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THE MEDIA COMPETENCE OF A PERSON IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
S. L. Troyanskaya
There is no doubt that education is today one of the most important areas of human activity, which is closely intertwined with all other areas of public life. It is not only the previously acquired knowledge of people that becomes important, but also the potential for continuous development of professional and personal qualities throughout the life cycle. At the beginning of the 21st century, there was a contradiction between the existing system of education, based on the paradigm of “education for the rest of one’s life,” and challenges of the present time, requiring “education throughout one’s life.” By simply replacing several words in the sentence it is possible to change the semantic content of the paradigm.
The need to reform the educational system nowadays can be explained directly by the transition to a postindustrial, information-based society, where previously acquired knowledge is not as important as the potential for continuous development of professional and personal qualities throughout the life cycle. According to the definition of D. Bell (author of the “postindustrial society” theory), the information-based society is characterized by the specificity of the postindustrial stage of human development, in which information becomes the basis for determination of the social structure [1]. Many people in the educational community cannot imagine lifelong education of an increasing number of students without development and widespread use of information technologies. However, by the beginning of the 21st century it became clear that the improvement of information technologies, offering a “better future,” is accompanied by a number of negative effects, such as development of the fragmented “clip format” consciousness of contemporary man, who is immersed in the information pressure environment that makes him incapable of holistic and systematic comprehension of reality. The increasing dynamism and mosaic content structure of the modern information space results in the fact that today many young people also experience cognitive dissonance, trying to combine consistently in their heads all the contradictions and multidimensionality of the world around them. Studies show that this dissonance is more complicated by the fact that in the process of dealing with aggressive media and controversial content, people's consciousness becomes chaotic. At the present time, no one tries to teach individuals to “resist” the randomly increasing information flows; that is, to apply a critical view to the contradictory texts, facts and reports.
How can the educational system prevent the threat of gradual, almost invisible, but total decrease in the level of critical assessment of the information used? In order to prevent such phenomena within the framework of the educational institutions it is necessary to carry out systematic monitoring and focused development of the manufacturing culture and use of information. Through the implementation of special educational programs you can achieve a harmonious balance between the growing technological might of the media and the collective values that determine the life activity of local cultural communities.
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The idea of media education is now actively implemented into the educational and training process of contemporary educational institutions. According to UNESCO materials, media education is developing theoretical and practical skills for the purpose of mastering the modern means of mass communication [7]. Development of media and information literacy is one of the priorities of the strategic plan for UNESCO’s program entitled “Information for Everybody.” However, the modern concept of media education is rather aimed at the introduction of new technologies for getting information, whereas the problems in development of methods for adequate psychological protection of the consciousness of students from aggressive information effects and the development of critical thinking remain in the background.
Media education, in our understanding, is a process of development and self-development of a person using the materials of mass media (media). Today, in this pedagogical direction the following areas can be determined: media education of future professionals - journalists, filmmakers, editors, and others; future teachers in universities and the system of advanced training; as an integral part in the general education of students and schoolchildren; in additional education institutions, leisure and recreation centers; and distance, independent, lifelong learning. One of the leading Russian experts in this field, A.V. Fedorov, rightly believes that the media competence acquired in the process of media education helps a person actively to use the information field of television, radio, video, cinema, press, and Internet, and helps to understand better the language of media culture. Media education is understood by A.V. Fedorov as a process for the purpose of developing the culture of communication with media, creative, communicative skills, critical thinking, skills of interpretation, analysis and evaluation of media texts, and teaching different forms of self-expression with the help of media technology [4]. Based on the conceptual approach of D. Baake, and the developmental model of media competence of K.P. Troymann, W. Zander, D. Meister, the concept of “media competence” can be described as a result of personal and subject-based acquisitions of a student in the process of formal and informal education, which characterizes the individual readiness of a person to deal with media [6].
Study of the problems of media competence of students includes consideration of the four leading indicators of the level of its development: 1) media criticism as an axiological phenomenon focused on improvement of a person’s readiness to the assessment activities, with the analytical, reflective, and value-based (socially responsible) sublevels; 2) knowledge of media with the informative and instrumental-technical sublevels; 3) media consumption with competences of perception and interactive activities; and 4) media design with the innovative and creative sublevels. According to a survey conducted by such experts in the field of Russian media education as E.A. Bondarenko, Korochensky, and S.N. Penzin, it was discovered that media competence is understood as development of the student’s ability to think critically.
It is precisely because media today is a factor in the process of individualization of young people that an ethical aspect of critical reflection should attract increased attention in the debates about media competence. In the process of developing the media competence of students it is expedient to use the
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axiological approach, thanks to which the value-based self-identity of a student’s personality is achieved, which represents a process of finding the meaning, goals, and resources of one’s own life in the time and space of education.
As a value-digital matrix for the development of students’ media competence, we used A.V. Kiryakova’s idea about the consistency of action for mechanisms ensuring the ascension of a person to values: search - evaluation -selection - projection [3]. The value-based and meaning-based attitude of students was formed through the development of an ability of the value-based argumentations, which, according to G. Marcy, Behnke and M. Rath, expressed as a media critic, is a major element in the development of students’ media competence. Conditions for the successful development of an ability for value-based argumentation, based on the experience, was also mentioned by B.M. Bim-Bad [2]. To develop the ability for value-based judgment we used a modified model of the axiological analysis of a text of D. Mit [5]. The author substantiates the development of values in children and young people through the didactic use of analysis of text narration outside the scope of the narrative ethics: Analysis of the model - “What is being narrated? What is it all about?”; Analysis of the practice of narration - “How is it narrated? In which form the story is told?”; Analysis of the moral of narration - “Why is it narrated? What values are we talking about and which dilemma shows these values? How does the author try to achieve this?”
Second-year undergraduate students were asked to analyze the movies “Dead Poets Society” (USA, 1989) and “To Live To See Monday” (USSR, 1968). The first question, basically, did not cause any difficulties, whereas the second one was generally commented by students in an emotional and narrative way: They retold the content of the films, rather than analyzing them, and only a few students (9%) were able to specify the main ideas and means of their implementation by the filmmakers (5%). Students indicated such values as love, honesty, courage, love for profession, and also those such as “coolness” and “backwardness.” Many (71%) gave a critical analysis only in such terms as “I liked the movie” or “I disliked the movie,” but there were also those (23%) who compared the problems of the movies’ heroes with the problems of their own lives.
We have found that from the point of view of pedagogy, it was expedient for the purpose of development of media critics to focus students’ attention on the author’s idea, on values mentioned by the author, and on the social foundations for creation of the movie. Thus, in our study, we focused on the collision of traditional and humanistic educational systems in these movies and their manifestations in the actions of the teachers, and we asked them to highlight their similarities and specific manifestations. The students’ desire to identify the ethical dilemma presented by the author, expressed by the author by means of a collision of two values, encourages thinking about one’s own life, analysis of one’s own values, and construction of one’s own value-based position and personal identity. By practicing the reasoned value judgment of the author's idea and thinking about the collision of values of characters, we develop students’ evaluative, critical attitude to media space, and hence, to their own way of life, develop their living position.
In summarizing the above, let us determine the list of necessary information and cognitive competencies that students can and should acquire in the modern educational space. Thus, under conditions of expansive development in mass
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media, the educational community’s efforts should be focused on teaching young people: to closely monitor the received flows of information, to differentiate the received messages autonomously and efficiently based on their importance, sources and reasons of emergence; to adequately assess the value and semantic load of media products and information messages, highlighting key meanings and comparing the existing values with their own system of values, as well as with the values, which are dominant among their immediate environment; to fully or partially block the information provoking the affective reactions, the occurrence of emotional imbalance, unproductive conflicts with others, etc.; and to actively develop and support the most useful information environment in terms of adaptation and personal self-actualization, by way of timely switching off or changing of information flows.
Since competence and morality are the basic imperatives of modern lifelong education, the problems of developing the media competence and value-based self-identity of a person are essential and do not imply a simple single solution.
References
1. Белл Д. Грядущее постиндустриальное общество. - М.: Академия, 1999.
2. Бим-Бад Б. М. Что такое хорошо и что такое плохо в обучении: полезная «предметность» и вредная «наглядность» // Семья и школа. - 2010. - № 9.
3. Кирьякова А. В., Ольховая Т. А. Аксиологический инструментарий развития инновационной образовательной практики современного университета // Инновации в науке. - 2012. - № 9.
4. Федоров А. В. Медиаобразование: история, теория и методика. - Ростов н/Д., 2001.
5. Mieth D. Moral und Erfahrung I. Grundlagen zur theologisch-ethischen Hermeneutik. -Freiburg, 1999.
6. Treumann K. P., Sander U., Meister D. Medienhandeln Jugendlicher. - Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fur Sozialwissenschaften, 2007.
7. European Parliament Resolution of 16 December 2008 on Media Literacy in a Digital World Электронный ресурс: URL:http://europarl.europa.eu/sides/.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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