Let’s be honest here: You are probably reading this blog while streaming that Netflix show you love. Your attention is split, divided in two (but probably not equally). With your brain torn between text on this screen or images on that screen, I’m glad you’re here to learn about visual media analysis because whether you are on a television, phone, laptop, desktop, watch, tablet, or iVision Pro media is all around us. It’s inescapable really which makes media analysis and media literacy all the more important.
Media . . . Analyzed
You’ve probably turned to this blog with some analysis of media questions, so let’s start with the first that probably comes to mind: What’s media analysis?
Used to be–back in my day, says the ancient (errr, experienced) blog writer–students in an English Language Arts classroom read fiction books, short stories, and poems. But mostly books. Long ones. Times, though, they are a-changin (or have-a-changed).
It’s not enough to share with students great literature, for they need more. As the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) puts it in their position statement on Media Education in Language Arts, “Literacy is expanding, and English language arts (ELA) educators at all levels must help learners develop the knowledge, skills, and competencies needed for life in an increasingly digital and mediated world.”
Indeed, most of the media students encounter these days isn’t through physical pages on their desks; it’s through digital pages on their screens. Media literacy analysis, then, is a life skill–not solely an English skill–we want to help students develop, which means they aren’t just writing a media analysis paper for class.
They are, instead, as a consumer of media, consistently engaging in media content analysis on their own, not just because a teacher told them to or because they were handed a bias in media worksheet to complete and turn-in on Google Classroom or Schoology.
What does this type of analysis look like, then, in and out of the classroom? Let’s explore.
Media Analysis Template
You can use the steps below as a media analysis template for students, giving them the opportunity for analysis in a clear and defined manner (even though media and its messages can be so messy):
Select Media or Artifact for Analysis. This one’s varied and open. Is it an article, video, advertisement, social media post? Students can either select media by genre or subject or interest; it’s up to them or to you in the classroom, but they should, when selecting media, understand their purpose is analysis of that media–not summarizing it, not arguing with it.
Consider Context. Media analysis doesn’t exist in a vacuum. A “text” is a product for a specific time and place. Explore the social, cultural, and historical context surrounding the media artifact. Consider how current events, societal norms, and cultural values may influence the production and reception of the content.
Identify Purpose and Audience. Communication exists within a framework that we often refer to as the Rhetorical Triangle (which Aristotle coined, so we are in good company when we teach students about it) that highlights how a message is influenced by the relationship between the author, the audience, and the subject. Using an analysis template like SOAPSTone or SPACECAT, students can begin to analyze the media’s rhetorical situation, and in doing so, begin to understand its purpose and how its construction contributes to it.
Examine the Content Closely. Here’s a good way to think of analysis: it’s about a part’s relationship to the whole. As such, students should examine closely the smaller parts of the “text” and consider how they contribute to its effects on the audience and its larger ideas. For example, a student might notice that a media music video uses patriotic imagery as the musicians pump up the jam. For media music video analysis then of that imagery students can ask themselves why the video has patriotic imagery and how it contributes to a feeling in the audience or develops a theme in the “text.”
Develop a Response. This is varied and open-ended, depending on your purposes for embarking on media analysis in the first place. Do you want students to write an essay? Orally present their findings? Mark-up/annotate a “text”? Spin-off the analysis into other media research topics?
Media Analysis in Action
Let’s put the above points into action with a social media network analysis activity. You could have your students pick something from one of their (likely) numerous social media feeds for a social media network analysis. Be it a TikTok or a tweet for a social media network analysis, students can still consider and analyze the points above using the analysis questions below:
For context, what’s the social media post in response to? A world event? A trend?
For purpose and audience, why’s it in the students’ feed? Why’s the algorithm feeding it to them and for what purpose?
For analysis, they can break down the post into smaller parts. How does the TikTok begin, develop, and end? What music is used? What visuals are shown? For a tweet, what’d the writer do in 280 characters? How are the sentences structured? To what degree is it literal and figurative?
For a response, students could pair-and-share, talking with a partner, or develop an essay (for which you could always provide a media analysis essay template or graphic organizer to help them organize or articulate their thoughts), developing their analysis further.
Incorporating Media Analysis in Language Arts Instruction
I think it’s important to note that media analysis does not have to be an check-boxing thing, nor does it need to be an all-encompassing thing, for you can scale this analysis up and down to fit your needs and purposes.
Want to have an entire unit of instruction, activity, and assessment on media analysis? Go for it. Want to use an infographic that you saw in the news for a class starter to get students focused and thinking? Go for it. Want to pair texts together thematically–like pairing a written text To Kill a Mockingbird with some racist political cartoon from the Jim Crow era? Go for that, too.
Whatever you choose to do, you are doing it right if you are frequently posting questions to students, so they can undertake important visual media analysis and media content analysis, for in a world where streaming and social media are all about content and content-creators, let’s make sure that our students are critical consumers!
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