The Children Are Watching: How the Media Teach About Diversity (Multicultural Education Series (New York, N.Y.).)

Rating:
Summary: experience counts
Review: During the fall of 2001 I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Cortes by telephone about his 30 years of experience in working with the issue of diversity. This book is a reflection of Dr. Cortes' commitment to proactive approaches to the inevitable conflict that results between groups that see/perceive the world differently.

He is an uncommon voice in the all-too-common world of media. His assessment is that diversity is 'informally' taught through popular media in an uncoordinated manner to the detriment of our children is accurate.

His advocacy is hardly limited to his own ethnic background, and his insistence that there must be limits to tolerance is refreshing in current times of political correctness.

This book should be read by educators, parents and media professionals.

Rating:
Summary: Very lucid and revealing...
Review: Even though as a media literacy teacher of African descent I disagree with some of the conclusions Carlos Cortes makes in his book, I appreciate that he has written it. In a very lucid writing style, especially for an academic, Cortes demonstrates how multicultural issues do indeed exist in mainstream media. He provides in one chapter his example of a media journal he kept in which he records and comments on the multicultural content found in his day-by-day (for a month in this case) encounters with mostly mainstream media. He reads stories about immigration and naturalization, Dr. Laura Schlesinger's observance of Rosh Hashannah, a Latino columnist discussing "the importance of multiethnic role models," the Promise Keepers, Louis Farrahkhan and his call for a national day of atonement, the antibilingual initiative in California, the Million Woman March, Sports Illustrated stories on racism, etc. This is a useful strategy for helping students make conscious use of the media. So often students are led to believe there's nothing there except crime and politics.

Basically, Cortes contends that diversity issues are raised in the media. That media is a source of non-school multicultural learning. But what is needed is an analysis of how young people respond to such media content. He shares some of his grand daughter's responses to movies like The Lion King and Pocahontas. Despite the valid criticism these media presentations received, he sees them as occassions for multicultural awareness. For him, the media and the public school system play similiar roles in providing multicultural education, but they each do it slightly different ways.

He also argues that students need to be taught how to examine media texts in a critical way--not in terms of bashing media, but in making a critical analysis of its presentations. This means that teachers need to bring media into the classroom and not allow it to be the main teacher of diversity issues. For in many ways, he argues, students learn more about diversity issues from the media and society than they do from the classroom.

While I think it's important that he brings this somewhat positive view of mainstream media, I think he should have provided an analysis of what ethnically focused and genered-focused media are doing. In publications like Ms.Magazine, Emerge, Hispanic, ColorLines, and the new Asian American magazines diversity issues and representations are very much present and often provide a very different analysis than mainstream media.

Lastly, I was disappointed that he didn't address the role of corporate media and mergers and how it marginalizes and makes difficult for a true diversity of voices to get heard. While yes diversity issues are addressed, they are often presented in sterotypical ways or from very limited viewpoints. While mainstream media, for example, has covered issues on immigration or bilinqual education, it is usually from a White mainstream point of view. Progressive writers, reporters, and actors in these issues don't get their own shows and columns in mainstream media to express their views.

I'm sure Cortes has read the such critics as Robert W. McChesney (__Rich Media, Poor Democracy__) who show how corporate media and its commercial driven interests help to essentially erode democracy and diversity in this country. I can't understand why he doesn't address this problem in his otherwise useful book.

I nevertheless recommend this book. It's very useful for media literacy teachers K-College. Not too many works on this subject exist and this one is sure to help lead to future research and analysis.

P.S. I also would recommend another work similiar to this one: The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America, by Robert Entman and Andrew and Rojecki.