Abstract of

Media Literacy
Pedagogy of the Obsessed

James Trier

The author examines his obsession with a variety of media culture texts—films, television programs, visual ads in magazines and on billboards, music CDs, comic books, video games, websites—an obsession that manifests itself most pervasively in collecting “video texts.” Among the over 1,000 video texts collected are more than 100 school films, many of which were used for various critical pedagogical projects designed around selected media texts. The author explains how his use of these video texts was radically transformed when he began using selected segments from a wide range of them to create “videocompilations” and “videocollages.” He argues that even though we live in a media-saturated society (a typically negative phrase within media-literacy discourses), there exist many opportunities for educators to use media texts for productive pedagogical purposes.

Abstract from Trier, J. (2005, November). Pedagogy of the Obsessed. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(3), 238–241. doi: 10.1598/JAAL.49.3.7