Critical Media Praxis in the Playground

This event is part of the School of Education's . These seminars are free and open to the public.

Host: Language, Literacies and Education Network (LLEN)

Speaker: Nick Gray (Bournemouth University)

This seminar draws on a study of teenagers who made films in a playground setting within a socio-economically minoritised community. Working as participatory action researchers, the young filmmakers critically examined the literacies they developed while actively shaping their own media learning environment. In collaboration with the researcher-practitioner, they co-constructed a critical media praxis (Freire, 2000) and explored the conditions necessary for its development.

The study identifies three essential elements of critical filmmaking practice: establishing a democratic space for learning; drawing on local assets; and building a pedagogy of empowerment. Where much research in media literacy education focuses on formal settings, this work reveals the potential of community-based filmmaking projects as sites for critical media literacy (Kellner & Share, 2019). Through a radical openness to situated knowledge, the participatory approach extends the discourse on media literacy as a tool for ideological resistance, civic engagement, and community building.

1. Framing (15 min): Nick will present the study and its three core elements; pose the provocation of what co-constructed critical praxis might look like in our own research spaces
2. Group activity (25 min): working with a constructed scenario depicting a community media session where power, voice, and access are unevenly distributed, groups address three questions:

• Where is the democratic space breaking down?
• What local assets are being overlooked?
• What would a pedagogy of empowerment look like here in practice?

1. Methodological reflection (15 min): open discussion returning to the segment 1 provocation; what would it ask of us to adopt the values of this study in our own research practice? Participants are invited to reflect on where democratic space, local asset thinking, and radical openness sit within the work we are already doing, and where they might take root.
2. Close (5 min)

This seminar would be of interest to researchers working in/with:

• Media literacy and media education
• Participatory action research (PAR) methodology
• Critical pedagogy and Freirean approaches
• Community-based or informal/non-formal learning
• Youth studies and youth voice

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Host or Publisher School of Education, University of Bristol