...... a ROUGH sum for kit for each school to buy so they can make (a) films. If we assume they have nothing (which shouldn't be the case in this day and age) and they go down the PC route, what would be a rough sum I should suggest, bearing in mind that it has to be higher than normal production values as it will be used for advocacy purposes and public screenings - ie the product matters this time, not just the process...

That means:
camera – good-ish quality within reason but I guess external mike input is essential? Maybe we should allow for a flip or two also for kids to take away as ‘notebooks’
mike/s – much better than usual!
PC – adequate processor etc
harddrive – for standalone operation/storage
software

Anything else? BALLPARK (really) is all I need

The commercialisation of childhood - can it lead to things like early sexualisation and obesity, or is it just one of sooo many factors that lead to this
The "emotional" marketing, the targeting of young children means that although a child often has a well informed, well intentioned foreknowledge to reject what is being marketed at them; the "emotional" marketing is so well set up it proves too much to resist.  Although of course, I, as an adult am very prone to this too.

I learned the term pester-power ie where children hassle parents to buy something (cool term)

One member of the audience asserts (because of personal experience) that lots of young people are in depression as a result of too much time with games (David Buckingham cleanly rejects the use of the term games-addiction) however I thought the resulting conversation: that this is more to do with a young persons options being so limited in the outside world, (through restrictions places on them and lack of perceived opportunities) that they revert to, or find solace in, the excitement of a virtual world.  (also a freedom to be-yourself) was interesting

also
we are still interested in other films & moving images you may:
1.
already use with young people in the classroom
2.
would like to show to young people in the classroom, but can't because they are only on youtube
3.
just like and think might work for young audiences

thanx

Peter Bazalgette: If Young people don't vote, older people think that they are wrong. On the other hand, young people think that there is something wrong with the politics.

The British TV debate had a massive effect.  A 10% swing (the largest EVER swing was 4%!!)  This was NOT an internet election.  The personality is important and why not?

Debatemate takes top debaters in the country and puts them in inner city schools.  For many, this is the first immersion in politics.

The media coverage of politics has to accept that it is about personality.  On-line campaigns must not lecture they must be participatory and interactive.

Lisbet van Zoonen: 3 claims on the basis of research:
1. young people are not interested in politics
2. the internet will not help with this
3. new media will not make people engage in politics

The internet is mainly used for entertainment and communication.

Civic awareness converts to consumption eg. ethical t-shirts

Politics to them is very personal they do not trust it.

Political literacy is NOT media related

Politics is a P-word for young people

Therefore possible angles in, are consumption and IDENTITY.  The biggest challenge is the lack of TRUST and TRUTH

Jonathon Douglas from the National Literacy Trust:  He disagrees with the above. 

People are more likely to vote if they are more literate.  This explains why we teach literacy.  Do we equip young people to be literate?

We need to redefine what being literate is.  We need to engage in all texts.

Lunatics have always been around but they couldn't meet each other until the internet

The internet is for porn New technologies will subvert good behaviour and it is a new framework for community (esp with reference to recent breakdowns in community).

What motivates people to be involved in politics? A sense of injustice?

Researchers will argue about what their research proves!!

Relative deprivation and can we do something about it? - hence the distrust and leads to
dysfunctionality.

Motivation is related to aspiration.

Henry refers to the HP Alliance. This is about PARTICIPATION.  Pop cultures have lacked leaders to connect the gaps.

Aspiration is a great tool for citizenship.

Individual aspiration is staged against communal aspiration because it is relative.

Does participatory culture only really offer more routes for those who are already active?

Carey Bazalgette closing: thanks

The documentary film companies - Empire Marketing Board morphed into GPO morphed into Central Office of Information – all these films were made by Corporate sponsored film making units.  Others were Shell, NCB and

BFI Youtube channel is very useful if you cannot get hold of the DVDs.

Issues: Resources and rights

Project 2: Italian university media network – student citizens radio

Project 3: Media literacy learning progression and comics. Austrian primary schools – she applied the 3C's and 3S's to comics, leading to the pupils producing comics.  In different schools the outcomes were quite different. They used digital photography, drawing, and Comic-life. Some of the best comics were made using pencil because the characters were more abstracted.  Others used existing material.  This project worked with teachers having no media experience and who were technophobic.

    Sound – Onomatopoeia in comics!!

The teacher produced an ARG for a Y6 and then prepared a research paper involving the Y6 group designing a game for a Y5 class. 

The Game begins with an email leading to a website address.

Children created web pages- of housing estate residents, video clips (webcams) – in character, artefacts, costumes, email responses (all in character) diaries, books, letters, potion books, a massive book on monsters, certificates (for players succeeding in the game) - all in a huge narrative.

The children are PLAYING out their narrative.

Lots of pre-work: reading a mystery book as a class, on other texts and genre especially newspaper,, analysing the tools used by the author to hold suspense.

Practicalities:
 5 groups took on a character to create key information, articles, artefacts and videos.
 The groups had to discuss how to share information.
 After the project there was reflection and evaluation:
One pupil noted that the game players were creating the story as much as the designers.  The designers responded to the players ideas and theories as the game played out.

In the research:
1 Social interaction and interchange
2 Creation and shaping of meaning
3 communication of information – how? Using what?

This was an excellent presentation and deserves greater investigation in relation to MIE.

In research there can be “critical incidents – one that opens up a number of issues” one such was a teacher who brought in Resident Evil.  A girl, into films, argued with everyone else.

Establishing baselines:
1. Explore what learners already know about media using unfamiliar texts in a buried time capsule (1950s film posters, tv clips, comics, radio programmes, print advertisements, songs,
2. Explore how learners use familiar texts by producing their own time capsule
looking at cultural values and representation.

Questions with the time capsule
 what is this?
 How do you know?
 Does it remind you of a present object?
 Who is it for?
 Who made it?
 Why is it in the capsule?
 What can you tell about the person who put the time capsule together?

obervations: teachers employed different strategies, sharing pleasure of different cultures,
how does this effect learning?
Younger pupils (S2) employed more depth, close reading

S4 teacher had less engagement with learners culture

an approach using open enquiry was found to be very effective.

Up close and focussed on one concept (eg POV) proved to be much more effective learning.

However, participatory cultures existed many years ago.  The quest is to combine old and new.  To use canonical texts and modern culture.

Digital media involves these skills: negotiation, play, simulation, visualization, creativity, networking, appropriation, re-mix, downloading and more.

What does it mean to read in the 21st C?

Here is a medieval description of authorship:
1 a scribe
2 a compiler
3 a commentator
4 an author

Jenkins then described a project working in Harlem based on Melville's Moby Dick. Ricardo Pitts-Wiley working in prisons used Moby Dick and repositioned it in the Cocaine trade to get PRISONERS to read (who have lots of time).  A bridge between literature and 21st C literacy. -.

Young people read all the time.... but not books.

In modern schools, a classic text is taught classically.  It is not a co-creation.  It is not participatory.  Young people turn off.

Ways to draw in:
 analyse and develop one page, look at all the knowledge in it. Kids have ownership of that section.
 Drama
 Play – a central literacy skill
 Sparks – using the text to refer to other texts
 LOW Tech solutions: string, card and tape.
 Our OWN response to what we read.
 Kernels of knowledge – what is there that interests you and you could develop: silences, potentials, underdeveloped relationships or characters, map relationships and cultures and  races.
 Popular culture: Harry Potter got people into reading and going to films – the Harry Potter Alliance is seeking to change the world through analysis of the story.  They partner existing organisations to achieve philanthropic aims.

For more See Jenkins website: www.Henryjenkins.org

Project 1. Science and the Media - S1 secondary schools in England.
The conclusions drawn were that this had been a very successful project.  Schools approached it in three ways:    a collapsed timetable
    embedded into the timetable
    mixed

It was felt that the embedded approach was more successful and depended on good planning and interdisciplinary approaches.  Both science and English teachers were involved and benefited.  The topics were:
topic 1: radiation and mobile phones,
the pupils then constructed media texts – comiclife, journalistic text – a positive experience

topic 2: Gold in clay lake – expert miner came in to talk. - a positive experience involving less academic pupils
Topic 3– food: chocolate and heart rates & additives in enjoyable food. – over 2 weeks in English and science, pupils produced a podcast and leaflet.

Topic 4 – Hooks law,

Topic 5 - energy content of crisps.

Topic 6– produced videos for shampoo focussing on additives.

Very positive response overall, multi-modal,  pupils felt it was relevant, embedded was favoured by the instigators, the focus moved from PROCESS to PRODUCT.

Teachers are not comfortable with the process or collaborative working.  These need to be addressed for this to work.

Project 2: Music and Literacy - Canada
An interesting presentation concerning a project that had an existential and philosophical leaning.  Music is so important to young people and their identity and this was the lever into self-reflection.  Issues of the media making meaning were introduced.

Project 3.  MOTIVATION AND INTEGRATION through film education – Ireland (Irish Film Institute)
The presenters have been developing a national strategy for film education.  A 2 year action research project
aiming to pull together current practice.

Project 1: European wide project to research how to measure Media Literacy.
This was an extremely comprehensive quantitative research project investigating media literacy across Europe. It can be found at: www.EAVI.eu  The main conclusions are:
1. Northern European countries are ahead in terms of teaching and promoting ML.
2. The data was collected from various organisations and is difficult to interpret (what is ML?)
3. The numerical data can be interpreted subjectively

Project 2: Using MIE to Assess Literacy (in Scotland)
This is an ongoing project and conclusions have yet to be drawn.  The actual tasks need to be developed, such as:
1. Online assessment.
2. Can it only work when an official assessment body (SQA) takes it on?

Project 3: Belgium- Effectiveness in media literacy A quantitative case study.
The presentation of this research was such that I was unable to draw any useful information or conclusions.

Questions from the floor asked:
Why were there no young people at the conference?
How can we protect against games addiction?

PARTICIPATORY CULTURE
Peter Parker and his life.  Peter can lose his job at a newspaper coz you can get all the news you need from your computer at home. Youth and adults work together, Value the shared experience of old and young. If adults are not involved in (or shirk learning about) the digital then they are denying their responsibility to grow with youth. 

THE REMIX

particularly dug his medieval quote about authorship - ie the idea that originality never existed - here none of the four ways of creating a book

    1.    "A man might write the work of others, adding and changing nothing in which case he is simply called a 'scribe' (scriptor)."
    2.    "Another writes the work of others with additions which are not his own; and he is called a 'compiler (compilator)."
    3.    "Another writes both others’ work and his own, but with others’ work in principal place, adding his own for purposes of explanation; and he is called a 'commentator' (commentator) …"
    4.    "Another writes both his own work and others' but with his own work in principal place adding others' for purposes of confirmation; and such a man should be called an 'author' (auctor).’"

moby dick in the 20th century ("pride and prejudice and zombies" the reworking that barbara read (melville is sounding like orlando furiouso)
the ability to take and repurpose

also they took on the wikipedia definition page (even though the school had been vandalising wikipedia) some were challenged

the idea that we are allowed to explore a character beyond what happens to them in thework

they mapped the canteen space where the different people sit….  but because the work perhaps wasn't planned well enough, the idea of a heated debate arising from the use of the school canteen as a mapped out place with territories, and that if it had been better mapped then it would be  (or was that Jenkins)

this was extra interesting to me because Tim Brook had just told me about a project that had happened by chance where a primary class (Henry's group were much older) had used their playground as the starting point for stories and the kids had got really excited about this

LINKS FOR HENRY'S STUFF :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFCLKa0XRlw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEHcGAsnBZE
http://henryjenkins.org/2009/07/how_dum … ransf.html

Inevitably in the research sessions, topics get put together despite there being no very close connection between them. Only in the first presentation, Trial by media: the Case for and Against Media Studies in the UK press, did the content relate to the overall topic of the session. Every August when the exams results are published, we have the same ‘Mickey Mouse’ dysphemism trotted out by The Daily Mail and its ilk, sentiments echoed in the Cambridge University entrance qualifications which lists Media Studies (along with other “soft” subjects such as Art and Design, Design and Technology, Theatre Arts and Business Studies) as among the subjects which  "provide a less effective preparation for [their] courses". Dan Laughey of the School of Cultural Studies of Leeds Metropolitan University outlined the history of the hostile response to Media Studies but reminded us how not only obvious targets like Sociology but also English had to undergo the same treatment before gaining academic acceptability.

He pointed out the inconsistencies among the critics, with some arguing that the subject was excessively theoretical and abstruse while others criticised it for being insufficiently academic. He found, however, that the stigma that characterised Media Studies during its early institutional development has, to a considerable degree, given way to a less value-laden outlook among journalists, politicians and academics of more traditional disciplines and other gate-keepers as the subject has matured. In fact, he observed, an increasing number of these very same gatekeepers are Media Studies graduates themselves or graduates of cognate subjects such as communication studies. He listed a number of prominent critics of media studies as well as its defenders. It may surprise some that among the latter is the Tory London mayor Boris Johnston but it is worth remembering that the arch-Thatcherite Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Forsyth was the one who gave the go-ahead for Media Studies to be treated as a “proper” academic subject in Scotland – his conversion, apparently, coming about at the premiere of Braveheart where he saw the economic potential of the media industries.

Finally, Laughey argued that media educators should engage media studies with the (big (media) issues of the day and seal the theory-practice gap – as well as widening and improving public awareness of the subject, and media literacy more generally.

In their presentation on “Growing up in a digital society – children and young people’s media literacy skills, Fiona Lennox and Alison Preston of Ofcom outlined the results of the latest children’s media literacy audit which examines children and young people’s (5-15s) media use, behaviour and attitudes. There weren’t too many surprises here: young people’s involvement with social networking sites is very high (although not significantly with Twitter); the more creative uses of the internet by young people is not as advanced as we media teachers like to think (mostly adding photographs to their Facebook etc pages); many young people accept that if something is on, say, Wikipedia, it must be true.

This presentation concentrated on the results of the survey whereas Helen Doherty’s presentation, A discourse analysis of media literacy: the Media Literacy Bulletin 2005-2009, focused less on the results of the results of the research than on the methodology itself. Her analysis focused on the first five years of the MLB, a body of text amounting to 15,000 words. Using corpus analysis, she investigated the keywords that are the most important and interpreted what is meant by them in context and over time – in particular media literacy She compared her findings with a similar study of the review Screen which played an important role in the establishment of Film Studies and Media Studies in the UK. Establishing and justifying a methodology is no doubt fundamental to any research project but, although this aspect wasn’t without interest, a conference like this was not perhaps the best place to do so.

Some of the earlier posters felt that the level of presentation skills at some of the research panels was somewhat wanting. I have noticed this tendency – reading out a paper verbatim etc  - at academic conferences. It’s almost as if the presenters feel that a livelier presentation would somehow detract from academic rigour (and in the academy it’s the printed word that leads to tenure)! I’m glad to report that at this session and another one I attended, Putting digital media literacy in context, the presentation skills were more than adequate, especially given the restraints of time that the presenters have to work under.