Critical Media Literacy: Engaging Media and Transforming Education
The material on this page supports UCLA's Teacher Education Program's Critical Media Literacy course (ED466), which prepares educators for teaching K-12 students to explore their relationships with media, technology, and popular culture by critically questioning different types of representations and creating their own alternative media messages. This site is updated regularly.
Race and Racism
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Hollywood Diversity Report 2020 (UCLA College of Social Sciences)You can also download the 6 previous reports
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The Middle Passage by Tom FeelingsChildren's picture book on YouTube
Gender and Sexism
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Gender Stereotyping with Children (TrueChild)Research and info on gender stereotyping and the media
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When did girls start wearing pink? (Smithsonian)The historical social construction of gender roles, clothing, and color in the US.
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Domestic Violence and Media EducationAnalyze Super Bowl 2015 commercial on domestic violence.
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Selling Gender: Exploiting Stereotypes for ProfitAljazeera (2014)
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Children's Toy Ads & Word CloudsThe Telegraph (2015)
Advertising and Consumerism
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Truth in AdvertisingArticle on the fight for truth in advertising.
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Who Owns What?Use the pull down menu to find out who owns what.
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The Century of the SelfBritish TV documentary by Adam Curtis (2002).
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The Merchants of CoolThis Frontline report explores the marketing of popular culture to teens.
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How advertisers TARGET shoppersArticle in Forbes: How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did.
Photography and Visual Literacy
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Essential Lens: Analyzing Photographs Across the CurriculumFree resources for teaching photography from Annenberg Learner.
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Focus On Photography: A Curriculum Guide from ICPThe International Center of Photography's free photography curriculum.
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MoMA Course: Seeing Through PhotographsFree online course from Museum of Modern Art, NY
News and Journalism
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Daily News Around the WorldThis website has newspapers around the world updated daily in different languages (English is in yellow).
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Newspaper Front PagesThe Newseum website has this wonderful collection of newspaper front pages from around the world, updated daily.
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Teacher resources from American Press InstituteThe American Press Institute has free curriculum and other resources for teaching news literacy.
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State of the News Media 2015PEW Research Center
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WWII Propaganda: State of DeceptionUS Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibit on propaganda.
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Losing the News (PEN America, 2019)The study looks at the consequences of 2,100 newspapers closing down over the last 15 years.
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Lies, Bullshit and Fake News Online: Should We Be Worried?In the Postdigital Science and Education Journal 2020
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The Stink TestValidating Resources
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All SidesWhite it is not unbiased and does not include "all sides" this can be a useful resource to begin exploring bias in news media.
Climate Change and Environmental Justice
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The Story of StuffShort video about consumption and sustainability.
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Media Constructions of SustainabilityProject LookSharp's free lesson plans
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Media Construction of Global WarmingProject LookSharp's free lesson plans
In the News
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Can the Internet be Archived? (The New Yorker, 2015)The Wayback Machine and persistence of info online.
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Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom (NY Times)An article in the New York Times about video games in the classroom. Sept. 15, 2010.
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America's Obsession with NumbersAn interesting look at the use of numbers in the USA to invoke credibility.
Movies
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The Century of the SelfDocumentary in 4 segments; provide historical perspectives about public relations and advertising in the USA.
Media Literacy Organizations and Resources
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Media and Information Literacy curriculumUNESCO (2011) Curriculum for teaching teachers media literacy.
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Pedagogies of Media & Information LiteraciesUNESCO (2012)
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National Association for Media Literacy Education, NAMLEU.S. media literacy membership organization.
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Common Sense MediaLesson plans & resources
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PBS: Media literacy for kidsTeaching children to learn about media literacy.
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Project LookSharpLots of excellent free resources for teaching ML
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NewseumDaily front pages from around the US & world.
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Educational Video Center in New YorkOver 30 years guiding youth to make socially conscious documentaries
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Internet ArchiveLibrary of free, books, movies, music & more
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Frontline PBS documentaries on mediaTeacher guides available online
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NCTE annual annotated research bibliographiesScroll to the bottom to find the free bibliographies of research
Social Media and Digital Technologies
Recursos en Español: Resources in Spanish
Magazine and Newpaper Databases (via UCLA Access)
Access to UCLA Resources
- From Off-Campus: To access restricted
resources, set up the Virtual Private Networking (VPN) UCLA authentication option. - From On-Campus at UCLA: To access restricted resources, use the UCLA_WIFI wireless network or the Eduroam wireless network. Sign into EDUROAM using your UCLA Logon ID with @ucla.edu appended (jbruin@ucla.edu) and password.
Independent Newspapers
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Alternative Press Index This link opens in a new windowAlternative, radical, and left periodicals, newspapers, and magazines. The index is international and interdisciplinary, spanning the social sciences and humanities, with its central focus on the practice and theory of socialism, national liberation, labor, indigenous peoples, gays/lesbians, feminism, ecology, democracy, and anarchism. Link searches both Alternative Press Index (1991-present) and Alternative Press Index Archive (1969-1990).
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Independent Voices This link opens in a new window
Full text of more than 1000 open access alternative publications from the 1960s-1980s covering feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Latinos, LGBTQ+ activists, and more.
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Indigenous Newspapers in North America This link opens in a new windowDigitized collection of print journalism from Indigenous peoples of the US and Canada over more than 9,000 individual editions from 1828-2016. The 45 unique titles also include bilingual and Indigenous-language editions, such as Hawaiian, Cherokee and Navajo languages. Previously titled American Indian Newspapers.
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Ethnic NewsWatch This link opens in a new window
Complete text of articles from 1959 to the present from publications of the ethnic, minority, and native press. Covers news, culture, and history, and is searchable in both English and Spanish.
Corporate Newspapers
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U.S. Major Dailies This link opens in a new window
Contains full-text dating back to the 1980s for five of the nation’s major newspapers, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and the Wall Street Journal.
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Access World News — Historical and Current This link opens in a new windowFull-text articles from over 4,756 US and international blogs, journals, newspapers, newswires, videos, and web sources. Date coverage varies with individual newspapers. Formerly called America's Newspapers or NewsBank.
Various Media
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Kanopy This link opens in a new windowOn-demand streaming video service for educational institutions with thousands of documentaries, training films and theatrical releases across diverse subjects and disciplines. More information on Kanopy access and use is available on this guide.
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Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowA multidisciplinary database that indexes over 10,000 publications, with the complete text of over 5,500 periodicals, including a mix of peer-reviewed journals, magazines, and newspapers.