Renee Hobbs on media literacy education

Her use of theory is almost autobiographical as she goes through the different periods of her life marked by the scholars who inspired her at the time. Her understanding of the nature of learning in relation to mass media and communication has been shaped by many ideas over the years, including by theoreticians like Jerome Bruner, Noam Chomsky, Seymour Papert, Susan Sontag, and Donna Alvermann, amongst others.

When I think about theory I think about the legacy of scholars who have contributed to advancing my own thinking. This is what theories really are – they are guesses, they are ideas that come from the intersection of evidence and imagination.

Renee Hobbs talks about her long-term work on exploring the theoretical origins of media literacy, which have been combined in a book she edited “Exploring the roots of media and education literacy through personal narratives”.  The work on the book seemed to have surprised her by the multidisciplinarity of the theories unearthed and how different approaches come together in the work and personal narratives of the different scholars.

My way of managing theory was kind of through juxtaposition and through putting ideas together that might not have been put together before.

Based on the book Renee Hobbs identified six strands of media literacy theory:

• Arts and social activism

• Awareness, form, content and context

• Dialectic of protection and empowerment

• Learning and literacy

• Learning as a means to engage the head, heart, hands and spirit

• Social nature of representation and interpretation

All these strands of theory have been updated with the development of digital technologies and new media. For example, art and social activism theorising has shifted to incorporate engagement through social media where children participate initially as part of having fun but then begin to realise its political potential. Art is a means of bringing people together and unifying them for a cause but new media enabled everyone to take part in this, with different levels of awareness and social responsibility, she argues.

Discussing the application of theory to practice, Renee Hobbs shares her experience of working with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on an exhibit called The State of Deception. Focusing on the history of Nazi propaganda, the exhibit allowed her to join theories of propaganda with theories of education and apply them to a practical setting. This was an opportunity to combine the historical understanding of propaganda with contemporary experience where “there are no gatekeepers and anyone can be a propagandist, anyone can send a meme and or participate in a movement with the use of a simple hashtag”.

Creating a new theory or concept is really about trying to look at how the pieces of the puzzle fit together and looking for the synergies between them.

We end the conversation with a discussion of how to create theoretical novelty and the challenges of changing pedagogy.

Further reading by Renee Hobbs

Hobbs, R. (2021). Media Literacy in Action: Questioning the Media. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Hobbs, R. (2020). Propaganda in an age of algorithmic personalization: Expanding literacy research and practice. Reading Research Quarterly 55(3) 521 – 533. doi:10.1002/rrq.301

Hobbs, R. (2020). Mind Over Media: Propaganda Education for a Digital Age. New York: W.W. Norton.

Hobbs R. (2017). Create to Learn: Introduction to Digital Literacy. New York: Wiley.

Tuzel, S. & Hobbs, R. (2017). The use of social media and popular culture to advance cross-cultural understanding. Communicar 25(51), 63 – 72. DOI: 10.3916/C51-2017-06

Hobbs, R. (2016). Renee Hobbs on Jerome Bruner In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 180 - 196). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

Hobbs, R. (2016). Historical Roots of Media Literacy. In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 9 - 36). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Martens, H. & Hobbs. R (2015). How Media Literacy Supports Civic Engagement in a Digital Age, Atlantic Journal of Communication, 23:2, 120-137, DOI: 10.1080/15456870.2014.961636

Hobbs, R., & Jensen, A. (2013). The Past, Present, and Future of Media Literacy Education. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.23860/jmle-1-1-1

Further reading by other authors

Alvermann, D. (2016). Donna Alvermann on Simone de Beavoir. In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 161 - 169). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

Bruner, J. S. (1991). “The Narrative Construction of Reality.” Critical Inquiry 18 (1): 1–21.
Herman, E. & Chomsky, N (1988) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. New York: Pantheon Books.

Cappello, G. (2016). Gianna Cappello on Theodor Adorno. In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 107 - 125). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Domine, V. (2016). Vanessa Domine on Neil Postman. In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 197 - 207). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

Dyehouse, J. (2016). Jeremiah Dyehouse on John Dewey. In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 170 - 179). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

Gutierrez, P. (2016). Peter Gutierrez on Scott McCloud. In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 208 - 221). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

Jenkins, H. (2016). Henry Jenkins on John Fiske. In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 138 - 152). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

Jensen, A.P. (2016). Amy Petersen Jensen on Bertolt Brecht. In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 153 - 160). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

Kellner, D. (2016). Douglas Kellner on Herbert Marcuse In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 126 - 137). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

Lewis, C. (2016). Cynthia Lewis on Mikhail Bahktin. In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 77 - 84). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Moeller, S. (2016). Susan Moeller on Roland Barthes. In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 222 - 232). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

Polan, D (2016). Dana Polan on Roland Barthes. In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 66 - 76). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

Ramasubramanian. S. (2016). Srividya Ramasubramanian on Gordon Allport. In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 85 - 93). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

RobbGrieco, M. (2016). Michael RobbGrieco on Michel Foucault. In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 94 - 106). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

] Strate, L (2016). Lance Strate on Marshall McLuhan In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 49 - 65). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 

Weinberger, D. (2016). David Weinberger on Martin Heidegger. In R. Hobbs (Ed.) Exploring the Roots of Digital and Media Literacy through Personal Narrative (pp. 37 - 48). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.