Culturally Relevant Media Studies: A Review of Approaches and Pedagogies

Promoting media education in the secondary schools enables educators to meet the new media literacy standards now present in all 50 states, as well as empower students with the skills to analyze and criticize any media text, whether print or visual or a combination. As part of a larger study on how educators teach about the media, this paper provides a review of the current approaches to media education, including the protectionist, aesthetic, and critical approaches as well as the traditional and progressive teaching strategies and pedagogies often used.