Sunday--Superbowl, Monday--Media Literacy Lessons!
The Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME) wants kids to take more away from watching the Super Bowl than just the final score! They are offering a free lesson plan intended to teach students to be critical thinkers when seeing alcohol advertising, understand the real message the company is sending to young people, and why youth are often the target. According to ACME, research shows that youth see 1,000 to 2,000 alcohol ads every year, which can lead to unrealistic and glamorized perceptions about drinking. ACME also references research that an approximate 5 billion dollars a year is attributed to underage consumption. In response to this problem, ACME has created a number of curricula and lesson plans for teaching media literacy skills, i.e., "Raising Media Savvy Kids," "Questioning The Media," and "Big Tobacco and Big Media." Specifically addressing the media Blitz during the Superbowl, ACME offers "tackling the Beer Barons" for teachers (and parents) to use with their students in Social Studies, History, Language Arts, English, Health and Communications classes.
Youth watch at least an hour of the Super Bowl and keep a log of the alcohol ads they see, taking note of the techniques being used to make drinking appear fun, sexy, or appealing. The next day in class, teachers and students review and discuss numerous commercials and discuss the following topics: cost per add and number of alcohol ads, understanding what is a "targeted audience", identifying those ads targeting youth, discuss and analyze behaviors and attitudes being portrayed in those commercials.
According to those who have used the lesson before, students are often surprised
by alcohol ads' treatment of women and by the way they target young people.
"These types of projects can change attitudes about lifestyles, and blunt
the effects of predatory and deceptive advertising," states Bob McCannon,
director of the New Mexico Media Literacy Project. Download this lesson plan
today and use this event as a teachable moment, not only to help young people
become aware and informed media consumers, but also to help them avoid the dangers
of underage drinking.
www.acmecoalition.org
Youth with high level, media literacy skills will better decisions as individuals,
consumers, and citizens. PBS also supports youth media literacy and presents
"Affluenza." This film and accompanying lesson plan also addresses
social and environmental factors of materialism and their value to the media
www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza/
Page Updated: February 04, 2005
