Media Literacy Activity: Radio in Your Life

Introduction

Activity Objective

In this activity, you will apply the critical process to examine how radio fits into your and your friends’ lives.

Pre-Activity Instructions:

Identify ten friends and/or classmates that you want to interview about their use of radio.

Let’s get started! Use the previous and next links to navigate through the slides. You may also use the Outline menu to skip directly to a slide. Students must complete the slides in order.

Reviewing the Critical Process

Developing a media-literate critical perspective involves mastering five overlapping stages that build on one another. Let’s review the critical process you’ll be using below:

  1. 1. Description: paying close attention, taking notes, and researching the subject under study
  2. 2. Analysis: discovering and focusing on significant patterns that emerge from the description stage
  3. 3. Interpretation: asking and answering “What does that mean?” and “So what?” questions about one’s findings
  4. 4. Evaluation: arriving at a judgment about whether something is good, bad, or mediocre, which involves subordinating one’s personal taste to the critical “bigger picture” resulting from the first three stages
  5. 5. Engagement: taking some action that connects our critical perspective with our role as citizens to question our media institutions, adding our own voice to the process of shaping the cultural environment

Description

Interview ten of your friends and/or classmates about their use of radio. Ask them the following questions:

  1. How often do you listen to radio?
  2. What type of device(s) do you use to access radio? For example, plug-in radio set, transistor radio, clock radio, stereo receiver, computer, smart phone, service from cable TV, home music system (e.g. Sonos), your car, etc.?
  3. Where do you typically listen to the radio? For example, home, commuting, while exercising, etc.?
  4. When do you typically listen to the radio (e.g., morning, afternoon, evening, weekdays, weekends, only while in the car, etc.?)
  5. What are your favorite radio genres (e.g., music, talk, news and information, sports, podcasts, etc.)?
  6. What are your favorite stations or channels? Why?
  7. Why do you listen to the radio?
  8. How does radio fit into your life?

Use the text box provided to answer the following question.

Analysis

With the interview responses in mind, let’s explore what patterns emerge regarding your friends’ and classmates’ use of radio.

Use the text boxes provided to answer the following questions.

Interpretation

Through the following questions, interpret the meaning of the patterns you found to make connections to wider trends in radio usage in American society and culture.

Use the text boxes provided to answer the following questions.

Evaluation

Next, evaluate and write about the radio industry.

Use the text boxes provided to answer the following questions.

Engagement

Let’s take action! Moving forward, use what you have learned to engage with radio in a different way. Here are some suggestions to get involved:

  • Listen to different types of radio. How are AM, FM, satellite, and Internet radio different?
  • Check out different genres (listen to talk radio or podcasts if you don’t already listen to them; try out music genres that you haven’t listened to).
  • Get together with friends to listen to the radio in the same way you might get together to watch television. Pay attention to your friends’ and your reactions as you listen as a group.

Use the text box provided to answer the following question.