McLuhan's challenge to critical media literacy: The City as Classroom textbook

Abstract

This paper examines the high school media education textbook that Marshall McLuhan and coauthors published in 1977. The City as Classroom textbook provides an articulation of the practical implications of McLuhan's media theories. I offer an explication of this approach and its significance for contemporary media education, while articulating how McLuhan's perspective could bolster the educative potential of critical media literacy, which can be distinguished from other forms of media education by its emphasis on examining the ideological content and power relations behind the construction of media messages. McLuhan's curriculum can be considered a form of critical media education, though it takes a broad approach that facilitates student inquiry within a multitude of mediated environments and includes examinations of media forms and grammar in addition to content. McLuhan's approach to media analysis offers possibilities for expanding the boundaries of critical media literacy by making an exploration of the tools that students use to mediate their experiences a key facet of media curriculum.

Keywords:

• Critical media literacy
• critical pedagogy
• McLuhan
• pragmatism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The podcast activity discussed by Garcia, Seglem, and Share (2013) is the only activity found within the critical media literacy literature that suggested a direct examination of media forms, although the authors do not elaborate upon this function of the activity.

2. It is not my intention to suggest that there is any rigid separation between these iterations of critical media literacy. Postmodern critiques of social theory have deeply penetrated critical media literacy (and critical pedagogy more generally) over the last generation. I offer these distinctions merely as a way of categorizing disparate tendencies in the practical concerns of the authors, which suggest varying degrees of acceptance of post-structural conceptions regarding media and users.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lance Mason

Lance E. Mason teaches social studies methods and foundations of education courses at Indiana University Kokomo. His research focuses upon democratic education, emphasizing how educators can respond to changing cultural dynamics facilitated by new media technologies. His work has appeared in prominent social studies journals including Social Education, The Social Studies, Social Studies Research & Practice, and Theory & Research in Social Education.