YOST4316: Media and Youth: Learning, Teaching, and Doing

This interactive course will introduce interested youth workers to media as a tool for working with youth. It will review the theory and contemporary context of youth media practice. It will showcase exemplar youth media organizations from diverse communities and will introduce and provide hands-on practice with various forms of youth media.This class will focus on a theoretical framework of critical media literacy (CML). CML equips young people with opportunities and resources necessary for them to critically analyze, use, and produce various forms of media. Like traditional notions of literacy, critical media literacy depends on two interdependent components: analysis and production. In terms of analysis, media literacy is the ability to sift through and analyze the messages that inform, entertain, and sell to youth every day. It is the ability to bring critical thinking skills to bear on all aspects of media— from online news outlets and podcasts to Facebook algorithms and the shrinking ownership of mass media. In terms of production, the course will provide exposure to and an an opportunity to engage technical skills, artistic expression, contribute to public dialogue, and to experience how young people are contributing to their worlds through youth media projects like: murals, graffiti, spoken word, music, documentaries, magazines, public service announcements, and digital storytelling.Prior completion of YOST 1001 is highly recommended.

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