If you have been following, you know that I moved my family from Suburbia Canada to Beijing in an attempt to shock my kids to be 21st Century Learners. There are other posts about other topics. This one is about Media.
One of the 21st Century Learning Skills centers on media literacy and media critical thinking. While I was in Shenzhen, across the pond from Hong Kong, I found the media most interesting.
Hong Kong was absorbed by the Central Chinese Government in 1997 when the British Lease of Hong Kong expired. However, they were so used to free speech, democracy and capitalism, that they basically have declared themselves a semi city state. A trip to Hong Kong is considered a new entry into China on my Visa.
Hong Kong is a foreign country to China with “outside media”. The Bird Flu outbreak is in full stride. In Beijing, it does not look like the Bird Flu is very dangerous, but our television is far away from the outside world. Watching the news in Shenzhen, you get Hong Kong news. It is curious that in the middle of a story, all of a sudden the news reporter gets cut off and they go to a commercial break. But somehow, the commercial break is interrupted when a new news article begins.
This censorship has been going on very long. If I do a Google search for Tienanmen without my VPN turned on, I get no Youtube video, I get some recent tourist videos and some text about Mao’s mausoleum. When my VPN is tuned on, then I get Youtube videos and Wikipedia about all of the same things in addition to raw video and BBC video of the student massacres. When we talk to Chinese students, they are unaware of what happened at Tienanmen Square. I had forgotten I was in China and I was hoping that there would be some information at the square about the student violence. Why was I surprised when there was nothing? So on our return to the apartment, the first thing I did was tell the twins to research the happenings. Now that they are aware, I would like to return so that they can focus on the political and the free speech, rather than being distracted by the mobs of girls wanting their pictures taken with the blond haired twins and the Forbidden City.
In tech class, their teacher is asking them to do a project on photo tampering. They are learning that even before Abraham Lincoln, people have been using media to put a twist on things. They are learning how to photoshop their own pictures.
I hope my kids will start to think about the media. The censorship in China, the history of using media to twist perspectives and the knowledge of how easy it is, are all examples presented to my sons about the importance of Media Literacy.
