Scanning Television Videotapes

Mediacy Articles – Volume 18, No. 2

Review by Chris M. Worsnop

Scanning Television is a package of four video tapes and a teacher's guide designed for use in media education classrooms. The four tapes contain 40 clips, taken mostly from City TV's Media Television. There are also materials from the National Film Board of Canada, Warner Brothers Canada, TVOntario and the Ontario Ministry of Health. In total, the tapes run about four hours.

The material in the tapes is organised around the topic headings used in Harcourt Brace's second edition of Barry Duncan's (et al) Mass Media and Popular Culture (available in August of 1996), making it a natural selection for those teachers using that book or planning to do so. But, with its extensive Teacher's Guide, Scanning Television can also stand on its own, or be used in conjunction with other texts or program resources.

Anyone who has used any of the now familiar NFB packages (Media and Society, Constructing Reality) will find the organisation of this new video collection familiar and friendly. Each segment – they vary in length from just over three minutes to longer than 13 minutes – is introduced with a standard half minute or so montage. This device is useful in locating the beginning of each section within each tape. In the bottom right hand corner of the screen the producers have superimposed the identifying number of each selection as an added help.

Seeing Ourselves: Media and Representation, 80 minutes, 13 selections.
Selling Images and Values, 55 minutes, 9 selections.
Our Constructed Worlds: Media Environments, 37 minutes, 7 selections.
The Global Citizen, 30 minutes, 6 selections.
New and Converging Technologies, 28 minutes, 5 selections.

A typical item running about 5 or 6 minutes, hosted by a City TV videographer identifies its topic or issue, interviews a couple of people in the know, shows some relevant video footage from various sources, explores more than one side of the issue and asks more questions than it offers opinions. The brevity of the selections makes them ideal for classroom use, encouraging multiple screenings for in-depth understanding. Students will be particularly grateful that the point of view and slant of many of the stories is innovative, upbeat and youth-oriented in keeping with City TV's style.

Some of my favourites are:

Supermodels (Selection #1) a story covering a UK advertising campaign for a new car, featuring American super models who are unhappy about being upstaged by the new car model. Some groups claim the ads are pornographic and anti-feminist. All sides have their say; the ads are screened more than once, and in the end, the viewer is left to form a personal opinion.
The Bennetton Gallery (Selection #7) an item featuring a gallery of the famous Bennetton print ads by photographer Oliviero Toscani. The discussion of the significance of the ads, and of their impact on the advertising industry, art and society is bound to engage any class.
Ridley Scott: Filmaker as Ad Director (Selection #21) features clips from the feature films and ads made by this versatile director: (Thelma and Louise, Alien) This clip features a very controversial ad for a British bank, that will set classrooms buzzing.
Sign Pirates (Selection #23) in which we meet US graffiti artists Ron English and Jorge de Gereda who make an art of vandalising billboards. They modify the messages of display ads, culture-bending them into guerrilla statements for the counter culture – and smile as they do it within sight of the local police.
Watching TV (Selection #35) an NFB animated short which takes the topic of media violence to an outrageously logical conclusion.

The Teacher's Guide will be a boon to all teachers. Those who are relatively new to media education will find in it detail and insight that will help them understand and implement the aims and processes of the media class. Those who are more experienced will appreciate having the wealth of ideas from the authors to add to their own approaches.

Each section of the teacher's Guide has a chart which summarises all the activities, pointing out the kind and variety available, and making it easy for teachers to check that they are covering all outcomes and learning styles. Be sure not to skip the introduction. It is a mini-primer in media literacy education, listing and explaining the eight key concepts for media literacy from the Ontario Media Literacy Resource Guide; outlining a number of different ways teachers might use the tapes; alerting teachers to certain segments which treat sensitive issues, and suggesting how they can be handled in class. It has a detailed section on media education and ESL, making lots of very well-informed suggestions about how ESL students can best benefit in a media classroom.

Each selection is thoroughly covered in the Guide with a short summary, backgrounding the issues and topics of the piece. There is a section of "Before Viewing" activities, followed by a longer and very detailed selection of activities called "Focus for Viewing". These activities are very exhaustive in their coverage of the selection, covering every avenue of inquiry with imaginative approaches that will appeal to as well as challenge modern students . Each study guide is finished off with a few "After Viewing" suggestions which engage students in extending their study and inquiry beyond the confines of the video selection itself.

My overall rating of this new video set is very high. Teachers are always on the look-out for relevant and short new materials that will bring popular culture into the classroom on the students' own terms. This package succeeds very well in achieving that aim. It informs without talking down, and is relevant without being trivial. My prediction is that it will do wonders for deep analysis in media classrooms, on account of the brevity of its clips, their absolute "viewability", and of the imagination and thoroughness of its teacher's Guide.

Scanning Television: Videos for Media Literacy in Class John Pungente
S.J., Gary Marcuse
Teachers' Guide by: John Pungente and Neil Andersen
Harcourt Brace Canada, 1996
ISBN 7747-0172-2
$199 + shipping and taxes.