Does the person become the name or does the name become the person? This question was asked by a participant of my culture jam entitled, "What's my name?" In this culture jam, I asked people to discern the name of a person based solely on their appearance and a list of possible names below their picture. This article aims to show how culture jams…

The emergence of the SuperPACs in American politics is a major issue in the current election. SuperPACs, and the media campaigns they fund, also present a major challenge for media and democratic education. This article explores the issues surrounding SuperPACs and the rise of media in elections and politics in general, and presents some starting…

Black Women in America is an upper-division elective course for students majoring in African American or women's studies at California State University Fullerton (CSUF). The author has taught this course at CSUF at least once a year since 2002 and have changed the course readings, lectures, and assignments on a regular basis. In April 2007,…

This article explores unique issues regarding the effects of hip-hop culture on the identity development of young Black female college students. Through the lenses of womanist and Black feminist perspectives, the intersecting impact of race and gender are reviewed within the context of the competing influences of hip-hop on Black female identity.…

"Rethinking Popular Culture and Media" is a provocative collection of articles that begins with the idea that the "popular" in classrooms and in the everyday lives of teachers and students is fundamentally political. This anthology includes outstanding articles by elementary and secondary public school teachers, scholars, and activists who…

Moses discusses research findings about television, young children, and literacy. She addresses research on a number of topics: How much and what kind of programming do children watch? What is the literacy content in popular children's programming? Does programming send positive or negative messages about literacy? What is television's impact on…

Media literacy compels us to look anew at the most mundane, that which surrounds us: the media and our popular culture. From there media literacy compels us to accept that the media are constructed and to seek various ways to analyze them, while considering our own beliefs to evaluate for ourselves an ultimate interpretation. This process has the…

The messages students receive through popular media such as movies, television, the internet, and music videos have a powerful influence and can shape their thinking. A national survey of media use by 8- to 18-year-olds found the average adolescent spends over seven and a half hours daily with entertainment media (KFF 2010). Rather than viewing…

Since May 24, 2006 millions of people have seen the movie "An Inconvenient Truth." Several countries have even proposed using the film as an educational tool in school classrooms. However, it is not yet clear that the movie accomplishes its apparent goals of increasing knowledge and concern, and motivating people to reduce their…

This article examines sociocultural research on early literacy development in the digital age. The last decade has witnessed a proliferation of informational technology that has fundamentally shifted how we think about language and literacy in the early childhood years. Despite these trends, narrow and reductive views of literacy continue to…

This article looks at how "The Simpsons'" representations of aging, considered ageist and stereotypical by some, can be viewed as a positive look at the elderly that attempts to subvert the same stereotypes that it seemingly employs. The Baby Boom cohort is now seen as an attractive economic group, and as they continue their journey through the…

This study had two goals: first, to examine the validity of the television rating system for assessing aggression in programs popular among girls; second, to evaluate the importance of inclusion of non-physical forms of aggression in the ratings system by examining associations between television aggression exposure and behavior. Ninety-nine fifth…

The media environment is currently being dramatically changed by social networking, mobile computing, augmented reality, and transmedia. Of these four, transmedia is probably the least familiar to most educators. Transmedia enhances a central story idea with a variety of media components that provide additional information, give increased…

Domestic abuse continues to claim many lives in Spain despite a series of new laws to protect women and to punish abusers. This essay explores the cultural influences of contemporary Spanish cinema on domestic violence. Four films are assessed against a Portfolio Model of social responsibility that uses two basic dimensions: realism and human…

First published in 1957, following a battle with nervous lawyers, "The Uses of Literacy" is recognized as one of the founding texts of cultural studies. Its critique of mass culture reverberated far beyond that discipline. It influenced the librarians of the day who were beginning to think about issues of class and consider their…