Media literacy learning within peer-group workshops

An analysis of the interaction within a long-term photography club workshop

Abstract

Recently, participatory culture has become a key term for media literacy research. Henry Jenkins pointed to new media literacies within contemporary societies, which are closely related to participatory culture according to Jenkins. The present study seeks to elucidate how youth-orientated media literacy learning should be supported within Japan. To that aim, the paper focuses on peer-group workshops and proposes a means of facilitating new media literacies.

The study was conducted at a photography workshop program for high-school student members of photography clubs (shashin-bu) organized at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. The program participants took photographs and discussed them. With the ultimate objective of holding a photo exhibition in Mito, the program consisted of six peer-review workshops and exhibition preparations.

The participant in the present study was a 16-year-old male member of the photograph club at X high school. The participant joined a group that consisted of a professional photographer, some amateur-photographer volunteers and some other high-school students. The participant made comments about both his own photographs and those of the other group members. The researcher made field notes of the interactions for subsequent analysis.

The objective of the conducted analysis was to describe the learning processes within the program. The analysis revealed the following three important stages:

Stage 1: Verbalization

Stage 2: Construction of a collective gaze

Stage 3: Discovery/creation of one's own gaze

In Stage 1, the participant was able to verbalize his values and perspectives through peer support. In Stage 2, he was able to share his experiences, perspectives, and sense of values as a member of the community and, thus, construct a collective gaze. Finally, in Stage 3, assisted by the collective gaze, the participant was also able to discover/create his own gaze. These findings suggest that peer-group workshops can help students learn and acquire the skills of a collective intelligence, which are core skills for media literacy within participatory culture.