Teaching Critical Thinking about Media Technologies

Abstract

During the past few years, I have taught critical thinking about media technologies to first-year undergraduates—people notoriously dependent (perhaps stereotypically so) on their smartphones, MP3 players, and social media accounts. Although the course does not fit neatly into traditional academic departments, an initiative at the University of Georgia to boost the quality of the first-year student experience by creating small one-credit seminars gave me the room to teach it. My university is a large selective school. Students choose the required one-credit seminar based on interest, and come to the course with a wide range of degree plans and interests. My course about media technologies takes a theoretical and historical view. Meetings in the first few weeks take up the theoretical component. In it, students explore common definitions and ways of thinking about media technologies. For the remainder of the semester, students conduct historical research using primary sources (largely newspapers and magazines) to investigate periods when media technologies were being introduced, initially publicized, and talked about. Searchable databases of digital facsimiles of historical newspapers and magazines facilitate this research. I learned the hard way the first time I taught the class how difficult it is for students to see the relevance of earlier times to their own, so I now address students’ habitual views of media technology much more explicitly in the first few weeks. Doing so disinters deeply buried truisms so that students recognize and consider them. The goal of the class ultimately is not to enforce a view but to enable students to make critical thinking a common part not only of this class, but also in all realms of their lives.