New Frontiers In Global Media Education

Authors

Paul Mihailidis Hofstra University, New York, 11549, USA Author
Susan Moeller University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742, USA Author

DOI:

Keywords:

global media literacy, civic engagement, curriculum, interdisciplinary learning

Abstract

New Frontiers in Global Media Education highlights the birth, development, and growth of a dynamic educational program promoting global media literacy. The Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change, a program born in summer 2007, annually gathers 50 students and a dozen of faculties for three weeks to create educational and multimedia products around media literacy, global citizenship, and freedom of expression. The Salzburg Academy, with more than 200 student and 30 faculty alumni from 25 countries, has created a curriculum that has been downloaded in more than 100 countries worldwide, and has enabled new forms of dialog across borders, across cultures, and across divides. This paper will show, in the context of other recent global media education initiatives, how the process of creating educational content also created a dynamic atmosphere for individual growth and transformation experienced by those who participated. Now in it is the fifth year, the Salzburg Academy stands to benefit the future information societies by offering resources to help maintain active and participatory journalists and citizens of the digital age.

Author Biographies

Paul Mihailidis, Hofstra University, New York, 11549, USA

Dr. Paul Mihailidis is an Assistant Professor in the Journalism, Media, and PR Department at Hofstra University, where he lectures media and politics, media literacy, social media, ethics, and media history. Mihailidis is also the Director of the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change (www.salzburg.umd.edu), a program that gathers over 50 students from five continents for three weeks every summer to explore global media and notions of global citizenship. Mihailidis’s research concerns the connections between media, education, and citizenship in the 21st century. He has published widely on media literacy, global media, and citizenship. His most recent articles have been published in The International Journal of Media & Learning, The Journal of Media Literacy Education, Communication Today, Studies in Media and Information Literacy Education, and Journalism and Mass Communication Educator. Additionally, Mihailidis has recently signed a contract to co-author a text with a working title of The Media Literacy Project, and has an edited text on News Literacy now in final review stages. Mihailidis is a member of the board of directors for the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), and serves on the Editorial Board of the new Journal of Media Literacy Education (JMLE).
Susan Moeller, University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742, USA

Dr. Susan Moeller is the director of the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda and co-director of the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change. She is Professor of Media and International Affairs in the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland and an affiliated faculty member at the School of Public Policy. Prior to coming to Maryland in 2001, she was a senior fellow in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the director of the journalism program at Brandeis, and a lecturer in the history department at Princeton. She has also taught at universities in Islamabad, Pakistan and Bangkok, Thailand. Moeller received her PhD from Harvard in the History of American Studies, her AM in History, also from Harvard, and her BA from Yale University. She was recently named by the Carnegie Corporation of New York one of twenty Carnegie Scholars for 2008 for her work on how the American and British media depict Islam and Muslims. Dr. Moeller also received the State of Maryland Board of Regents Teaching Award for 2008. She has written a number of books on media coverage of international affairs, and lectures all over the world.