Antonio Lopez, Theresa Redmond and Jeff Share answer questions from Karen Ambrosh and Marieli Rowe How did your interest in Ecomedia Literacy evolve? Jeff: I have always been passionate about the environment and environmentalism, from annual backpacking in the Sierras to photographing for the TreePeople, a local environmental organization. However, it was not … [Read more...] about Beginnings…Connections…Intersections: A Conversation with our Guest Editors
Ecomedia Literacy
Media Literacy from an Ecological Perspective: A New Normal that Makes us Question What Was Normal
A Letter from the Editors As we publish our first online issue of The Journal of Media Literacy, we are keenly aware that this is not just a change in format, but also an adaptation to an ever-changing media environment. It is part of the evolution of culture, suddenly greatly accelerated by unforeseen, indeed catastrophic events, yet inevitable if seen over the passage of … [Read more...] about Media Literacy from an Ecological Perspective: A New Normal that Makes us Question What Was Normal
The Journal of Sustainability Education Editorial Overview
Foreword from JSE Editor-in-Chief, Clare Hintz: The Journal of Sustainability Education marks its tenth anniversary year with an issue on Water Literacy (published in March) and this issue, Ecomedia Literacy. From a dream of several Ph.D. students at Prescott College (U.S.), we have come a long way to an internationally known, peer-reviewed journal, publishing two to … [Read more...] about The Journal of Sustainability Education Editorial Overview
Ecomedia: The Metaphor that Makes a Difference
Abstract: Media is an ambiguous metaphor that changes meaning depending on how it’s used by educators. Typically media are only characterized by how they represent reality and communicate ideas. Consequently, the metaphor assumes a taken-for-granted meaning that media are immaterial with no environmental impact. Instead, the term ecomedia signals media’s inherent … [Read more...] about Ecomedia: The Metaphor that Makes a Difference
Book Review: Why Trust Science?
Why Trust Science? by Naomi Oreskes (2019) Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Download full article PDF >> In her latest book, Why Trust Science?, history of science professor Naomi Oreskes does a wonderful job discussing the complexity of this question. She takes a difficult task and rather than simplify it, she dives deep into an exploration of … [Read more...] about Book Review: Why Trust Science?
Green Guerrillas Youth Media Tech Collective: Sustainable Storytellers Challenging the Status Quo
Abstract: The Green Guerrillas Youth Media Tech Collective, a community organization based in Ithaca, New York, set out to define sustainability in their own terms by giving a diverse group of local adolescents the opportunity to engage subjects of environmental and social justice through digital media production within the auspices of a unique afterschool job-training … [Read more...] about Green Guerrillas Youth Media Tech Collective: Sustainable Storytellers Challenging the Status Quo
Briefing: Project Look Sharp’s Decoding Media Constructions and Substantiality
Abstract: This article explores how teachers can integrate the theory and practice of media literacy education into the teaching of sustainability content. It highlights two lessons, one for elementary students on bottled water choices and one for high school students on climate change and agriculture, detailing lesson construction and execution. The article explains how … [Read more...] about Briefing: Project Look Sharp’s Decoding Media Constructions and Substantiality
Snacking on Media Literacy: Young Children, Sustainability, and Design in Media Literacy Education
Abstract: This case study illustrates a cross-curricular learning experience, anchored in standards, where teachers and students actively engaged in co-constructed, inquiry-based learning and design thinking. The particular question this case study addressed was “How might students connect with environmental citizenship in authentic ways through media literacy … [Read more...] about Snacking on Media Literacy: Young Children, Sustainability, and Design in Media Literacy Education
Training Community-based Journalists for Climate Change Reporting: Lessons from South Africa
Abstract: Reporting to the public on climate change impacts, adaptation, and mitigation requires journalists to be equipped to engage with a wide range of technical content in order to communicate it in an accessible and engaging way. Recognizing the need for journalists from a wide range of backgrounds, including those from community newspapers and radio stations in South … [Read more...] about Training Community-based Journalists for Climate Change Reporting: Lessons from South Africa
The Tree of Life (2011), Eco-theology & Film: A Conversation with Prof. George Handley
Movies as Mirrors is a conversation podcast about representation in movies hosted by Benjamin Thevenin, Associate Professor of Media Arts at Brigham Young University. Each episode features a guest who selects a film that reflects a social issue that interests or affects them. On this episode, BYU Professor of Humanities George Handley discusses the 2011 movie The Tree of Life, … [Read more...] about The Tree of Life (2011), Eco-theology & Film: A Conversation with Prof. George Handley
Bella Gaia and the Pedagogical Power of the Overview Effect: An Interview with Kenji Williams
Abstract: Bella Gaia (Beautiful Earth) is a performance that combines a world-music inspired soundtrack with projected graphics, animations and video to educate about climate change. A hybrid of art and science, the nonlinear performance is an example of an emerging form of ecomedia in which remote sensing media are used to transform audiences to experience Earth as an organic, … [Read more...] about Bella Gaia and the Pedagogical Power of the Overview Effect: An Interview with Kenji Williams
Blooming in the Doom and Gloom: Bringing Regenerative Pedagogy to the Rebellion
Abstract: Transformative sustainable pedagogy and public intellectual work share the same aims and guideposts, including upholding higher education’s foundational intentions of fostering moral character in tomorrow’s leaders. Radical modes of sustainable education (including regenerative pedagogy, which tends to the global shift to restore, respect, and regenerate … [Read more...] about Blooming in the Doom and Gloom: Bringing Regenerative Pedagogy to the Rebellion
Coal’s Last Gasp, Its Resuscitation by the Media and the Habitus of NIMBY
Abstract: The shift away from coal to renewable energy for electricity generation is producing environmental benefits during the climate crisis but also poses uncertainty for coal producers and others along the coal supply chain. Media representations of the coal debate shape how citizens understand and respond to it. This commentary exposes how audiences – even of … [Read more...] about Coal’s Last Gasp, Its Resuscitation by the Media and the Habitus of NIMBY
Fake Climate News: How Denying Climate Change is the Ultimate in Fake News
Download full article pdf >> After the 2016 US-presidential election and Brexit referendum, fake news emerged as a quintessential democratic problem that media literacy was tasked to solve. The broad social concern about fake news acknowledges that the public sphere is a kind of commons that requires tending, and reminds us of the human (and civic) need for … [Read more...] about Fake Climate News: How Denying Climate Change is the Ultimate in Fake News
Media Education and Ecological Modernism: Embodiment, Technology and Citizenship
Abstract: The field of media education, emerging within the instrumental vision of modernity, has largely ignored its unspoken modernist assumptions. In this article, we argue the time has come to fully engage an embodied view of media from an evolutionary, ecological perspective—what we might call ecological modernism. This is a perspective that views media as evolving … [Read more...] about Media Education and Ecological Modernism: Embodiment, Technology and Citizenship
Moving from STEM to MESH
Abstract: America is falling behind the rest of the world in science and math. There is, therefore, a renewed emphasis on STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). But while mastery of STEM subjects is essential to the functioning of society, we’ve neglected some other areas that are at least as important, if not more so. But without an equal commitment to … [Read more...] about Moving from STEM to MESH
Sustainability Education, Responsible Truthfulness and Hypnotic Phenomena
Abstract: I propose in this essay that a key to rebalancing life systems now being harmed by human activity requires a return to the priority of “truthfulness” as practiced by traditional Indigenous cultures for whom words are sacred vibrations of energy, requiring close attention to how one describes reality as truthfully and holistically as possible. This contrasts with the … [Read more...] about Sustainability Education, Responsible Truthfulness and Hypnotic Phenomena
Connecting Youth, Eco-Media and Resilience in Appalachia
Abstract: In the summer of 2019, the We are All Connected urban-rural youth media program launched Something in Our Water, an eco-media documentary project that investigates the shared problem of water sustainability, public health, and climate change in their communities. This article discusses the transformative experience that the youth from New York City … [Read more...] about Connecting Youth, Eco-Media and Resilience in Appalachia
The Pedagogy of Sustainable Web Design
Abstract: As education increasingly emphasizes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), many media educators may choose to promote skills-based technology curricula as a substitute for critical forms of media literacy. This poses a challenge for media educators who are trying to incorporate environmental issues into their pedagogical practice. As a website designer, I … [Read more...] about The Pedagogy of Sustainable Web Design
Teaching for Environmental Justice at the Educational Video Center
Abstract: While teaching about climate change in K-12 schools often focuses on the catastrophic crises it is causing on a global scale, for students from poor and historically marginalized communities a pedagogy of environmental justice centers their own local neighborhoods, schools, and homes as sites for investigation and action. The Educational Video Center (EVC) in New York … [Read more...] about Teaching for Environmental Justice at the Educational Video Center
