Who Owns Your Mind?
media literacy
Over 3000 advertising images come at us each day, whether we are aware of them or not. The volume and sophistication of these images is unprecedented in human activity. Neil Postman writes in Amusing Ourselves to Death that Aldous Huxley (Brave New World) "feared the truth would would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance." Prophetically, "As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think."
This class offers cultural analysis and practice in deconstructing advertising, the engine that drives the corporate media machine (print, TV, news) with its phenomenal influence on thinking, perception, brain development, body image, consumerism, stimulus addiction, and imagination itself. Current web sites, videos, articles and student research examine and reveal the psychological and ecological costs of this multi-billion dollar behavior modification experiment. The work is designed to to empower kids, parents, and teachers with tools of analysis to counter this aggressive marketing that heavily "targets" the most vulnerable populations, our children.
Susan Banyas is a graduate of the New Mexico Media Literacy Catalyst Training and a founding member of the NW Media Literacy Center. She has designed media literacy classes for da Vinci Middle School (Portland), Synergy School (SF), Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education (Portland), Regional Arts Council Art & Technology Conference.
Project Specific.