Right-wing non-news story #20563

Category: Education
Objective: Ridicule/Propaganda
Objectivity: Zero
Source: The Australian
Cliche invoked: Dumbed-down syllabuses
Real agenda: We can’t have kids thinking about things like this! Who knows what that might lead to?

…The teaching guide suggests students count the number of ads screened during a one-hour prime-time television show, such as CSI or Big Brother, and note the products and their intended market. Students report on “the values, attitudes and beliefs underlying the television show” and the target audiences identified for the ads.

“Consider what common messages are being sent to the social groups by the show itself and the advertisements screened with it,” students are told…

An assignment on mass media has students investigate “how the media manipulate news stories in order to make them more interesting, increase their ratings, or serve their own interests”.

Another aspect asks: “To what lengths are print media editors willing to go in order to sell news and, consequently, make money?”

As an English teacher, I have been doing ALL the recommended assignments, or ones very like them, for at least thirty years. I would have been remiss if I hadn’t; they are all part of developing critical literacy.

I have also taught the classics, Shakespeare, and even grammar. Latin too, on occasions.

Why was this archetypical Today Tonight beatup in a broadsheet like the Oz? It is not hidden either, but loudly flagged on the top of page one, where you would have noted in the print edition the blatant use of an editorialising and misleading headline: Mr Messy Becomes a Year 12 Text.

Could this be down to the new political correctness — Donnellyism? Rupert loves it. So does John.

Still, it gave me something to talk about with my coachee today, who is just starting that excellent Year 12 unit on Frontline, Telling the Truth.

In 1994, the first of three series of Frontline was greeted with critical acclaim. It was received somewhat more gingerly by some sections of the media however, with several current affairs programs feeling threatened and becoming defensive, as though they, personally, were under attack.

Earlier we had been studying King Lear.