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A project designed by a professor and students in Miami University's interactive media studies (IMS) program to help high-school and college students think critically about the media won the Grand Prize Faculty/Student Collaboration Award from the Fair Use Free Speech Film Contest.
The contest is sponsored by the University Film and Video Association (UFVA) and the Center for Social Media at American University in Washington, D.C.
Bettina Fabos, assistant professor with a joint appointment in interactive media studies and journalism, led 18 students in an IMS capstone class in spring 2006. They designed a DVD, "Critical Media," which contains 18 segments ranging from five to eight minutes.
The segments confront a wide range of media issues, including the problem of direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising, racism in local TV news, the Channel One in-school commercial TV news service, and the ethics of the U.S. government's public relations practices. The DVD uses many excerpts of television, film and print, using copyrighted material under the legal exception for fair use and criticism.
"The DVD encourages students to become critical consumers of media messages and more knowledgeable about the political and economic circumstances in which our commercial media system operates," said Fabos, who has a professional background in documentary video production and journalism.
In their citation of the work, the UFVA Awards jury heralded the "courage, wit, and insight" of the filmmakers, and added, "this project, rooted in a journalism program, provides a model for how to teach both critical skills and appropriate fair use in the classroom."
The Grand Prize includes a $1,500 award, which will help fund future IMS projects.
The Critical Media DVD can be watched and downloaded for free at the Center for Social Media's Web site: www.centerforsocialmedia.org/videos/sets/fair_use_contest_winners/.
Miami's IMS program is an interdisciplinary course of study that brings together students and faculty throughout the university to investigate how interactive media informs and transforms their disciplinary expertise. Through problem-based learning and team-oriented projects students learn how to apply theoretical knowledge to innovative digital solutions.
For more information, contact Bettina Fabos, (513) 292-4573 (cell) or (513) 756-0393 (home).
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