Critical Media Literacy and the Importance of Critical Self-Reflexivity

Media education has been developing globally for decades with different goals and understandings. As we review various frameworks and approaches for teaching media literacy, we highlight an important aspect that has not received the attention it deserves. This underdeveloped component is critical self-reflexivity. While communication scholars focus largely on the medium and the message, media educators follow a similar trajectory and seldom encourage students to question what about themselves influences the way they make sense of media. We are quick to point our finger at others and suggest why they represent or interpret messages the way they do, but rarely do we start with ourselves and question our own biases and assumptions. A critical self-reflection that explores how our positionality impacts our senses and understandings is one of many important pedagogical strategies for helping students think critically about media. For scholars and practitioners focusing on critical media literacy, this aspect of questioning one’s positionality aligns well with much critical theory, such as feminist standpoint theory, intersectionality, and McLuhan’s concept of anti-environment.

Critical Media Literacy

Critical media literacy (CML) is a theory and pedagogical practice that promotes critical thinking with and about media to understand and act upon the world. It is a way of living that embodies a critical engagement with life (Vasquez et al., 2019). This involves a critical disposition that encompasses various skills and knowledge encouraging exploration of social and environmental contexts, investigation of ideologies and systems of power, and reflection on how we construct meaning (Share & Gambino, 2022). Emerging from cultural studies (Durham & Kellner, 2002; Hammer & Kellner, 2009) and critical pedagogy (Darder et al., 2003; Freire, 2010; Kincheloe, 2007), CML broadens the scope of literacy to include not only reading and writing with print and digital information but also the critical examination of media and audiences, information, and power. This is an inquiry-based approach to critically analyze media and its impact on society. 

The media literacy skills to “access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication” (NAMLE, n.d., para. 2) are important parts of CML that also include questioning and challenging how power and ideology impact media ecologies. This critical inquiry calls into question systemic structures of white supremacy, capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and other toxic ideologies that reproduce unequal dynamics of power and knowledge. Media production enhances the learning process when students create media that offers alternative perspectives that challenge hegemonic discourses and counternarratives. A critical disposition encourages the questioning of power and the application of praxis, “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it” (Freire, 2010, p. 51).

Media Literacy Frameworks

While teaching in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham in the 1980s, Len Masterman was one of the first people to systematically integrate ideas from cultural studies about media, power, and ideology into education. In Teaching the Media, Masterman (1985) provides a theoretical framework and set of conceptual understandings for their students to critically engage with media. Over the last few decades, various people and organizations around the world have generated similar media literacy frameworks and guiding questions that vary in quantity and language. In the late 1980s, several high school English teachers in Ontario’s Association for Media Literacy created a list of eight key concepts that combined their experiences in literary analysis with cultural studies to develop a pedagogical framework to analyze media texts. Based on their contributions, the Ontario Ministry of Education (1989) published the following eight key concepts of media literacy:

1. All media are constructions.

2. The media construct versions of reality.

3. Audiences negotiate meaning in media.

4. Media have commercial implications.

5. Media contain ideological and value messages.

6. Media have social and political implications.

7. Form and content are closely related in the media.

8. Each medium has a unique aesthetic form.

During this same time, the British Film Institute developed a list of six signpost questions for students to focus on when analyzing a media text (Bazalgette, 1989, p. 8):

• WHO is communicating with whom? (AGENCIES) 
• WHAT type of text is it? (CATEGORIES)
• HOW is it produced? (TECHNOLOGIES)
• HOW do we know what it means? (LANGUAGES)
• WHO receives it and what sense do they make of it? (AUDIENCES)
• HOW does it present its subject? (REPRESENTATIONS)

Other U.S. media literacy organizations include the five core concepts and key questions from the Center for Media Literacy (2005) and Action Coalition for Media Education’s (ACME) (2007) “Ten Basic Principles of Media Literacy Education.” In reviewing these lists, one area that seems underdeveloped is the questioning of one’s own positionality and the exploration of how one’s experiences and identities influence ideas, assumptions, and interpretations of media messages. 

A few media literacy organizations have mentioned the importance of looking inward and reflecting on one’s own identity, such as Project Look Sharp’s (2017) “Developing Habits of Inquiry and Reflection.” They include the following guiding questions:

• How do prior experiences and beliefs shape my interpretation?
• What do I learn about myself from my interpretation or reaction? 
• What do I learn about myself from my choices in making this?

The National Association for Media Literacy Education’s (NAMLE, 2023) revised “Core Principles” include 10 belief statements to support effective media literacy education. Each principle outlines “Implications for Practice” which guide teachers to use self-reflection exercises to help students consider how their lived experiences, beliefs, and values impact the ways they analyze and create media. Principle 2 acknowledges that individuals “use existing knowledge, skills, beliefs, and experiences” to make meaning about the information they encounter and share. It promotes self-reflection as a learning process for examining how personal biases and beliefs shape how they interpret and respond to media.  

In partnership with NAMLE, Mihailidis et al. (2021) created an interactive “Field Guide for Equitable Media Literacy Practice” that asserts five core domains to advance inclusive media literacy practices. The first domain, “Where do I stand?,” builds from Harding’s (1991, 2015), Allen’s (1996), and Rolin’s (2009) contributions to Standpoint theory. Mihailidis et al. (2021) contend that standpoint theory is an important lens for inquiry-based self-reflection that helps people unpack how their “social location influences how they see the world…notions of power, dominant cultural groups, and insider/outsider status” (p. 67). In their research with teachers and a literature review that informed this guide, they identified a lack of focus on examining how one’s own identities and lived experiences influence how individuals engage with media. They suggest that building more equitable media literacy practices should begin with self-reflection about how one’s standpoint maps onto how they interface with media, other media participants’ discussions, and the information and ideologies that surround them.

Reimagining Critical Media Literacy  

Following those efforts, we expand the existing “Critical Media Literacy Framework” (Kellner & Share, 2019, p. 8) to promote inward critical reflection that considers how a person’s positionality impacts their responses, analysis, and production of media. In the updated CML Framework (see Table 1), we extend Conceptual Understanding 3: “Audience/Positionality,” by acknowledging “relational” factors. We also provide an additional Guiding Question: “How does my identity influence my understanding of this text?” The current question that supports this conceptual understanding only asks about how other people could understand a media text differently. While this is important to explore, if this is the only question about this concept, it tends to ignore one’s own biases and can foster false assumptions about other people and their ideas. 

Table 1 

Critical Media Literacy Framework: Conceptual Understandings and Guiding Questions

Conceptual Understandings	Guiding Questions
1. Social Constructivism  All information is co-constructed by individuals and/or groups of people who make choices within social contexts.	WHO are all the possible people who made choices that helped create this text?
2. Languages/Semiotics Each medium has its own language with specific grammar and semantics.	HOW was this text constructed and delivered/accessed?
3. Audience/Positionality Individuals and groups understand media messages similarly and/or differently depending on multiple relational and contextual factors.	HOW does my identity influence my understanding of this text? HOW could this text be understood differently?
4. Politics of Representation  Media messages and the medium through which they travel always have a bias and support and/or challenge dominant hierarchies of power, privilege, and pleasure.	WHAT values, points of view, and ideologies are represented or missing from this text or influenced by the medium?
5. Production/Institutions All media texts have a purpose (often commercial or governmental) that is shaped by the creators and/or systems within which they operate.	WHY was this text created and/or shared?
6. Social and Environmental Justice Media culture is a terrain of struggle that perpetuates or challenges positive and/or negative ideas about people, groups, and issues; it is never neutral.	WHOM does this text advantage and/or disadvantage?

An example of a student using this new framework to deepen her analysis comes from a critical media literacy class in one of the author’s undergraduate courses at a large public university in the western U.S. A student, we call Zara* chose to analyze the advertisement “Alia Bhatt Mohey Manyavar Ad TVE” (Indian Advertising Co. Ltd., 2021) on YouTube. Zara uses the CML guiding questions to critically assess how the female protagonist interrogates the Hindu wedding Ritual of Kanyadaan, exploring the nuances of cultural traditions where the bride’s caregivers view her as a gift to her beau. While this ad presents a counternarrative perspective, featuring a reflective monologue that questions traditional gender roles and the institution of marriage, Zara provides an in-depth critical self-reflexive analysis. In examining her own positionality and engagement with the text, as well as considering potential interpretations from audiences beyond her own identities, Zara answers the question, “How does my identity influence my understanding of the text?”

As an Indian woman, I grew up in a somewhat religious family that believes in Hinduism, but I too question many rituals and traditions that, to me, demonstrate a significant sense of gender inequality. Fortunately, I grew up in a household that empowers women, and thus having discussions about marriages, I have several rituals that I personally would not vouch for in my wedding, and so this advertisement to me showcases that we as women can stand up for ourselves, fight for our rights, and should not be treated like objects. This message I took away from this advertisement is that women must be empowered, and we have the right to change outdated rituals and traditions that were created by people who did not believe in gender equality.  

In this reflection, Zara delves into her racial and cultural backgrounds, as well as her sociocultural context and familial upbringing steeped in Hindu religious traditions. Through critical self-reflexivity, she explores how her positionality and life experiences lead her to identify with the female protagonist in her chosen media, highlighting her own questioning of traditional gender roles within her culture. Zara also reflects on how her family environment encouraged her to challenge gender norms and cultural values within Hinduism, resulting in a sense of empowerment and belief in gender equality.

When Zara answers the question, “how could this text be understood differently?,” she creates inferences about “netizens.” She suggests “netizens” may view this representation of women as objectification, thus leading to a more critical counter-ad regarding women’s roles and Hindu wedding traditions. She acknowledges that some viewers might be offended by the ad’s feminist perspective, while others may see it as commercial entities exploiting religious customs to sell wedding-related products like bridal wear. Zara’s critical self-reflexivity fosters deeper attention to possible analyses from individuals outside her own identity and social or familial context, thereby enriching her understanding of different viewpoints and interpretations. 

In an example from an undergraduate writing course focusing on Scandinavian Literatures and Cultures taught by one of the other authors, students analyzed Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales using the CML Framework, with close attention to Conceptual Understanding 3 (Audience/Positionality). Their discussions and written responses focused on how their own identities and beliefs shaped their critical analysis of Andersen’s stories, and then how their groupmates might interpret his texts differently.

Students had prior exposure to cultural studies, participated in critical pedagogical exercises, and regularly applied the CML Framework. Following their completion of the six guiding questions within their team, they engaged in dialogue with other groups to provide context about the fairy tales and explain their responses. Subsequently, students took part in an independent free-write exercise, where they critically reflected on the new guiding question about critical self-reflexivity. They considered how their identities and lived experiences influenced their analyses of the text, as well as their observations about alternative perspectives shared by their team members. 

Paulo’s* free-write reflects on his personal identities and the perspectives shared by his team members after critically analyzing “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” He notes: 

When I was reading this story, I kept thinking about what my grandfather told me about after he and my grandma came from Mexico to the U.S. He said, ‘nieto be careful not chasing things but in building strong relationships instead.’ He talked about what it was like for him and my grandma. Though they worried about money, they cared more about developing a life, a family, and friends that cared, trusted, and looked out for each other. When I read this story, I kept thinking about them and connected how the emperor cared more about appearances and status then (sic) he did about making sure the people he hired were legit. This made me think about how companies can really hurt people. It was interesting how Stella* was talking in our group more about stuff related to how the emperor was a man and how maybe he could get away with not checking on people first before hiring them. After we talked, it got me thinking about how I look at things, how it connects with my family and where we come from and how stuff I read and see online is different than other people. 

Here, Paulo demonstrates how critical self-reflexivity enhanced a deeper analysis of his own positionality, racial, and cultural identities. He also made a thought-provoking observation about how his personal experiences shaped his analysis of class and community relations. In contrast, his team member Stella*, who identified as female, explored the connection between the male protagonist’s gender identity and their proximity to power and privilege. Paulo’s concluding remarks shed light on how this exercise and collaborating with his peers deepened his understanding of the guiding questions related to Audience and Positionality. This process encouraged him to consider multiple analyses and influences, from family values to gender identity.

Confirmation Bias

The challenge of confirmation bias, the tendency to seek out information that aligns with one’s existing beliefs, is another reason we need to be more cognizant of our own assumptions, values, and desires. When we lack this awareness, we tend to be more vulnerable to disinformation, algorithmic bias, and echo chambers. Piksa et al. (2024) conducted a study with 1,479 diverse participants investigating the effects of confirmation bias on susceptibility to misinformation. Their study concluded that participants who received information about confirmation bias exhibited lower susceptibility to misinformation compared to the control group.

Environment and Anti-Environment

Another way we can understand critical self-reflexivity within CML is through McLuhan’s concept of environment and anti-environment, where most of the time people only notice the message and not the medium, as if the medium were an invisible neutral conveyor of information and has no influence on the message or how we make sense of it. McLuhan (1965) asserted that the media environment “is imperceptible except in terms of its content” (p. 1). This lack of awareness of the ways media influence our senses reduces our ability to think critically and disrupt its power. McLuhan described how an anti-environment could provide more awareness and visibility of the construction of media and impact of ideology, such as when art or language generates high intensity and makes the environment into an object of attention. We suggest that critical self-reflexivity can become an anti-environment when the process of inquiry probes the way our positionality influences the ways we make sense of the media environment. Serving as an anti-environment, critical self-reflexivity could function as a type of disruption or reflective stance which would encourage one to self-interrogate assumptions and interpretations. As we reflect on our positionality and draw our attention to the meaning-making process, we make visible the environment that was previously unperceived. This reflective process can create the anti-environment necessary to increase awareness and critical thinking. 

Surveillance Capitalism

The current practice of surveillance capitalism as described by Shoshana Zuboff (2019) is an economic model that turns behavioral data into predictive markets. Through capturing our personal data, algorithms learn about our searches, interests, likes, fears, desires, and purchases, in order to predict our actions and modify our behavior. With most media platforms using data collection, proprietary algorithms, and surveillance capitalism as their primary methods for extracting profit, information about our identities is used more for their benefit than ours. This strategic use of our personal data is another reason why individuals should be encouraged to critically self-reflect about their positionality in order to gain awareness of the information that media companies are using to profile and target them. Zuboff asserts, “human consciousness itself is a threat to surveillance revenues, as awareness endangers the larger project of behavior modification” (p. 308). Critical self-reflexivity can be a tool for empowering individuals to counteract the influence of surveillance capitalism. We should encourage media literacy practitioners and all learners to reflect on their own identity and question how their experiences, culture, beliefs, privileges, and positionality influence their meaning making processes. In addition to inferring how various audiences or targeted groups may interpret media texts, we begin critical media analysis by directing the question inward. 

Theoretical Background of Critical Self-reflexivity

Positionality

Martin and Van Gunten (2002) explain that positionality reminds us to recognize and acknowledge that “we are all raced, classed, and gendered and that these identities are relational, complex, and fluid positions rather than essential qualities” (p. 46). These complex and multiple aspects of our identity are interconnected and socially constructed within hierarchies of power, privilege, and oppression that shape the ways we see and think about ourselves and others. Milner (2007) argues that everyone, especially researchers, need to “pose racially and culturally grounded questions about themselves” (p. 395) to recognize their own biases and assumptions. He emphasizes the need for researchers to confront the seen, unseen, and unforeseen dangers of dominant Western discourses that “normalize” oppressive ideologies and deficit thinking, especially about People of Color. While Milner’s focus is on educational researchers, to be media literate today everyone needs to consider themselves a researcher in this way. Milner states that when people engage with media, they “typically put on their filters or their interpretive lenses to separate fact from fiction or to disentangle the implicit biases inherent in the presentation of ideas, stories, philosophies, and experiences” (p. 396). These filters include the racial and cultural identities that shape our worldviews, assumptions, and beliefs. Therefore, we need to address the filters that influence the ways we make sense of information. Here are a few questions that Milner recommends:

• In what ways do my racial and cultural backgrounds influence how I experience the world, what I emphasize in my research, and how I evaluate and interpret others and their experiences? How do I know?
• What are and have been the contextual nuances and realities that help shape my racial and cultural ways of knowing, past and present? How do I know?
• What racialized and cultural experiences have shaped my research decisions, practices, approaches, epistemologies, and agendas? (p. 395)

Milner asserts the need to not only reflect on an individualized level, but to question the broader contexts to “shift from the self to the system” to see the institutional and systemic aspects of racism, sexism, classism, and other harmful influences that filter our understanding of the world. This is key because the call for critical self-reflexivity is not an individualistic psychological endeavor as much as it is a sociological strategy for gaining a deeper understanding of dominant systems, structures, and ideologies. Consequently, the theoretical underpinnings of positionality imply that the multiple aspects of our identity intersect with these dominant social structures and the process of interpreting these intersections can be an empowering act of resistance (Collins, 1991). 

Intersectionality

In the 1990s, Kimberlé Crenshaw defined the concept of intersectionality, providing a powerful lens to interrogate the intersections of domination and oppression across lines of race, class, gender, and other identity markers. Crenshaw (1991) explains that multiple forms of discrimination and privilege intersect and work together. Cultural theorists have used this concept of intersectionality to explore the ways representations of different groups converge to produce numerous sources of disempowerment. Patricia Hill Collins (1991) asserts that analyzing these intersectionalities has transformative potential for empowerment. Intersectionality relies on self-reflexive experiences as ways of knowing; subordinated people have the power to produce knowledge through self-reflexivity to resist their oppression. Collins terms this “knowledge project of resistance” (pp. 9-10). If knowledge can be produced to justify existing social inequalities, then knowledge can also be produced to resist the same social inequalities. Collins encourages strengthening the inward-facing and self-reflective process to yield knowledge for resistance noting, “without sustained self-reflection, intersectionality will be unable to help any one grapple with social change, including change within its own praxis” (p. 4). Black feminism’s contributions are an example of how those in less powerful social locations have advanced intersectionality as a theoretical framework, methodology, and canon. Black feminists’ insights into intersectionality exemplify the knowledge project of resistance. Therefore, knowledge construction arising from introspection, especially from less powerful social locations, has expanded intersectionality as a theoretical and material framework for resistance. Like Collins’ conceptualization of the knowledge project for resistance, epistemic privilege can emerge from experiential knowledge, providing a distinct and individual viewpoint shaped by one’s lived experiences and needs.

Epistemic Privilege

Epistemic privilege is a perspective born from experiences of oppression and social disadvantage. Linker (2014) writes, “experiential epistemic privilege develops by identifying a pattern in one’s social experience and then connecting that pattern to the experiences of others in the same social group” (p. 69). Not all oppressed groups or individuals by virtue of their oppression acquire epistemic privilege. It is “an achieved, not a given, perspective, requiring critical reflection on the power structures of society and the relations of one’s group to it” (Anderson, 2009, p. 2). Epistemic privilege is contingent on self-reflexivity. It requires a concerted effort towards raising one’s consciousness and taking deliberate actions for individual and collective resistance. 

Strong Objectivity

Feminist philosopher, Sandra Harding (2015) argues that the myths of objectivity and neutrality work to disguise the politics of power. She proposes to aim for strong objectivity through two main conditions. First, we can strengthen objectivity by beginning research from marginalized positions in order to frame the inquiry by the experiences and perspectives from those who have historically been excluded from knowledge production. Second, strong objectivity requires researcher reflexivity because acknowledging one’s own positionality enhances transparency and objectivity. In general, CML frameworks draw heavily from feminist perspectives of positionality, intersectionality, and epistemic privilege. Each perspective delves into complex power dynamics, contexts, histories, and experiences (Collins, 1991; Duarte, 2017; Hesse-Biber & Piatelli, 2012; hooks, 1989). 

A collective conceptualization of positionality, intersectionality, epistemic privilege, and strong objectivity guides the process of engaging with the concept of critical self-reflexivity. To engage in critical self-reflexivity, it is necessary to aim towards empowerment, agency, and action. Knight (2011) explains that our ability to identify our own beliefs can be empowering and potentially transformative.

Critical Self-Reflexivity

Being self-reflexive is different from just being reflective. Engaging in self-reflexivity requires a person to grapple with the tensions of examining their intersectional positionality (Mora, 2018). This process prompts inner interrogation about one’s personal frames of reference in a wide context (e.g., social, cultural, political, economic), understanding that one’s social identity navigates gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality, class, ability, etc. Mora states, “The ultimate goal of reflexivity…is not simply to reflect on practice, but to transform it for the benefit of one’s community and its members” (p. 7).

Critical self-reflexivity intertwines with the broader concept from Portuguese of “conscientizaçao” (Freire, 2010, p. 74), which involves becoming aware of the interconnectedness and interdependence of individuals with the world around them and engaging in reflection that leads to informed action, known as praxis. The process of critical self-reflexivity highlights the dialectical relationships between the individual and the collective through self-awareness and the critical questioning of systems and structures that support and/or challenge racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, and all systems of discrimination and oppression.

Critical self-reflexivity also challenges more common and widespread media analysis research. When academic and scholarly arguments are written in third person they tend to be considered more objective and neutral, whereas first-person narratives are often deemed less scientifically rigorous (Whitehead, 2015). This stems from traditions of research philosophy known as positivism, marking a significant shift in the 17th century from the reins of the clergy disseminating the truth, towards discovering objective, evidence-based truths through experimentation (Park et al., 2020). The positivist research paradigm, while helpful to support evidence-based inquiry, can also promote a false assumption of value free and apolitical objectivity in research methodology and knowledge production. Positivist methodology currently dominates natural and social scientific research, evidenced by the leading journals and academic organizations’ requirements and standards for publication (Paxton, 2012; Park, et al., 2020). Critical self-reflexivity challenges the myth of objectivity and aligns more closely with autoethnography, a critical research approach that explores the researcher’s positionality.

Autoethnography 

Participating in critical self-reflexivity during media analysis is similar to engaging with the qualitative research method known as autoethnography. Autoethnography combines characteristics of autobiography and ethnography. As a research method, autoethnography emerged from postmodern scholarship as a genre of writing that uncovers “multiple layers of consciousness, connecting the personal to the cultural” (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 739). This parallel exploration involves examining oneself or a personal experience that has conventionally been kept private, to reveal the broader social, political, and historical context (Chang 2008; Ellis et al., 2014; Starr, 2010). This form of introspection is told through a narrative structure that includes cultural analysis and interpretation (Bochner & Ellis, 1995). Chang (2008) describes this genre of self-narrative storytelling as useful for revealing how “individual stories are framed in the context of the bigger story, a story of the society” (p. 49). Ellis and Bochner (2000) assert that autoethnography as a research method can generate awareness about identity-based marginalization and stories that are seldom represented or told. They suggest this method can help foster understanding difference, while also acknowledging and addressing the researcher’s subjectivity. Autoethnographies have the potential to promote self-examination, expand empathy, and provide an entry point for cross-cultural solidarity (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). Participating in critical self-reflexivity during media analysis can be like the process of creating an autoethnography. An individual’s stories are told from a narrative lens, situated and interrogated within sociocultural and historical contexts deeply entrenched in power hierarchies. 

Putting Critical Self-Reflexivity Into Practice

There is growing concern in social scientific research communities to increase the focus on self-knowledge and sensitivity; better understand the role of the self in the creation of knowledge; carefully self-monitor the impact of their biases, beliefs, and personal experiences on their research; and maintain the balance between the personal and the universal. (Berger, 2015, p. 220)

These same concerns apply to critical media analysis and media production research. Kersch and Lesley (2019) reinforce the notions of critical self-reflexivity, recommending CML practices that create space for students’ “testimon[ies] and healing (telling one’s story as part of the pedagogy)” (p. 40). Encouraging students to share their knowledge and lived experiences emboldens them to challenge dominant narratives perpetuated in media. In doing so, they engage in the constructive process of crafting counternarratives, which serves as a healing journey for themselves and others’ wellbeing. Similarly, Baker-Bell et al. (2017) advocate for CML pedagogies focused on healing, which align with critical self-reflexivity. They suggest providing “tools to heal” and “tools to transform” through critical pedagogical activities that encourage students to delve into their lived experiences, acknowledge systems of oppression, and create countermedia (p. 139). Currie and Kelly (2022) also suggest that teachers involve their students in critical self-reflexivity through independent and collaborative critical inquiry-based dialogues during analyses of media and creation of countermedia. In their research with elementary and secondary teachers in Canada, Currie and Kelly identified six modes of reflexivity to guide students in conducting “personal, affective, evidentiary, analytical, ethical, and political” (p. 22) investigations to challenge power structures and ideologies. Through this dialogical process, students transition between individual self-reflexivity to examine their own biases and engage in collaborative dialogue with others to widen their perspectives. 

Seminal works by critical scholars in teaching and teacher education research have underscored the importance of practitioner’s critical self-reflection in developing social justice teaching methods (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1985; Zeichner, 1986). However, this critical aspect is often overlooked in traditional teacher education programs (Zeichner & Liu, 2010). Connell (2014) argues that despite the influence of Schön’s (1983) The Reflective Practitioner, promoting the practice of teacher reflection has been commandeered to support the status quo. Very often, the focus of reflection is not so much on the experience of teachers in classrooms and schools, but rather on how successfully a curriculum or teaching method has been replicated (p. 7).

Social justice teacher educator Sharon Chubbuck (2010) defines critical self-reflection as a deep “self-examination where personal biases and emotional responses are brought into the light of self-awareness, accompanied by a humility of heart that is willing to admit their presence and to do the work needed to address them productively” (p. 203). Self-awareness in this context is “a solid foundation of self-understanding—that is, understanding based on continuous critical reflection into the roles of power and privilege in one’s life and relationships” (Reason & Broido, 2005, p. 81).

Critical Self-Reflexivity in Ethnic Studies

Educators teach Ethnic Studies courses in ways that foster students’ critical self-reflexivity and support the development of their critical consciousness through counterhegemonic curriculum and pedagogy. For example, the beginning of Ethnic Studies courses is rooted in exploration of self, involving activities that ask students to center questions such as: 

• How do I see myself? 
• How do others see me? 
• What is the representation of people of color in the media and why does it matter? 
• How do essentialist media representations of People of Color influence perceptions of Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) communities?  

These critical self-reflexive questions encourage teachers and students to ask and answer deep questions that often uncover how the media has shaped self-perception, behavior, and ideology. Gaining an understanding of the hidden self can be understood through the lenses of Freire’s critical consciousness, which reveals the social forces that impact our worlds, and McLuhan’s (1965) concept of anti-environment, which renders visible what is hidden.

In a lesson created by the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMC, 2020), students are asked to practice critical self-reflexivity using reflexivity journals. The goal of the lesson is to foster students’ understanding of who they are and to cultivate critical consciousness, a sense of community, and a reclamation of critical hope and healing. This work is inspired by Anzaldúa’s (1987) concept of mestiza consciousness, that embraces the tensions between one’s own identities and cultures. Activities within the lesson prompt students to acknowledge their ancestors, consider how their identities are constructed, contemplate how their identities intersect and interact, and to critique both counter-dominant and dominant narratives that influence their perception of themselves and others, including media. Ethnic Studies and the Critical Media Literacy Framework question the production of knowledge, promote self-reflexivity, nurture self and community empowerment, and center pedagogies that can lead to social transformation. 

Conclusion

McLuhan (1965) reminds us that media environments often go unperceived until an anti-environment disrupts the pervasive patterns and draws attention to how media influence us and society. Through our discussion of critical self-reflexivity, we explored several theoretical approaches that bring awareness of the ways our positionalities and experiences shape our understanding of media messages. We encourage all media educators to incorporate critical self-reflexivity as their students are analyzing and creating media, because much can be gained by exploring the ways our racial, gender, and class identities impact our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Along with other critical media literacy questions, students should ask: “How does my identity influence my understanding of this text?” This critical pedagogical process can help educators and students deconstruct their power, privilege, and pleasure to facilitate deeper critical awareness and inform their process of creating alternative media for social and environmental justice.

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