The theory of critical media literacy: A field research in the scale of Eski̇şehi̇r high schools

Approaches for the media literacy education can be defined as the frames, designed based on the assumptions, referring to the different fields of science. Some approaches have relative theoretical consistency though, many times, educational practices were applied based on some unstable frameworks, devoid of well-defined contexts. However, without theoretically consistent grounds, which may support endeavors in case of different conditions, the probability of success of nation-wide curriculums is low. The case experienced in Turkey could be an example of such unsuccessful curriculums. Moreover, the worldwide existence of interest groups, which affect the bureaucratic choices, carries the problem beyond performing theoretical studies and proposing procedures for practice. Such groups, which are positioned in the axes of power and ownership relations, have many times succeeded to assimilate the media literacy concept or to make it useless with breaking it out of its context. A theory, or meta-theory of media literacy, which allows scholars of similar viewpoints to reconcile with, whilst enabling them to evaluate opposite views coherently, can assist to overcome the dilemmas and difficulties in the field. The fragmentation in the field of media literacy studies can be explained with understanding the orientation in which the sciences and the socialization have incurred in modern times, rather than the personal errors of scientists. The culture, based on proposing the constructed as the reality itself and the state of perception that prevents human mind from reading the reality of life, are the aspects of this orientation in the era of late modernity. In this context, the mediatization of communications is crucial for assuming the styles proposed by the system, as the unique ways of human existence. However, the publishing sector is one of the intermediates of this system, holding the social life within a particular action model. Accordingly, individuals' ability to distinguish the subjects and the objects of the texts they read or the events they experience is the primary condition to read the social processes. Along with this, the citizens would enable to undertake the responsibilities of free choice in the societies they live in. A theoretical frame, which explains the essential methods to reach these purposes, is the conditional for the media literacy education. Suggesting the theoretical framework of critical media literacy, this study has benefited from the literature about the criticism of modernity concept related to the incarceration of human reasoning within a specific orientation and from the literature interrogating the dominant paradigm. Then, the assumptions of the theoretical study have been tested with a qualitative research conducted among students of ninth grade in the city of Eskişehir. For the field research, twenty-four voluntary boys and twenty-four girls have been selected randomly, from six different lycees in the city. These students were grouped firstly according to the criterion, whether they took previously the elective course of media literacy for primary schools. With ten demographic questions, sixty semi-structured in-depth interview questions were addressed to every participant and after analyzing the answers qualitatively; the expressions were positioned between the system and the lifeworld, as the perceptional entities, which form worldviews in the modern societies. In this context, differences between the answers, which were coded based on their orientations, have been used to describe the social factors, either supporting the critical media literacy levels or reproducing the oppression in the modern societies. The findings of the research show that, abilities of reading the media and the social life critically, could counteract the oppression of consciousness. According to this, thinking of what the good is for self and the good for the others critically is the condition for the personal and the social self-actualization both. In spite of the argumentations based on the system's rationality; pursuing the permanent value /intrinsic worth and choosing their own actions on the basis of social responsibility, are possible with the harmony between primary socialization and education. For the case in Turkey, the problems such as, the exclusion of critical literacy within the constructed power relations and the opposition of the bureaucracy, against the propositions about the media literacy courses being taught by communication faculty graduates, all impede the realization of this potential. In the worldwide scale, the instrumental modernity continues with the system strategies, obstructing the cognitive emancipation of the societies. Based on the theoretical context and the results of the research, the general lines of a critical media literacy course for high schools were proposed, in the appendix. Keywords: Journalism, media literacy, the theory of communicative action, instrumental rationality, universal pragmatics, modernity, rationalization of worldviews, lifeworld and system, mediatization