Math and Media

From the book  Rethinking Popular Culture and Media (second edition) I found a section called Math and Media that I can definitely integrate into my seventh grade math class this year. The section was short and to the point, students in class use math to track media bias. I like this model of critiquing to use in combination with the qualitative arguments my students make in their social studies and english language arts classes. The quantitative data gathering discussed in this chapter will help support students in the ways they observe and report out about the world around them.

This article uses basic graphing, percentages and average computations that are accessible to middle schoolers and offers a variety of topics and research ideas for students to investigate. The premise is to start with something they notice or wonder about, which I love because it hands the reins over to the student and their own interests! Then, the student gathers data on the topic for a given amount of time in some form of media they are interested in learning more about and seeing what they uncover.

An example of this would be if a student notices that women are often objectified and sexualized in the ads on Snapchat’s opening screen. That student goes into the Snapchat app once a day and documents the number of ads on the main screen and documents how many of them sexualize or objectify women. A step further would be to do the same thing for men and even break it down by race or the representations of what is considered “desirable” social norm vs. “non-desirable” social norms. It could be as in depth as the student’s particular inquiry. Then after a month or so of gathering data they can conclude their research with the findings about media and bias. This may lead to more questions and research interests to follow.

I liked this article because it opens the doors to social justice in our math work together. I imagine starting with something tangible like a popular magazine or newspaper and looking at the major articles advertised on the cover and noticing who and what makes it to the front page, etc. This opens discussions for students to hear about the experiences of others and become literate and conscious consumers of the media around us as opposed to passive recipients.

I find that most middle schoolers are pretty oblivious to the SQUAMP ideas we have discussed in this course and yet are living out the messages delivered as part of the air we breathe. There are not a ton of reading opportunities to bring critical race theory and social justice issues into my classroom and I really appreciate the straightforward ideas presented in this chapter.

I appreciate the graphic below because it highlights everyone involved in the “consumers perception” and how crafted it is for our consumption. This comes from the article Automated identification of media bias in news articles: an interdisciplinary literature review.