Reviews
Reviews of the Best New Resources
November 3, 2006
Barry Duncan
Film:
Bombay Calling - 60 min NFB film. A fascinating documentary with media and ‘global village’ implications, outlining how international telephone calling centres in Bombay have evolved which can service English speaking countries. The film reveals the enormous pressures on the young workers to gain a sale. Also the impact on their culture is made clear through following several of the callers.
Breakin’ In: Ihe Making of a Hip Hop Dancer - 55 min NFB. POV documentary on three black women from Toronto desperate to join a rap group. Guaranteed to hold students’ interest and spark discussion
Capsule book reviews
Canadian Journal of Education. Volume 29 Number 1 2006. Theme issue: The Popular Media, Education and Resistance CSSE #204-260 Dalhousie St. Ottawa ON. KIN 7E4 $25.00 +$5.00 postage
• With over 15 articles (345 pages), this publication is a real bargain. (It can also be downloaded if you want to select only a few articles which interest you). While most are written by academics or community workers who have done university style research, the majority are quite readable and contain valuable research. Sample topics:
• Helping Youth counter their Misrepresentation in the Media
• Popular Media, Education and Resistance
• Education in an age of Orwellian Spin: Critical Media Education in the
Classroom
• Art Teacher Barbie: Friend or Foe
It would be a real breakthrough if some Canadian media educators had an informal get- together discussing and debating these articles. This is the first Canadian journal to devote a complete issue to media education. Congratulations to Michelle Stack and Deirdre Kelly, from BUCK who served as guest editors.
Critical Literacy and the Aesthetic: Transforming the English Classroom by Misson and Morgan, NCTE , 2006. A demanding read but the Australian authors pull off the task of reconciling the aesthetic with the political. Media educators will, I hope, benefit from the insights of critical literacy advocates and vice versa. One should read first the lucid account in Critical Literacy: Enhancing Students’ Comprehension of Text. Scholastic 2004.
Critical Pedagogy: Notes from the Real World by Joan Flint. (Pearson Education, 2005).
Much to her credit, the author has made the difficult political and cultural theory of leftist dissenters such as Henry Giroux and Peter McLaren relevant to the classroom. This is no mean feat! Media educators generally fail to talk about their own situated pedagogy. Joan Flint's reader friendly book will help us do just that. Most of the book is very personal; it relies on showing how her own class activities correlate with big ideas such as the dialogic imagination.
Convergence Culture: Where Old Media and new Media Collide by Henry Jenkins, New York University Press, 2006. A must-have book which relates to current trends, from reality television to bloggers creating their own Harry Potter stories. Jenkins is an expert on how people use media in creative ways.