Professor Renee Hobbs makes the inaugural lecture for the ICMC 2015 conference "Digital Future: Content, Community and Communication" in Ahmenabad, India.

1. From Audiences to Authors:
Children and Young People as Content
Creators and Global Communicators
Renee Hobbs
Harrington School of
Communication and Media
University of Rhode Island USA
MICA
February 19, 2015

5. LOVE HATE
PRINT VISUAL SOUND DIGITAL
People’s attitudes about media, technology and
popular culture shape their work

6. LINK

7. Digital media is a powerful tool for
informing, persuading, entertaining and
educating
But children and young people cannot be
positioned as simply receivers

10. How do learners develop digital literacy competencies?
What knowledge and skills do they need?
No Such Thing as
“Digital Natives”

11. A Lifelong Process

12. A Lifelong Process

13. A Lifelong Process

14. a constellation of competencies

15. SKILLS & ABILITIES
➢ Computer Use and Knowledge
➢ ICT Skills & Digital Skills
LITERACY
➢ Online Reading & New Literacies
➢ Media Production / Youth Media
➢ Coding
TEACHING WITH
➢ Technology Integration
➢ Digital Learning
➢ Blended Learning
➢ Connected Learning
TEACHING ABOUT
➢ Information Literacy
➢ Media Literacy
➢ Internet Safety & Digital Citizenship
expanding variety of approaches and terms

16. expanding the concept of text

17. Rhetoric
Print Literacy
Visual Literacy
Information Literacy
Media Literacy
Computer Literacy
Critical Literacy
News Literacy
Digital Literacy
Defining Digital Literacy in Historical Context

18. the concept of literacy is expanding

19. ACCESS
expanding the concept of literacy

20. Digital Literacy Competencies
Access, Use and Share
 Keyboard and mouse skills
 Be familiar with hardware, storage and file
management practices
 Understand hyperlinking & digital space
 Gain competence with software applications
 Use social media, mobile, peripheral & cloud
computing tools
 Identify information needs
 Use effective search and find strategies
 Troubleshoot and problem-solve
 Learn how to learn
 Listening skills
 Reading comprehension

21. Access: Choose What to Read & Comprehend

22. Digital & Media Literacy Competencies
Analyze & Evaluate
 Understand how symbols work: the
concept of representation
 Identify the author, genre, purpose and
point of view of a message
 Compare and contrast sources
 Evaluate credibility and quality
 Understand one’s own biases
and world view
 Recognize power relationships that shape
how information and ideas circulate in
culture
 Understand the economic context of
information and entertainment production
 Examine the political and social
ramifications of inequalities in information
flows

23. ANALYZE: A Makeup Tutorial YouTube
Video

24. Digital Literacy Competencies
Create & Collaborate
 Recognize the need for communication and
self-expression
 Identify your own purpose, target
audience, medium & genre
 Brainstorm and generate ideas
 Compose creatively
 Play and interact
 Edit and revise
 Use appropriate distribution, promotion &
marketing channels
 Receive audience feedback
 Work collaboratively
 Comment, curate and remix

25. CREATE: Share What You Have Learned
about Primary Source Materials

26. Digital Literacy Competencies
Reflect
 Understand how differences in values and
life experience shape people’s media use
and message interpretation
 Appreciate risks and potential harms of
digital media
 Apply ethical judgment and
social responsibility to
communication situations
 Understand how concepts of ‘private’ and
‘public’ are reshaped by digital media
 Appreciate and respect legal rights and
responsibilities (copyright, intellectual
freedom, etc)

27. REFLECT: Consider Media’s Role in
Shaping Personal Identity

28. Digital Literacy Competencies
Take Action
 Acknowledge the power of
communication to maintain the status
quo or change the world
 Participate in communities of shared
interest to advance an issue
 Be a change agent in the family &
workplace
 Participate in democratic self-
governance
 Speak up when you
encounter injustice
 Respect the law and work to change
unjust laws
 Use the power of communication and
information to make a difference in the
world

29. Act: Create a Public Service
Announcement

30. PEER-TO-PEER FILE SHARING
When students can access, the power of choice activates intellectual
curiosity
When students can analyze, they have critical autonomy – control over
their interpretations
When students compose media, the discover the power of collaboration
as a key dimension of human creativity
When students reflect, they consider the impact of their communication
on themselves and others and develop a sense of social responsibility
When students act, they use of the power of information and
communication to make a difference in the world
Key Ideas for Today’s Talk

31. ACCESS
expanding the concept of literacy

32. Recognizing the role of educators
in and out of schools
PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH
Teacher in-service workshops
Media literacy & media production
programs with youth
Graduate programs
Curriculum development
Research and evaluation
Advocacy and community building

33. Motivations
for Using Media & Technology
in Education
12
www.powerfulvoicesforkids.com

34. The Global Media Literacy Education Community

35. The Need For Global Collaboration
● Uneven access to technology & competencies
● Growing gap between in-school and out-of-school digital &
media literacy practices
● Rise in sectarian tensions
● Increased politicization of education in national contexts
● Increased blurriness between genres of expression
● New forms of media industry innovation in social media

36.  Sait Tuzel, Turkey
 Yonty Friesem, Israel
 Rawia AlHumaidan, Kuwait
 Elizaveta Friesem, Russia
 Wen Xu, China
 Silke Grafe, Germany
 Haixia He, China
 Carla Viana Coscarelli, Brazil
 Ibrahim Bilici, Turkey
 Damiano Felini, Italy
 Marketa Zezulkova, Czech Republic
 Sarhana Sarkar, India
International
Visiting Scholars and
Graduate Students

37. Supporting Language Learning through
Advertising Analysis Activities
Six-week teacher action research project designed to explore
media literacy pedagogy in the context of ESL with new
immigrants to the United States
Subjects: Students ages 14 – 19 enrolled in the Newcomer
Program at Benjamin Rush HS, Philadelphia PA USA
RESEARCH METHODS
Classroom observation
Interviews with teachers
Analysis of student work samples
SOURCE: Hobbs, R., He, H. & RobbGreico, M. (2014) Seeing, Believing and Learning to be Skeptical:
Supporting Language Learning through Advertising Analysis Activities. TESOL Journal.

38. The Dettol _____________________ made this
ad for a hand sanitizer. The authors are the
company and the ad _____________ that they
paid. They ______________ to create the ad.
The ad was in People _____________________ on
a full page next to an article about a movie star in
April 2011. Readers saw the ad in this
_____________________.
The target _____________________ is people
who ride the bus. Mostly working class people
ride the bus. This ad also shows a woman, so
maybe it _____________________ women more
than men.
4. The most important _____________________
in the ad is that buses are not clean. When you
hold a handle in the bus, you can get the germs of
other people on the bus. The main
_____________________ is that you must clean
your hands after you use the bus.
5. The ____________ of the ad is to
______________ people that they need to buy
Dettol hand sanitizer. It tries to scare you a little.
CLOZE READING ACTIVITY

39. Students select an ad to analyze and compose using a wiki

46. Students compare and contrast a clip from an American and
a Turkish TV show that features students, teachers and
schools

47. Students recognize how
values are
(mis) represented in
entertainment television
Students recognize how
values are
(mis) represented in
entertainment television

48. Turkish and American middle-school
students create and share videos to
describe key features of daily life

49. PEER-TO-PEER FILE SHARING
Innovation in digital and media literacy education is situational &
contextual – there’s no one “right way” to bring these competencies to
children and young people
Exploring issues of representation in popular culture activates critical
thinking about personal & social identity in relation to culture & values
Through interacting with global peers, learners heighten awareness of
inequity in information flows and develop metacognition about self and
others in ways that promote global understanding
Key Ideas for Today’s Talk

50.  RELATIONSHIPS. How does intercultural
information sharing support personal
relationships that promote trust, respect
and learning?
 COLLABORATION. What conditions enable
people to discover new approaches to
global collaboration?
 VALUES. What are the consequences of
exploring values and social issues within a
cross-national cultural context?
 REFLECTION. How does analyzing one’s own
attitudes & beliefs about media culture
promote metacognition?
 TAKE ACTION. How can people work
together to combat inequity, prejudice and
discrimination?
New Research Questions
for a Digital Future

51. Support from a wide range of stakeholders
is essential for digital and media literacy to
thrive

52. MEDIAACTIVIST
GOVERNMENTCIVILSOCIETY
EDUCATIONCREATIVE
Expanding stakeholders for digital literacy

55. www.mediaeducationlab.com

56. Hobbs, R., He, H. & RobbGreico, M. (2014) Seeing, Believing and Learning to be Skeptical: Supporting
Language Learning through Advertising Analysis Activities. TESOL Journal.
Hobbs, R. & Tuzel, S. (2014). “The Use of Media Literacy Instructional Strategies for Promoting Intercultural
Communication in U.S. & Turkish Middle Schools.” Paper presentation to the International Association for
Intercultural Communication Studies (IAICS). Providence, RI. August 1.
Hobbs, R. & Friesem, L. (2014). “Connecting Continents.” Online professional development program with
Russian educators. Russian Academy of Education, March 25.
Hobbs, R. (2014). “How Teachers Motivations Shape Digital Learning.” Workshop presentation at SXSW Edu.
Austin, TX. March 24.
Hobbs, R. (2013). “Global Developments in Media Literacy Education,” Media and Digital Literacy Lab
(MDLAB). Keynote address at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. August 18.
Hobbs (2011). “How Digital and Media Literacy Supports Global Understanding,” Arab-US Association of
Communication Educators (AUSACE), Beirut, Lebanon, October 30.
Hobbs, R., Yoon, J., Al-Humaidan, R., Ebrahimi, A. & Cabral, N. (2011). Online digital media in elementary
school. Journal of Middle East Media 7(1), 1 – 23.
Hobbs, R., Ebrahimi, A., Cabral, N., Yoon, J., & Al-Humaidan, R. (2011). Field-based teacher education in
elementary media literacy as a means to promote global understanding. Action for Teacher Education 33, 144
– 156.
www.mediaeducationlab.com

57. Renee Hobbs
Professor of Communication Studies
Director, Media Education Lab
Harrington School of Communication and Media,
University of Rhode Island USA
Email: hobbs@uri.edu
Twitter: @reneehobbs
WEB: www.mediaeducationlab.com