Page 528 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

Telev s on n Schools | 0

edison PrediCts the Future oF eduCation
“Books will soon be obsolete in the schools. Scholars will soon be instructed through the
eye. It is possible to teach every branch of human knowledge with the motion picture.
Our school system will be completely changed in ten years.”

Thomas Edison in the New York Dramatic Mirror, July 9, 1913 (Saettler 1990)

with differently inflected goals and justifications. Advocates of critical pedagogy
including Henry Giroux, Peter L. Mclaren, and others have suggested the impor-
tance of valuing and respecting students’ knowledge and expertise in the realm
of mass media culture in order for education to be authentically engaging with
their lived experience. Steven Goodman, founding director of the Educational
Video Center in New York City, is one of a number of pioneers of approaches
that aim to facilitate critical viewing practices while engaging students in video
or television production. The work of these in-school and after-school programs
is rooted in the belief that students can learn a great deal about the biases and
gaps in mass media representations by engaging with representational practices
within their own local communities.

ChannEL onE: CommErCiaL EDuCaTionaL TELEvision
anD ThE PrivaTizaTion oF sChooLs

By far, the largest incursion of television into U.S. schools has taken place
under the auspices of the business initiative Channel One, which provides
schools with loans of television, video, and satellite technology in return for a
commitment to have their students watch its daily 12-minute news program
replete with product placement and two minutes of advertising. Founded in
1989 by Whittle Communications, and currently owned by Primedia, Channel
One is watched by 7 million middle school and high school students through-
out the country. This amounts to nearly 30 percent of U.S. teenagers. Participat-
ing schools agree to have 80 percent of their students watch 90 percent of daily
programs.
It is not surprising that any single entity with such influence on education
would draw a great deal of concern and scrutiny from parents, educators, gov-
ernment officials, and anyone concerned with teens and young adults. And in-
deed Channel One has. Critics across the political spectrum have challenged
the ethics of requiring students to watch commercial advertising, essentially
questioning the right to sell students’ time and attention to advertisers within a
compulsory education system. This has aligned conservative groups and leaders
(including the Family Research Council; Focus on the Family; American Fam-
ily Association and Phyllis Schlafly; and the Southern Baptist Convention) with
consumer advocates (such as Ralph Nader) and liberal and progressive groups
(including the National Education Association, the American Federation of