The author is president of the Russian Society for Media Education.

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Christina Niculescu, Yonit Nemtzeanu: Star Trek Voyager - PC or non PC? - an odyssey through ...

(Star Trek Voyager - PC or non PC? - an odyssey through the universe of political correctness or a return to the land of racial prejudice? (Heft Nr. 20, Juni 97)

Since Voyager has been praised as the most politically correct series ever produced, we have been tempted to question this statement. Not surprisingly we have found that this reputation for political correctness was achieved by exclusively attributing all non-politically correct ideology to alien races. In this article we have analysed the way this is being achieved in the case of one particular alien race. We have also discussed the implications of racist ideology in such a widely spread and highly praised series.

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Renate Holubek: The media literacy award [mla] 2004

The mla is aimed at thematizing media competence as a political, social, cultural and personal qualification; in other words the socially, critically and culturally sensible use of media in the everyday context of life planning.

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Wolfgang Richter: Neither smoothed down nor polished up

Experiences with media production in class

In our school (the private grammar school of the Herz Jesu Missionaries in Salzburg, Austria) in the 4th year of the AHS, one of the main emphases of the year’s programme is the production of video films. Prepared by an initial experience in the 2nd year with animation films, pupils can build on prior experience. Over the years the way I set about the complex task has continued to develop. Basically it includes analysis of methods of making films, preparation for shooting by generating appropriate concepts, organisation of the teamwork and shooting, editing and sound. I still remember well the first attempts with film as a theme for the first time—that was about 10 years ago. What began with great enthusiasm often ended with fragmentary results. The reasons for that were planning for too lavish a content (set and decoration) and the time and effort involved, lack of agreement in the group, technical problems and finally too little time for “cutting”. Nevertheless some of the result are worth seeing. Learning from the mistakes, the definition of the initial assignment was the aim of making a short film. Not only did the success quota of finished films rise with this limitation imposed, but there were first-time competition entries and the first awards. One problem that always has to be solved anew is the fact that one teacher (who, in practice, has no great experience) is alone unable to supervise the many and various challenges. This is why I began to look for forms of organisation that offered some respite. The first step was working together with the Media Department of the Federal Ministry.

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Stefan Weber: MEDIA AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY

What does “media construct reality” mean?
From an ontological to an empirical understanding of construction. It has very quickly become textbook wisdom: “media construct reality.” But what does that mean? Did they always do that? Or are they doing it more and more? Or even both of those? Which level are we talking about? Does reality construction mean a factual statement within a theory of knowledge? Or a conscious strategy? Is it simply that we (journalists as well as percipients) cannot not construct or can one decide for or against the construction of reality?

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Brigitte Hipfl: From a Text to a Method of Reading it

From a Text to a Method of Reading it. Analysis of media experiences with memory work. Issue No. 19, March 1997
On the basis of scenarios from school practice (lessons in literature) the author opens with showing the consequences of dealing with literary and other forms of text (such as film) in which the way of reading used by experts is the only right one. Afterwards she argues for starting from the reception experiences of the individual. With “memory work” she presents a methodological approach that make this possible. The conclusion is formed by a detailed presentation of film reception experiences (Pretty Woman)

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