WHY STUDY (WITH) THE MEDIA? COMMUNICATION AND EDUCATION AS UNDERSTANDING, REFLECTIVE AND EMANCIPATORY PRACTICES

Abstract

We propose in this text to present brief reflections on the importance of studying (with) the media, thinking of them as a set of communicational practices and processes capable of (re)configuring our daily experiences, identities and values. Endowed with a comprehensive, reflective and emancipatory potential, the media make us know and feel, create bonds and affections, and are also the stage for orders, disciplines, products of power and ideology. Being attentive to these particularities is essential for us to know how to construct a critical look at and for education, especially in a context where an desinformative wave proliferates, originating from our so-called “post-truth” era. In order to be educated with the media, it is necessary that we know, above all, to educate ourselves for the media, to perceive nuances, intentionalities, to capture and untangle meanings from their texts and contexts. With this, we aim at a greater problematization about how we, teachers/educators/researchers, should think, analyze and use the most varied media narratives within the didactic and pedagogical universe, but also in the daily life of our social practices, committed to a citizen formation , critical and responsible.