From broadcasting to narrowcasting: television as a language of possibility for community development in a learning society
Titel:
From broadcasting to narrowcasting: television as a language of possibility for community development in a learning society
Auteur:
Harris, Elayne M.
Verschenen in:
International journal of lifelong education
Paginering:
Jaargang 16 (1997) nr. 1 pagina's 54-72
Jaar:
1997-01
Inhoud:
The field of adult education is currently experiencing more than its usual degree of internal fractionality about the fundamental nature and purpose of adult education. This paper challenges narrow formulations of adult education in the instrumentalist mode by focusing on the implications of mass media, particularly television, technology and globalization as central issues for adult educators now and in the twenty-first century. This paper takes the position that learning as is a by-product of encounters with everyday cultural phenomenon, such as television, is the ground against which other learning activities are figures. While this is the case for all consumers and users of mass media, the 'hidden curriculum' of television has special relevance for the learning and development of marginalized groups in society. Thus, television's 'curriculum' is of great significance to progressive adult educators whose social justice agenda allies their practice with marginalized peoples. The paper returns to an example of the largely declasse mode of adult education known as community development, arguing the utility of examining the issues of mass media in the context of this specific and situated form of learning because community offers a manageable micro-setting for the analysis of learning in a natural societal setting. The learning of a specific community in rural Canada which faced economic devastation is examined to ascertain the influence of both broadcast television and locally created narrowcast television on the community's conception of capacity to envision, develop, create and manage their own alternative economic future. The sharp insights of residents about being objects and non-objects of network television and the discernable difference of being self-directed subjects of locally-created community television offer compelling evidence as to how marginality and its pernicious suppression of agency are learned and reinforced through mass media. Their direct words deserve attention from critical adult educators.
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