The Association for Media Literacy is made up of teachers, librarians, consultants, parents, cultural workers, and media professionals concerned about the impact of the mass media in the creation of contemporary culture.
Media literacy is an educational initiative that aims to increase students' understanding and enjoyment of how the media work, how they produce meaning, how they are organized, and how the media construct reality.
AML is concerned with helping students develop an informed and critical understanding of the nature of the mass media, the techniques used by the media industry, and the impact of these techniques. Media literacy also aims to provide students with the ability to create their own media products.
The AML has members from across Canada, throughout the United States, and from around the world. Our international membership is particularly strong in those English-speaking countries where the educational system has given some priority to media literacy, notably England, Australia and Scotland as well as the U.S. Our members and guest speakers at AML events include internationally known media educators such as John Pungente,SJ, of Canada, Len Masterman and David Buckingham of Great Britain and Robyn Quin and Barrie McMahon of Australia.
Founded in 1978, The Association for Media Literacy was the first comprehensive organization for media literacy teachers in Canada. AML Ontario has helped establish several other provincial media literacy organizations, all members of the CAMEO national network (Canadian Association of Media Education Organizations).
The AML serves the needs of its members through a variety of services:
Previously, two international conferences were held in Guelph, Ontario and we co-sponsored the Media Literacy Summer Institutes with Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto. Locally, we organize workshops in the Toronto area.
Among its initiatives, the AML has
Ontario was the first educational jurisdiction in the world to mandate media literacy as part of the English curriculum, largely as a result of AML lobbying.
In the back-to-basics climate of educational reform in Ontario, the AML has successfully lobbied for a media studies component in the elementary language curriculum, as well as a media studies strand in every English course at the secondary level. Our president, Carolyn Wilson, chaired the team responsible for creating a new stand-alone Media Studies credit at the grade 11 level.
The AML has also been involved in lobbying against draconian copyright legislation being proposed by the federal government that would have a chilling effect on teacher and student access to media texts in the classroom.
The AML and its affiliates successfully marshalled public opinion against the "Youth News Network," a proposed Canadian version of the U.S.'s "Channel One."