|
|
Communication Education in the School and
José Manuel Moran
The extent of critical reading of communication
There has been a significant increase in recent years in the study of communication media both in schools and in informal education. In Latin America, inductive and participatory methodologies have been developed, using a variety of techniques relating society to television, as well as other communication media, particularly in situations where informal education takes place: courses and projects for young people, communities, religious, educational and workers` leaders. These experiences have revealed both methodological and theoretical advances, but they do not always have a profound vision of the relation between communication and education, which makes it difficult to develop their potential fully. Critical reading of communication in a particular way of reading, a way of reading reality and of reading society. It is a reading of social chances, of people’s relationships and of symbolic relationships; it is a reading of cultural expressions. It is an unraveling of ideological relationships, of the weave of cultural meanings in the social fabric, mainly those diffused by communication media. It is finding a meaning for cultural expressions, for the way human beings express themselves and relate to each other. It is interpreting the world of knowledge, of ideas and of life, which is expressed in different ways through human communication. To read communication is to capture the articulation and effective diffusion, in the form of change, of the many world visions of the value-systems of individuals, groups and social classes which continually interact. To read communication is to perceive the effective, visible expression of social dynamism at the level of culture. To read communication is to recognize the importance of communication media and their lack to transparency, naturalness and objectivity. To read communication is to perceive the reality of the spoken word, even in the predominant situation of "receiver". To read is to propose new forms of expression, of social participation. To read communication is to interpret these powerful mediations within the ideological and cultural universe, since their principal function is the diffusion of dominant cultural values. It is to discover the meaning of the system, with the predominant totalitarian character of its ruling class. To read communication is to discover hidden human and economic relationships, to explain hidden contradictions. To unmask the discrepancies between discourse and practice, by "changing the nature" of the life model presented by the mass media. "The communication model existing in Latin America is ideological in the sense of corresponding to its social structure: its ideology is expressed through mass media. What is happening to the education system can also be seen in the use of the instruments of mass communication: both are "functional" phenomena of the ruling socio-economic model and both inevitably impoverish the understanding of reality. They feed a continual chain of assertions, feeling and wishes in order to sustain the whole system: at the macro-social, educational and familial levels. '1 Communication can be analyzed as a link between networks of carriers, of "relays", of technologies, of systems which transport messages and put into circulation cultural commodities. Over and above communication being tied to political and economic power, it is a specific branch of the economy and the administration. It gernerates jobs and resources. But most studies focus on communication, mainly the mass media, as a carrier of ideology, principally the dominant ideology. It has a fundamental dimension, which is to interpret reality by means of coides that carry the world vision of the sender (people, groups, institutions). It has a hermeneutics, primarily of the sender. But a hermeneutics of the receiver is also necessary, of how those same messages are received and re-worked by different groups and people. To read communaction is to reveal the business and tecnological structure of communication and also to unmask the privileged realm of ideology, whick works by force of persuasion and the comprehensiveness of communicatin media. The predominat attitude sees than as media for entertainment, leisure, relaxation and keeping in touch with the world. This simplified and schematic characteristic, typical of ideology, is ascribed, even by enlightened people, to the superficial character of the media, to the pressures of time, to the cost of the space. Its power to seduce, the speed with which stories are told, points of view changed, everything collaborates in order to dazzle, to blunt intelligence and to sharpen sensibility, intuition, affectivity: in short, the sensory ride of existence. Media are also a privileged sphere for ideology because they presenet themselves "unpretentiously" without wanting to teach, to prescribe or to be a nuisance. They present themselves in direct, easy and close relationships, without difficulties of interpretation. What they carry seems obvious. Many people not understand, at first, why television must be studied. They do not see it as problem. Communication has a material dimension, in the form of techonology, 'relays', business, fulfilling people's leisure demands. It also has a representation dimension, in the form of information and data exchange, the form of information and dat exchange, ideological exchange. Thirkly, it has a pragmatic dimension in the way it affects relations between individuals, groups, social chasses and society as a whole, and in the way it intervenes in opinions, beliefs, customs, attitudes and values. Critical reading cannot remain at the leves of representation, of ideology; it must take the material dimension into account - nology - and the pragmatic dimension: how individuals relate to messagens sent. To read communication is to try to follow this mixture of social expressions, both at the level of mega-communication (the mass media) and at the level of more specific expressions (gruop, institutional and intra-class media). It has two basic aspects: to collect and explain the world vivisions inherent in the varios processes (to collect the material elements of ideology) and the mediations which link classes, groups and persons. To read communications is to decipher the various ideological codes inherent in each moment of the historical process and to explain, by means of those same codes, how inter-class, inter-group and inerpersonal power relationships are established. To read is to develop, together with persons and groups, this perception of the material elements of ideoloy and of power relationships, using various participatory methodological procedures, and to propose in the same participatory manner more adequate ways of expressing new world visions and new power relationships. To read a message means to locate it within the universe of our understandin, values and action. Every message is situted within the space of our mind-plan, of our 'cultural'space, on the basis of which we understand, evaluate and enter upon reality.2
This universe of
understanding reality is gradually being developed both at the social and
individual levels. Humanity only relations with the universe, slowly
overcoming naive, mythic knowledge. As a child the individual develops
sensorial experience or motor-sensory knowledge, as Piaget believes, passing
through symbolic knowledge or that of the imagination, and the through
intutiv knowledge. Much later he or she arrives at practical knowledge which
consists of logically organising perceived objects in groups, series, rank,
classes, numbers. Finally the individual arrives at abstract knowledge,
which is the ability to carry out real acts by means of the formal use of
language and of the domain of menttal activites implied b reversibility,
mutuality and objectivity 3.p This evolution in understanding reality is not
a matter of course; it presupposes certain social, cultural and economic
conditions, which allow thge development of the child's potential. Many
people cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality, cannot manage to
organise their perceptions. On the other hand, the emphasis on abstractic
demanded by scholars can impede - which frequently happens - sensibility,
intuition an fantasy, identifyuibg critcal ability with formalisation and
theoretical abstraction.
The extent of critical reading of communication The development of humanity's cultural understanding passes from the dimension of perception,which is empirical and 'verifiable' by the senses, in which the universe stifles and frigthens - hence extrasensory percetion - towards a second stage which is that of awaremes of the person as someone who is different from that universe, who is the centre from which everything is perceived, who discover themselves as beings in relation. It is an existential-phenomenological dimension through which humanity passes, as a collectivity and as individuals, in its personal evolution. In the third stage of understanding reality we see the structural dimension, the relation of wholeness: the person is not the centre of the world; he or she develops unequall ways of organising life which are linked dialectically. At this stage the person develops a structural theoiry of society. The child is unable to establish relatioons at the structural leves; it still lacks a sufficently developed practical knowledge. Humanity also delays its enconter with theories which explain the whole, the totality, and not only the subjective, the immediate. To read critically is to inergrate these different stages: from the sensory to the abstract, from immediate explanations to structural explanations, from the individual to the social. All the work on critical reading shows that people are neither passive nor dominated by media products. The kinf of relationship between receiver and producer in mass communication is that of exchange. "It is necessary to explain that the great mass of television audiences come, in terms of exchange, in search of messages which reinforce their opinions or satisfy their emotional, affective and sexual needs... No communication product pleases if it is made exclusively according to the interest criteria of those who control the flow of information and mass communication. Without exchange there is no consensus you cannot create an audience. Said simbolically, without money there is no exchange, neither equivalent value nor ideological sustenance. Consequently, no communication.'4 There were excesses in dependency theory, in the absolusation of power, in the concept of domination, in the notion of social control by means of ideology. Media ownership was confused with its power to reach people effectively; exchange, effective mediation, different readings, reworkings by different social groups were all forgotten. Today one sees the danger of fascination with resistance and of ignoring the power of domination are more subtle, seductive and impercepctible. The capitalist way of thinking extends to all classes, even to the most marginalised, which consume through desire, either by substitution or by imagination. The shift to the receiver cannot but point simultaneously towards the sender, towards the ability of seductive discourse to adapt, to negociate agreements. The concept of hegemony explains strategy of control, seduction, involvement of the middle class in society as a whole. Strategies which daily become more subtle and refined. The concept of hegemony allows us to understand the middle-class capacity to absorb, to incorporate, "to acept" certain contradictions appear in the area of work or of social class as momentary differences (conflict at work at times of salary adjustments...). In narrative fiction the conflicts are weakened, changed into "normal" or "natural" differences of social organization, where there is the possibility of interaction between classes, social mobility and affective realisation between different social groups. Hegemony must be understood together with the concept of dialectics. It is evident in all capitalist structures that advances in modes of production are accompanied by more visible ways in which civil society expresses itself, in a stregthening of social movements obtain more media space to demand their rights, in basic areas such as health, ecology, and individual rights. On the other hand, there is a strong attraction to the capitalist way, to consumerism as the realisation of desires, to the search for individual values as more important than those of society. And this shows itself explicitly in the drying up of structural changes (agrariam reform, socialisation of the means of production or participation of the working class in the national wealth). This correlation of forces in the media occurs in the flutuating balance between better explanations of civil society`s demand for its rights which, without doubt, appear more clearly, and the ways of denying them their impact or of diminishing their political significance. In narractive fiction, principally novels, important questions appear about the social environment, inf the form of localised criticism of corruption and the power of the marajas (power-brokers). But narrative, as a whole, places theses criticisms within a harmonious context in which dialogue between the social classes is perfectly viable, and where criticism does not go beyond frank talking about life-styles or financial difficulties, but still allowing the expectation (and the realisation towards the end of the novel) of meaningful changes in the economic life of popular groups (they will obtain good jobs, make friends with important people, establish warm relationships with groups of others classes...). Narrative fiction presents more data about reality, but as a whole they remain superficial. Narrative information (programmes which try to keep us informed on a daily basis) is more complex, but no less subtle. Polemic themes appear more often, criticism of particular behaviour are clearer. But there is a series of narrative devices which try to withhold at least a part of the impact of that criticism. There are simple rhetorical mechanisms such as the decontextualisation of information (not clearly siting each fact in the story) or giving it a particular bias, which is worse. There are also ways of simplifying, such as juxtaposing information to suggest cause and effect when neither situation is necessarily linked in that way. For example, certain political news about a party on the left, attached to news of strikes telling of workers refusing to come to terms, suggests cause and effect (that their intransigence is fed by the parties of the left). There is also the classical stereotyped treatment, which is used to make it easy for the public to understand. But the stereotype, always repeated in the same way, can increase particular preconceptions of society. At the same time, the rhymitic dynamic of collecting information can lead to cumulative effects which can as well serve to create something which is spetacular rather than ideologically motivated. To put several pieces of positive or negative news together, gives them a multiplyinf effect which one piece on its own would not have. For example, at the beginning of the Currency Plan, news followed by reports on social fiscal control implied that the whole of society was subject to fiscal control, was engaged in the same way in this struggle, whereas in reality there were various levels of participation and exclusion. In the same way, when news is followed by items about administrative corruption by former governors, the result is a tendency to generalise on two levels: first to assume that the past is worse than the present, and secondly that, now, moralising has had concrete results or, alternatively, that neither is valid.5 Along with rhetorical mechanisms of information structures it is important to observe that social actors are newsworthy: they are interviewed and made public. The majority belong to the middle class (politics, finance and business) and they appear with much more prominence than other groups and social movements, especially those of the working class. Apart from quantity, there are also quantitative differences: there as significant differences in the way these people are presented, with a clear disadvantage fot the working classes. All these ways of looking at the problem deflate part of the information carried principally by television (with a larger audience than that of the newspapers). That information is not uniform and, at certain times, carries points of view questioning the middle-class, thanks to social pressures and to the contradictions within the information industry (from many journalists and from the need for social credibility). But in sum they succeed, as the techniques indicated above suggest, in diminishing the critical impact of information as a whole. Analysis remains insufficient if we do not look at mediations between the culture industry and civil society. The advances of civil society accompanying the capitalist mode of production result, in part, from its better access to education and exposure to many different cultural manifestations. Civil society continues to incorporate and to develop instruments to understand reality, which are not absolutely controlled by the media, and which permits different readings of those same cultural products. Readings which are not always consistent or comprehensive, but which, at least at part, neutralizes some of the ideological impact of the media. Contradictions also occur at the level of the receiver, although it becomes extremely difficult to delimit the symbolic re-workings of the various social groups. My own work in critical reading of communication with groups from different social classes confirms the diversity of perceptions and interpretation, which, though they are difficult to systematizes, demonstrate that the cultural industry does not monopolizes every possibility in the perception of meaning. Anthropology confirms personal mediations: "Over and above the level of resolving questions, anthropology shows us that we experience days full of persons, with their memories, ideas, words, gestures, sympathies and affairs, certainly predetermined but, for all that, vigorous in their ability to give meaning through their specific qualities.'6 The degree of personal knowledge that the individual has in relation to a particular matter has an influence over the total or partial acceptance of a piece of information. The degree of interference from other sources, beyond television, in the formation of a person’s representations of reality gives him or her better opportunities to question, criticize and reject what is seen on television. "Church, workers unions, political parties, newspapers and radio, as well as other people, are in constant interaction with individuals and give them information which contradicts what is read from TV. "Interpersonal sources and social institutions closest to the individual are more influential.'7 Finally, the more people know about and have access to communication media, the more critical they are of reality and of the media. Television, cinema and radio establish pleasant relationships which are both involving and seductive, but which can only be explained on the basis of the technological sophistication of the culture industry. They reveal the industry’s ability to identify longings and needs and in responding adequately by means of dynamic, nimble narratives which find profound, sympathetic, emotive, conscious-unconscious resonances in the "receiver". Psychoanalysis clearly shows us the viewer’s attitude of collaboration, searching and questioning certain propositions and not others, certain films and not others, certain television stations and not others. There is a dialectic process of wanting to be seduced and of allowing oneself - or not allowing oneself - to be seduced. If this process of involvement is richer, more elaborate and varied, the response to this seduction is also richer, more varied and different in so far as there are more choices, more gains in perception, more ideas spread in the mass media.8 There is a constant dialectic of the imagination in the form of emancipation and repression, "release" and "frustration", between alienation and social transformation. It is necessary to integrate two dimensions of fantasy: that the Marx, as "Utopia", as an idea of Freud, in which fantasy substitutes for reality, and in which there is a continual tension between the principle of pleasure and that of reality. Fantasy, momentarily, is the other side of reality, the unrealized side of reality - which produces partial disappointment, but which points towards a triumph which is not merely individual or psychological but which can also be ideological and social: the desire to transform society into more egalitarian structures. To work with the concept of conscientiousness as knowledge of reality means to incorporate the dialectical-utopian dimension of the imagination, so that it becomes truly effective. Political conscientiousness in socialist countries does not necessarily carry with it a change in the Utopia of the imagination. This helps to explain why people who are aware of the political point of view can adhere to media products which "alienate". The success of North American cinema and the Brazilian soap-operas, such as Escrava Isaura in Cuba, does not mean lack of political awareness on the part of the population , but a clear need to supply the dimension of fantasy, of desire, of prominence and of identification, mainly on the personal and interpersonal levels, which are ignored, in general, by socialist systems which are much more preoccupied with meeting material and ideological needs. The main objective of education for a critical reading of communication is to change the basic attitude of people to communication, and especially to the mass media: to help develop in each person a way of perceiving which is more active, thoughtful, conscious of what it means to live in community with the world and to bring about stronger, richer, more authentic, more expressive, more meaningful forms of communication which will overcome to impoverishing reductionism of the conventional forms of relationship. As a consequence, it is probable that each person will become more class conscious and be keener to participate in a more effective way in various social organizations. Education is a pedagogic process of creating critical awareness. Creating it begins with the problem of the data which reaches us directly and indirectly - through the media, for example - which we are contextualize in a holistic and coherent perspective, thus creating a new text, a new synthesis. This synthesis integrates conceptual and sensorial data, as much as reality as from fiction, from the present and the past, from the political, economic and cultural spheres. Communication education tries to help people individually and in groups to create syntheses which unite and cohere, taking into account the acts of change which occur in society and in reality in the lives of each person; to help understand a part of that totality from the perspective of "communication" as organization of change' both at the interpersonal and collective levels. Communication education requires the articulation of different educational spaces which are more or less formal: education at the level of the family, working in the relation parents-children-communication, sporadically or at privileged times, or pursuing specific courses. Also the relation communication-school, a relation which is difficult and problematic, but one which is absolutely necessary to the enrichment of both in the new pedagogic perspective. Communication in the community, studying communication media from the perspective of a particular community’s situation as concomitantly interpreting the communication processes within the community. Communication education is the search for new contents, new relations, new ways to express those contents and relations. There is a certain distance between educators and communicators. In general, educators see communication media as instruments which back up their teaching efforts, instruments for persuasion or literacy, but hey do not study them in themselves. On the other hand, many communicators study the media only on the basis of specific codes and in isolation. They analyze a particular film or a particular television program, failing to relate them to more general areas of communication as a process harnessed to political relationships and economic structures. For this reason, analysis of films in cinema forums and analysis of the media, in general, leave a sense of the repetition of formulas and restraint in their results. There are several stages of critical reading depending on the degree of organization of the group and on the political plan of that same group. Conscientiousness is a first step in understanding, in revealing reality, which goes hand in hand with the organization of the group, its mobilization, aiming at a third goal, which is the action of change upon the individual, the group, and even society as a whole. Critical reading achieves its greatest effect when it forms part of a definitive political plan, with adequate strategies, efficient organization and short, medium and long-term objectives. The effectiveness of communication education depends on the level of organization of the community, on the prevailing concept of culture and communication, on the methodological and theoretical perspectives used in the analysis with other processes of analysis of communication, on the competence of the coordinator of this process, and on the integration of that analysis with other processes of analysis of reality within a larger project to organize a new community, in which communication in solidarity can also be expressed. "Education of the workers - understood as access to knowledge, from literacy to training in professional and intellectual jobs - constitutes an important step... towards the job of being a citizen", writes José Marques de Melo.9
Communication
education is a part of the process of education for the organization of
individuals, for people to understand their rights and duties as citizens,
and for participation in fighting social injustices. These aims will be more
effective if they take place within a visionary plan - within an achievable
Utopia - which combines the fields of the politics, economics and culture
with that of communication within a society which is truly democratic.
The question of media analysis is more complex than it appears at first sight. For the majority of people communication media, mean modernity, enchantment, novelty, fascination, leisure, dynamic relations with the world. The media take on a positive dimension, viewed as a whole. When there are criticisms, they are superficial, sporadic, momentary and unstructured. Communication media appear transparent, obvious and unproblematic. Here the power of the media is evident: they represent and present a desirable way of life - one which is, at least in part, "possible" - and they respond to needs and expectations perceived as real. Faced with this fascination and with the apparent transparency of the media, intellectual come along with their critical discourse on the media. Criticism creates resistance, because it works with the rational, the logical, the ideological, forgetting such dimensions as games, leisure, the day-to-day, pleasure and joy, which are fundamental to the way media relate to the viewer. The intellectual wants to reach, to educate; media owners want to amuse and to entertain. This attitude is seen as more sympathetic and appropriate, and less pretentious. The reaction is clear given the relationship of viewers with commercial television, with educational TV and with "cultural" but erudite programming in general. Education TV ends up by speaking for the same people who produce the messages. On the other hand, there as segments which are clearly concerned with communication media, mainly in the negative influence of television on family and society. They are parents, educators, community leaders and religious groups. They are responsive to proposals for critical education, because they are already developing critical attitudes in relation to the media. They respond to courses on media analysis, but they do not come unarmed: they bring a whole cargo of readings and observations, generally negative, which they expect to see confirmed by the course. Work with workers` leaders, religious groups and certain educational sectors is delicate, because we must respond, in the first place, to the concerns of those groups.
Educational
work, in this case, lies in revealing the contradictions in those
perceptions, pointing to other facts which they have not considered,
broadening the dimensions used to analyze the media. Critical education
involves ideas, feelings, new relations, a whole context which is complex,
but not Machiavellian, which has dimension that are clearly negative but
which has many others that are positive; it which has many others that are
positive; it involves the rational, but also the funny and the affective.
Media education, in synthesis, is to problematic what is not seen as a problem and to non ideologize what is only seen as ideology, without losing the dimensions of leisure, joy, entertainment and modernity which are fundamental to today’s predominantly urban and solitary beings. Communication education implies helping to understand the new codes, the subtleties of image and music, of verbal, visual and written expressions. Through communication media people should understand the dynamism of technology, of the business networks which lie behind it, both at the level of hardware and software; in short, the commercial, business, financial and political ramifications of the communications sphere. Communication education is a process which must be adapted to each step of physiological and cultural growth and to every social group. It is something that involves the school and all the social forces concerned with creating a more just and more human society. It is a significant part of a better educational process than that of being mere enlightened citizens.
Knowledge about
the media must be complemented with concrete and positive actions at every
stage: >From the specific art of working of codes, searching for new
expressions, working with lower classes - critical reading and action - to
the incorporation of active reading in a more comprehensive educational
context, at the service of a vision of wholeness, of improving society and
within a political context of putting that change into action. For this
reason, it is crucial that communication education takes place in political
circumstances which are truly at the service of democratic change. 1 - Zeccheto, Victorino. Comunicación y Actitud Crítica. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Paulinas, 1986 (p:30). 2 - Libânio, João Batista. Formação da Conciência Crítica. Petrópolis. Vozes-CRB, 1984 (Vol.I pp.24-25). 3 - Piaget, Jean. A Construção do real na Criança. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 1974. 4 - Marcondes, Ciro. Quem manipula quem? Petrópolis: Vozes, 1986 (p.11). 5 - All these examples and observations on narrative and fictional analysis originate in work done by different groups both in the University and in other social areas, where the author uses participatory methods of discussion, seeking to account for the inter-relatedness, of "objective" and subjective readings of the media. 6 - Leal, Ondina. Leitura Social da Novela das Oito. Petrópolis. Vozes, 1986. See in particular chapters VI, VII and VIII. 7 - Lins da Silva, Carlos. Muito Além do Jardim Botânico. São Paulo: Summus, 1985 (pp.139-139). 8 - Marcondes, Ciro. A linguagem da Sedução. Introduction. 9 -
Marques de Melo, José. Para uma Leitura Crítica da Comunicação.
São Paulo:
Paulinas, 1985 (p.10). José Manuel Moran holds a doctorate in radio an television studies and is professor at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He was deputy co-ordinator of the "School of the Future" Project in the Faculty of Communication and Arts. Previously he was co-ordinator of the "Critical Reading of Communication" Project of the Brazilian Christian Union for Social Communication (UCBC).
|