[WSIS CS-Plenary] Media education kit

[Meigs]

Dear colleagues and members of the list,

I have great pleasure in announcing the recent release of the Media
Education Kit  that I edited for Unesco, with the support of the European
Commission and the Council of Europe. It is in French and English and it ca=
n
be downloaded at=20
http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=3D23714&URL_DO=3DDO_PRINTPAGE&URL_=
S
ECTION=3D201.html

Your feedback would be most welcome for testing and upgrading
Best

Divina Frau-Meigs


=A9=F8Media Education: A Kit for Teachers, Students, Parents and Professionals=A9=
=F7
has been published in English and French by UNESCO. The kit is partly a
product of the MENTOR project initiated by UNESCO and supported by the
European Commission.
   =20

What should Media education be like? Who should provide it? How should it b=
e
included in a curriculum? Beyond schools, do families have a say in the
matter? Can professionals be involved and how? What strategies can the
public adopt to deal with the benefits and the limitations of media?

These are some of the questions addressed by the kit. It proposes a
prototype of media education curriculum for the basic qualification of
secondary school teachers, but it also extends its modular approach and key
concepts (production, language, representation, public) to adults outside
the school system, be they parent, media professional or decision-maker. In
addition to a teachers=A9=F6 manual and accompanying students=A9=F6 handbook, the k=
it
also contains a manual for parents as well as a handbook on ethical
relations with professionals and one on internet literacy.

To extend the pedagogical process of questioning, a 'Frequently Asked
Questions' section has been added as well as a glossary of media education
terms. The responses provided are meant to introduce the debate and promote
dialogue rather than being considered definitive answers. They are not
recipes but suggestions for further explorations, both on- and off-line,
with many references to documents, materials and websites offered in the
final reference section.

Whatever the mode of entry and the viewpoint adopted, the kit takes into
account the necessary skills needed to decipher the various types of
messages as well as the various stakes relating to citizenship and
sustainability, beyond school and family. What matters most is establishing
connections between the different actors involved in the process of
socializing children and young people. In a development perspective, solid
and durable foundations for a large and systematic media education are
fundamental to the current needs of shared knowledge societies and cultural
diversity.