What are the goals of media education?

Reviewing the theoretical basis of media education is critical to clearly understand the objectives
of media education. In the meantime, discussions have been going on for quite a long time on the
need for media education and how to play a role. Among them, the purpose and practice of media
education differ depending on the perspective of the nature of the media. The problem of how to
grasp the existence of media can serve as a yardstick for distinguishing the theoretical paradigm of
media education.

The media education theory influenced the formation of educational principles and objectives,
with varying degrees of support depending on historical times. Depending on the characteristics of
the times, certain theories have changed to obtain great interest and consent, which has changed
the characteristics of media education. On the one hand, however, these theories have co-exist in
an era, resulting in the diversity and confusion of media education at the same time. Today, the
theoretical discussion of media education is more diverse and rich than ever before, and the
specific practice of education is also taking various forms according to social and historical
characteristics.

Protectionism paradigm

This paradigm is the dominant view of early media education. It has a long history based on the
deep distrust of the media that most educators have. "Why train the media?” Lee answered the
basic questions from a protectionist perspective in general.

"Mass media is a kind of disease and we should protect children from it. The media is polluting the
whole culture. Culture is polluted by the commercial motives and manipulations of the media, the
exploitation of prisoners, the degradation of language, and the provision of low taste and
satisfaction. Media education is a defense mechanism for him. In other words, media education
contrasts the manipulative nature of the media with the education against the media with true
cultural values that transcend time. It is to introduce a methodology for giving preventive
injections to education so that students can fight the media more effectively" (Masterman, 1998,
p. vii).

The paradigm, also called the theory of inoculation, began with educators and literary critics
interested in the need to protect young people from the harmful and powerful influence of the
media. In Britain, this kind of media education began with the tradition of classical literary criticism
and is based on the premise that modern technology societies cause alienation (Halloran & Jones,
1992). This view was most strongly advocated by Levis and Thompson (Levis & Thompson, 1933).
They argued that students should be educated to resist and discern the low emotional satisfaction
provided by the media and that schools should play this role. He also stressed the need to protect
students' cultural tastes and standards by keeping them away from the guidance of teachers in
school classes, giving many examples drawn from newspapers, magazines, and advertisements of
the time.
The paradigm has been criticized for its limited view of the media, but many teachers and parents
still stick to this view. It is easy to see that even in the most modern media curriculum the
remnants of extremely early inoculation theory remain the same. For example, advertising
research, which controls inmates, injects materialistic values and negatively affects language, was
mainly discussed in media education, and the obvious plot of popular literary forms, such as cheap
novels, women's magazines and cartoons, stereotyped characters, and cliché language were
carefully reviewed in terms of the creativity and novelty of literary works.

The very fact that protectionist media education requires teachers to keep an eye on teachers is
an obstacle to inclusion in school education. In order for education to take place, teachers must
refer to media content that they find harmful, such as sex and violence, in the classroom, where
the majority of teachers express disapproval (Tyner, 1998).

However, it is difficult to devalue this view as simple and biased. Even now, many media education
programs emphasize critical views and acceptance of the media. Although criticized for being
elitist and authoritarian, many countries still adopt media education curricula that reflect this
view.

Popular arts paradigm

It was the popular art paradigm that emerged as an alternative to the problems of the
protectionist paradigm (Hall & Whannel, 1964). It was advocated by young teachers who were
strongly influenced by popular culture, especially the film media, in the 1960s.

The answer to the popular art paradigm of "Why educate the media?" was not to counter the
media, but to properly identify the media. In other words, it educates the ability to distinguish
between good and bad films, sincere programs and false programs, high-quality popular cultural
works and commercial and low-quality works. At the root of this view lies the idea that pop culture
can produce as good as high-quality culture.

The view of media as mass art has certainly made progress over protectionist media education.
But it has not completely abandoned its previous negative attitude toward the media. Thus, this
paradigm's media education maintained its function as a guardian and was basically defensive in
nature, as students who viewed the media perceived that the inner neck and taste of the students
still needed to be improved.

The paradigm gained considerable attention as it emerged as a new agenda item for media
education in the 1960s, but has almost disappeared since the mid-1970s. Above all, the lack of
theoretical work has prevented the establishment of standards for evaluating media.

Masterman (Masterman, 1998) outlines three reasons why the popular art paradigm has not been
recognized as an effective media teaching method. First, then media education still prevailed in
the protectionist paradigm. Second, the popular art paradigm is basically an evaluation paradigm,
and there is no standard or principle for evaluating media. Teachers failed to provide clear criteria
to show clearly that certain news articles, television programs or pop music were superior or
inferior to others. Third, the question of whether the same criteria for evaluation can be applied
throughout various media contents was raised along with the absence of practical criteria for
evaluating media content. In other words, can we apply the same evaluation criteria to good and
bad news articles, advertisements, and sports programs?

Learning tool paradigm

This view, unlike the previous two traditions, is based on a more practical and positive view of
mass media. This view begins with the assumption that mass media is already organized and holds
an important position in everyday life. It also emphasizes that what the mass media provides can
extend the experience of the general public to provide information.

This view sees mass media as a kind of learning tool, and teachers argue that teaching methods
and supporting materials should be used efficiently according to the content of education in
educating students. They say that the mass media should be used more efficiently, considering the
increasing amount of information it provides and the fact that it relies on mass media for a lot of
information.

While previously emphasized avoiding or disconnecting bad or inappropriate media content by

developing a sense of the media, from this point of view, it is possible to aim for educational
effects by selecting media content through discretion.

This view places importance on the many media experiences students experience, and focuses on
reminding them of the many mass media they encounter in their daily lives and how they can
efficiently use their messages, but that does not mean that mass media is simply a neutral
informant or informant. This is because the basic axis of this view, like the above two, lies in the
cultivation of discernment. In other words, it simply emphasizes how to use the good, away from
the technology to distinguish the good from the bad, not to let the mass media accept it as it is.

This point of view is highlighted in the British Bullock Report published in 1975. The report pointed
out that television programs, especially documentaries and dramas, not only provide a lot of
information but also provide a relatively vivid experience for inmates, and argued that such mass
media needs to be used in class. It also suggested the need to enjoy aesthetic and creative
characteristics inherent in mass media, not unconditionally critical and negative.

To this end, elementary schools were suggested to expand their knowledge by discussing what
they watched on television, while middle and high school courses were to explore what
characteristics they had compared to other literary works, especially the attractiveness of video
works.

In fact, the media education currently in place teaches students how to actively utilize mass media
while developing their sense of mass media. In addition, the NIE Newspapers in Education
movement, which has recently been conducted in each country, can be seen as an active reflection
of this view.
The three media education paradigms examined so far are still adopted by teachers and parents,
and constitute an important part of the media education curriculum. In particular, the first
paradigm is prominent in advertising analysis, and the second paradigm still plays an important
role in film research. However, these two paradigms have overlooked the relative importance of
mass media within society, and have been criticized for the relatively lack of explanations or
emerging problems with respect to television and other mass media, which now hold dominant
positions of dominance.

The third paradigm, on the other hand, is meaningful in that it noted the importance of media as
an informant and the positive aspects of media. However, there is a lack of interest in the
ideological aspects of the media, and the simple view of emphasizing media only as an informant
can be pointed out as a problem.

Since the 1980s, the media education paradigm centered on the cultivation of discernment has
not been as dominant as the 1960s and 1970s, but it still attracts the attention of many educators
as the basic goal of media education. However, rather than just emphasizing the value of the
media or discretion in media education, it is more important to help students understand the
media as a whole. They say that education should be given to understand how the media works
under whose interest, how it is organized, how it produces meaning, and how it expresses reality.
In this connection, important theoretical development and research on the social context of
semiotics and ideology theory, media production and consumption have been developed. It is
noteworthy that the representation paradigm to be discussed in the following provides a different
perspective on the characteristics of the media, new understanding of media producers and
consumers, which have been overlooked or not yet discovered from the previous perspective, in
terms of viewing the media as a representation system and symbol system.

Representation paradigm

In the late 1970s, media educators were interested in linking educational sites with academic
theories. At this time, it was the semiotics and ideology issues from the structural point of view
that drew particular attention. Semiotics first instilled the perception that mass media is not a
window reflecting reality, but a semantic system that should be decrypted from a critical point of
view (Fiske, 1990), which is to stress that the core of media education lies in representation. In the
view of semiotics, it was meaningless in itself to distinguish between culturally valuable and
vulgar. It has changed the paradigm of media education, which has so far centered on the value-
invasive question of what is good and what is bad in newspapers, movies and TV programs. From
this perspective, Shakespeare's "King Lear" and McDonald's "Big Mac" can all be analyzed as a kind
of semantic system.

In the representation paradigm, it was intended to reveal that the ideological power of the media
is closely linked to the naturalness of the image, and emphasized that the problem of this power is
the core of the production, distribution and consumption of media images and representations. It
also noted that in order to fully understand the media, it is necessary to deviate from the text
itself. Beyond traditional literary criticism or simple sender-message-receiver-system
communication model, attention has begun to be paid to another context of mass media:
ownership and control of the media.

If the media is not a reflection of reality but a representation characterized and created by
ideological forces, the question arises: "Who produces it?" and "Who organizes it according to
whose interests?" This highlights the increased concentration of media ownership, the loss of
diversity within the media, and the relevance between the media and various consumer
industries. Because the media is not an independent cultural phenomenon, but rather connected
to a vast network of capitalism. In addition, the relationship between media ownership and media
products is very complex, and the media is subject to a variety of forces, such as inmates and
many other social factors.

In this regard, early media education encountered the question of how to link the concept of
media ownership and control to students' personal experiences or interests. This problem has
been explored through new exploration and study of prisoners. There have also been many
changes in the perspective of inmates. It is beginning to understand the acceptor as an actively
generating decipher, not as a passive and fixed receiver (Hall, 1980).

The tabular paradigm brought about changes in media education in each country throughout the
1980s, which resulted in major changes in the purpose of media education, teaching
methodologies, evaluation methods, and the role of teachers and students in knowledge
acquisition.

The representation paradigm answer to "Why educate the media?" can be defined as this. "In
modern society, the media is certainly a very important creator and intermediary of knowledge.
Understanding the way the media represent reality, the specific methods, the ideologies inherent
in the representations, etc. is a must for citizens of democratic societies and citizens of the future,"
Masterman, 1998, p.x.