As a media studies teacher working in the traditions of critical pedagogy, I strive to take the student beyond the building blocks of media literacy and emphasize what I call ‘critical media engagement’: I give the students tools through which to become more conscious consumers and creators of media, and engender a sense of empowerment in the face of the complex mediascape that forms such an integral part of our contemporary world. To ensure that their experience is transformative, lasting, and personal, I foster a classroom wherein students are co-creators of their learning, so that learning is something that occurs in collaboration with the students, rather than for them or to them. Complementing a sense of agency, I want to cultivate a ‘reflective media awareness:’ That is, I want to create a dialogic and experiential learning environment that facilitates a deeper sense of how media shapes us as individuals, as groups, and as cultures. We often speak of our biological selves, our intellectual selves, our emotional selves, and so on. In our contemporary world, we must also have a cultivate our ‘media selves,’ in that who we are is not only articulated through, but constituted by, the media we consume, interact with, and create.
Christopher Jeansonne 