Running head: Media Production

MEDT 7490
Visual and Media Literacy for Teaching a Learning
Media Production
Research Article Summaries
Raegan Dillon
July 21, 2016

Media Production

Introduction
In order to prepare our students to be 21st-century learners, educators must change the
traditional role of being the sage on the stage to the role of being the guide on the side. Teachers
need to engage students in learning. Teachers also need to create opportunities for collaboration
in their classrooms. Media production is the perfect tool to engage students into the process. By
allowing students practice with the tools and process, teachers will involve students in problem
solving and critical thinking. The following case studies examine media production in the
classroom.
Article 1
Friesem, E. (2014). A story of conflict and collaboration: media literacy, video production and
disadvantaged youth. Journal of Media Literacy Education 6(1). 44-55.
In the article A Story of Conflict and Collaboration: Media Literacy, Video Production
and Disadvantaged Youth, Elizaveta Friesem stresses the need for students to learn collaborate
in order to meet the Common Core State Standards and the 21st Century Skills initiative. She
states that successful collaboration must endure some conflict. It is important for young learners
to experience this. She also discusses the importance of visual literacy and the importance of
media production to increase motivation.
Friesem feels educators need to teach children to critically analyze the media by
deconstructing them, and by creating their own media messages to express their voices (p. 44).
Media production collaboration has shown positive results in adolescents to improve their
identity and to allow them a sense of control over their life. Friesem views video production as a
form of art therapy. The goal of her project was to document and analyze media literacy
intervention. The first research question asked in her study was, if media production as a part of

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media literacy curriculum could play a role of art therapy, how does the issue of collaboration fit
into the picture? Next, do conflicts arising in the process of collaboration hamper creativity and
diminish therapeutic properties of video production?, and finally, How do children from
marginalized populations experience collaborative movie making?
To answer these questions, Friesem conducted a study of twenty-two foster children. She
put herself into the research serving as a portraiture. This is a qualitative methodology that lets
the investigator get involved, but it does not take away from subjectivity, rather it embraces it so
the researcher can empathize with the research subjects. It gives the researcher a glimpse into
the subjects lives. Friesem stated that portraiture helped her capture the complexity of
interaction that took place during the messy process of media production. Friesem admits that
her study lacks objectivity and generalizability (p. 47) of quantitative methods, but the tradeoff
is worth it to explore the complexities that even some qualitative researchers might miss.
The twenty-two foster adolescents ranged from ages 14-16. They all attended a summer
program at First Star Academy. They participated in classes of English, math, art, and
videography. Videography gave them the opportunity to participate in media production. The
students used flip cameras and edited the video they shot. Students were required to complete
three video projects. They had to complete a commercial, a music video, and a final video of
choice.
Friesem chose not to focus on the process, but rather on the dynamics of the students
working together. She found that through this experience the students were no longer victims.
They took on new roles as they were able to control the actors, locations, shooting techniques,
and scripts. Friesem found that during the project students had very high levels of motivation
due to having an awareness that their voices could be heard. In the beginning before this class,

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many of the students had been distrustful and antagonistic, but after the class, these attitudes had
changed. The children would return to their foster homes after this program, and these attitudes
may change back. Friesem showed though that even if was only for the time of the program that
media production gave students power to control their circumstances. Collaboration brought
about relations for a purpose. Students did not always have to agree with each other to produce a
product that they would be proud of. Friesem found that creativity and freedom were used to
create motivation.
This research article was well written. As an educator, I really appreciated Friesem
looking for value not just statistics. She really got involved in the research. The one thing I
would like to have seen would have been if the lessons and collaboration used at the summer
program followed the students from the program. I think the idea of giving students control over
their productions will work with all kinds of students, not just the students in this study. Media
production empowers students. It gives them a sense of accomplishment.
Article 2
Ranker, J. (2008). Composing across multiple media: a case study of digital video production
in a fifth grade classroom. Written Communication, 25(2), 196-234.
doi:10.1177/0741088307313021
In this article, Composing Across Multiple Media: A Case Study of Digital Video
Production in a Fifth Grade Classroom, (2008) Jason Ranker conducts a qualitative case study
of two fifth grade students. He examines their writing processes as they create a documentary
video on the Dominican Republic. He looks at how moving across multiple media sources such
as books, writings, digital video, and the internet is effected in creating a video production.

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The two students in this study attend an urban public school. They are members of a
language arts class of eight that are identified as struggling in literacy development according
to a district standardized test. Ranker was intrigues by this remedial literacy curriculum. The
students worked on their video production two hours daily. Ranker spent one to two days a week
with the boys as they completed their video on the Dominican Republic. The following
questions are the research questions for this study. How did the students use digital video
production in connection with other media (books, writing, and the Web) as part of their overall
composing processes? What various resources did they draw from digital video and the other
media? How were the resources interwoven?
The two boys in the study used video editing software as they created their production.
This software gave them a space to organize their content and an integrative center for their
work in other media. They had access to a storyboard that they could manipulate. This space
produced a place where they could create semiotic relationships. They could do here what they
could not do using each tool individually. Ranker relied on qualitative data for his study. He
gathered copies of the work and audio recording of the work being done. He analyzed the data
by putting them into literacy events. From there he saw where meaning was being made. He
used triangulation as he analyzed the data that he had coded.
This study showed that the video production tools did increase meaning of literacy
events. The students were able to match up video, audio, and their writing. The video
production tool allowed them a composing space and a landscape to view all of their work and
make larger, deeper connections. The students in this study became immersed in composition
through visual representations that allowed them to improve and reshape their work.

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This study really brought about the multimedia theory. I was especially interested
because these were struggling learners. I think this study shows that different people learn
differently. This is another strategy we can use to help students learn. It would be interesting to
do this same study with students who were not struggling to see if there is even more of an
advantage.
Article 3
Montgomery, S. E. (2014). Critical democracy through digital media production in a third-grade
Classroom. Theory & Research in Social Education, 42(2), 197-227.
doi:10.1080/00933104.2014.908755
In the article, Critical Democracy Through Digital Media Production in a Third-Grade
Classroom, the review of literature brings up the idea that historically schools former purpose
was to develop democratic citizens. This role has changed. Now schools are bound by required
testing, and they now enforce skill and drill. Instead of engaging students into world we live in,
schools are becoming training grounds for test taking. This article describes how technology
has transformed education. There is an untapped potential to use technology to promote
democratic citizenship. Students in schools today have been exposed to technology tools since
birth. Technology is embedded in their society. Montgomery stresses that the youth of today
need to know how to use technology, but most importantly, they need to combine technology into
the culture they are participating in and creating.
In this study, third grade students use digital audio to create podcasts. These students are
enrolled in a racially diverse school in a Midwestern city. 90% of the students at the school
receive free or reduced lunch. The school is considered a failing school since it has not yet

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made Adequate Yearly Progress. There are fifteen participants in this study along with their
teachers. There are nine girls and six boys. Eight of the students are African American or
multiracial. The rest are Caucasian. The teacher is also a participant in this study. She is a
veteran teacher with 25 years of experience. She is Caucasian.
The teacher worked with the students to create podcasts that would be posted on a class
blog. The podcasts addressed issues of gender, race, and class. Topics included child labor,
womens suffrage, slavery and Indian boarding schools. They also included historical figures
such as Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass. There were eight podcasts created. Each student
worked on some aspect of each podcast.
Montgomery used field notes, document reviews, photographs, and the actual podcasts
themselves, and interviews of all of the participants to gather qualitative research. There were
themes discovered. Students became highly engaged in the podcasts. Students saw themselves
as educators teaching others about issues such as freedom and fairness. Results from the
qualitative data provided evidence that the students felt they could use their podcasts to change
the way people thought about issues. The students felt they could help people learn.
Montgomery stated that the comments suggested the students believed in the power of their
public contribution through podcasting. They felt empowered.
This study confirmed that by taking action in creating students were becoming active
citizens. They were creating for an audience and wanted to teach people. By using technology,
we are taking the role of schools teaching testing and changing it to schools teaching democracy.
I think this study is powerful. These third grade students with the help of their teacher were able
to use production to teach. They were also learning the basic curriculum as they produced their

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podcast. I would have liked this study to include video. I have a suspicion the results would be
the same.

Conclusion
Media production is still new. I could not find any articles that used quantitative data. I
would like to see if students who participated in media production actually have increased
academic achievement. I do appreciate that the struggling students in one of the case studies
used visual and written input to increase their learning. The used their reading and writing and
combined it with the visuals of the digital editing. I was pleasantly surprised with all of the
references to media literacy. This is something I wish I had learned about when I started
teaching. All of the articles read show positive outcomes for media production.