Read the article and complete it with the titles

1. Formation and entertainment

2. The media society

3. Reconciling education and mass media

4. In education

Gustavo Villamizar

A __________ When it comes to dislike of the media, there are two extremes that almost touch: those who consider them alienating and those who consider them as corrupters of the common good. In the face of these radical approaches, it is difficult to see what media bring or could bring to education.

Some condemned the media for being alien to the people, others for being soft on morality and for distorting values; some held them responsible for unwitting growth, others linked them to excess and vice; some chided them for promoting consumerism, others for excessive materialism; some loathed them for promoting transculturalisation, and others for promoting a lack of ethics.

B __________ Gianni Vattimo writes: ‘The society we live in is a society of widespread communication, the mass media society.’ So that we find ourselves confronted by circumstances that call for a different look at the media and a fresh consideration of their relationship with education.

In the first place, we have to admit that the effect of the media and their undeniable influence have demonstrated that today the school no longer has a monopoly over education and it is wrong to consider the classroom as the only space for learning.

Secondly, we have to break with the belief that the media, especially television, do not teach anything and accept the contrary, that ‘they educate too much’. As Savater informs us: The problem does not lie in the fact that television does not sufficiently educate, but in the fact that it educates too much and with irresistible force; what’s bad about it is not that the media broadcast false mythologies and other fripperies but that they vigorously demystify and inconsiderately dispel the protective fogs of ignorance that used to envelop children so that they remained children.’

C __________ To think about the school and the media as formation and entertainment, as being distinct, with their own particular dynamics and logics of planning and performance, must lead us to establishing a basic goal: let’s not try to assimilate the media into the school system, or convert them into schools or even less, award responsibility for education solely to media.

This clarify about their difference allows us to understand why experiments to turn the media into schools failed, attempts to use them as schoolchildren ‘loudspeakers’. Equally, it helps to clarify the failure of attempts supposedly to modernise school practice by incorporating sophisticated film, projection, recording, and editing equipment into work in the classroom.

In short, education and communication are not irreconcilable. On the contrary, they need each other, except that this need has particular demands to ensure a lasting union, which are based on respect for particular conditions. It is worth detailing those corresponding to each practice.

D __________ It is necessary to move beyond the concept of teaching as mere presentation of information to one that understands it as a specialised practice so that the person being educated learns and, above all, reasons, confronts and/or disagrees. With regard to learning we have to take it on as a life process, by which we can understand the transit through school as a cycle or a stage in that process.

If learning is a life process, we shall see that, contrary to what the school system thinks, there is no specific time and space in which to learn. So that neither the lecture hall nor the classroom are the only spaces in which one learns; one also learns in the home, through the media, in the street, on the games field, in the workplace. We learn throughout life, for which reason such learning is not limited or determined by time, and takes place in short bursts or demands prolonged effort.

Finally, the possibility of a fruitful relationship between media and education requires media of a new type, but above all, and this lies at the heart of this transformation, it demands communications professionals who go beyond announcing records and advertisements, handling a camera or recording machine, and take steps towards reconceptualising their role in society.

  1. consumerism - protection for people against unfair prices, bad products, advertising claims that are not true etc.
  2. fripperies - something useless but attractive or enjoyable.
  3. sophisticated - knowing and understanding a lot about a subject
  4. irreconcilable – incompatible, mutually and implacably hostile

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