CRITICAL MEDIA ANALYSIS

In their article “Popular Media, Education, and Resistance,” Stack and Kelly (2006) discuss how popular media can provide a space outside of education for individuals to experience resistive non-dominant representations of age, race, class, ability, religion, gender, sexual orientation among others. In citing Buckingham (2003) Stack and Kelly explain how today’s youth interact with popular media more than any other institution, including schools. They go on to cite extreme statistics, which illustrate the powerful and pervasive nature of media in children’s lives. Despite the widespread disposition of media, the authors argue that the control of content is falling into fewer hands within the five major media conglomerates (Stack and Kelly, 2006). In effect, the images, characters, and narratives being presented are the same, successfully silencing those who do not fit the narrow representations on display.

One such television series that accomplishes this is One Tree Hill. Running from 2003 until 2012, One Tree Hill follows the lives of several teenagers in their navigation of high school into their adult lives in the town of Tree Hill, North Carolina. This show has had a large youth following, and still continues to run on Netflix. One Tree Hill features an all white cast, excluding the one token black character who speaks, acts, and dresses noticeably different from others in the show. The juxtaposition of this character’s attributes from the other white characters teaches individuals watching to develop stereotypes about all who fit the same physical characteristics (Monk Turner et al., 2010). In addition, the main characters are all popular, attractive athletes or cheerleaders and only interact with people who are similar to them. By only presenting certain lifestyles, One Tree Hill contributes to the establishment and reinforcement of what is considered a “normative” society (Monk Turner et al., 2010). There are also many instances in the show where the star basketball players get preferential treatment from teachers demonstrating that rules only apply to certain people.

It is important for the youth watching these shows to know that One Tree Hill and other shows like it do not depict the reality of society. There are some who argue that television production is meant to provide some escapist qualities, a space for individuals to experience fantasy and escape from the problems of the real world (Chong, 2015). However, children may not have the capabilities to make the distinction between reality and fantasy, and as a result this task falls onto educators. Therefore, educators must provide opposing opinions and critiques of the material presented in the media, not just in media focused classes, but in all aspects of schooling (Stack and Kelly, 2006). As Buckingham poignantly asserts, “we want to give our students the critical knowledge and the analytical tools that we believe will empower them –that will enable them to function as autonomous, rational social agents” (2003).

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Works Cited

Buckingham, D. (2003). Media education and the end of the critical consumer. Harvard educational review, 73(3), 309-327.

Chong, S. (2015). Hollywood has often been called a “dream factory,” manufacturing

fantasies of wish fulfillment and escapism for mass. Hopelessness: Developmental, Cultural, and Clinical Realms, 107.

Monk-Turner, E., Heiserman, M., Johnson, C., Cotton, V., & Jackson, M. (2010). The

portrayal of racial minorities on prime time television: A replication of the Mastro and Greenberg study a decade later. Studies in Popular Culture, 32(2), 101-114.

Stack, M., & Kelly, D.M. (2006). Popular media, education, and resistance. Canadian Journal of Education, 29(1), 5-26.