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November 6, 2000
Q&A:
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Thomas Gencarelli
"If TV has so much influenceÑ shaping what we believe is important, and to an extent, our valuesÑit's imperative that we teach how it shapes those things," said Gencarelli. "Then balance that against this struggle to maintain literacy, which is central to learning."
His solution is to incorporate media education into general education so viewers will no longer sit passively in front of the screen, but instead take an active and critical approach to what they are watching.
After conducting research and talking with colleagues, he learned that China and Taiwan have made great strides in media education. In May, Gencarelli, a colleague from William Paterson University and several students traveled to the two countries to examine the state of media education. The broadcasting professor said what he found was not what he expected.
INSIGHT: What prompted you to explore media education in China and Taiwan?
INSIGHT: What did you expect to find there?
INSIGHT: What did you find when you got there?
INSIGHT: Why do you think their system is so much like ours?
INSIGHT: How does the faculty in Taiwan propose to teach the general population about media?
INSIGHT: Why is it so difficult to broaden media education?
That's because advertisers don't buy and sell airtime. They buy attention. The more heads paying attention during airtime the more dollars go into their pockets. Given that this is the mission of the business, no advertiser is interested in having viewers be anything but receptive when the commercials come on during and after the shows. That's probably why there are no advertisements in books.
It's no secret that television is the primary medium in our culture. In fact, Thomas Gencarelli of Broadcasting says watching TV is what most people spend their time doing outside of work, school and sleeping. Unfortunately, he said, many people have lost the desire to read.
Gencarelli: The 3,700 broadcasting programs in the United States teach media only to people who are going into the industry. Occasionally students will take some of the more attractive courses as electives. I believe what we teach in broadcasting is important and would benefit students from primary school right up through college. The folks in Taiwan say it even goes beyond education. They talk about media education of citizenry.
Gencarelli: The impression I had gotten was that China and Taiwan were making greater strides in this area than we are because in the United States it's just a grassroots movement. So I wanted to find out what was going on there.
The cultures in Hong Kong and Taiwan are similar to ours in terms of their high-powered capitalist systems, very much about consumption and acquisition. Since I'd heard they have moved past that and advanced in making this part of general education on the college level, I wanted to learn from them.
Gencarelli: In China I visited the Hong Kong Baptist University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and in Taiwan, National Taiwan University, National Chenghi University and Chinese Cultural University.
In Hong Kong the media education situation is the same as it is here. People are interested in it, but no ground has been broken. Educators at National Chenghi University have been arguing for the past four years that it should be made part of the general education.
Gencarelli: All the people I interacted with were trained in the United States. They all got their graduate degrees at universities in this country.
Gencarelli: One faculty member at Chenghi has been doing work with the idea of media education for citizenry. Her research has taken her out into the community to find out what parents know about media and their children's media use, and then offer ways in which they can help themselves bring up their kids through media education. That's terrific research.
Gencarelli: We keep running into a brick wall in convincing people that this kind of education is important because we don't have to teach students to "read" television. And, in order to make room for media education, something else has to move out of the way. The other reason is that there's no interest in the culture to support critical viewership.