Renee Hobbs
Encyclopedia
Renee Hobbs is an American educator, scholar and advocate for media literacy
education. She is Professor in the Department of Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media at Temple University
's School of Communications and Theater, where she founded the Media Education Lab. She is co-editor with Amy Jensen of the Journal of Media Literacy Education.
She wrote the 1998 Journal of Communication article, "The Seven Great Debates in Media Literacy Education," about whether media literacy should emphasize critical analysis of popular culture texts, examine established film classics, emphasize protectionist or empowerment perspectives, be financially supported by media companies, and be included in K-12 education or in afterschool settings?
Her 1994 documentary, Tuning in to Media: Literacy for the Information Age featured Neil Postman
, Kathleen Tyner, David Considine, Barry Duncan and Robert Kubey. It analyzes press coverage and entertainment media's representation of the Rodney King beating and Los Angeles riots, and won a Parent's Choice award. She also helped create a parent education program, “The Family and Community Critical Viewing Project” in collaboration with Cable in the Classroom, which has reached more than 100,000 parents over five years.
With the Maryland State Department of Education and the Discovery Channel, Hobbs created Assignment: Media Literacy, a comprehensive media literacy curriculum for integrating media literacy into the K-12 curriculum. For thousands of educators in the State of Maryland, this program helped them initiate media analysis and composition projects in elementary schools, middle-schools, and high schools. She also co-authored Elements of Language (2000, Holt, Rinehart, Winston), the best-selling English language arts textbook series and the first to systematically include media literacy.
Hobbs has explored using the power of online gaming to communicate media literacy. With support from the U.S. Office on Women’s Health, she created My Pop Studio, an award-winning edutainment website that introduces tween girls to media literacy concepts in the form of an online game that takes girls “behind the scenes” of popular music, television, magazines, and online media.
With her colleagues Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi, she has explored how copyright and fair use affect the work of those in media literacy education. After discovering that educators are confused about their rights to use copyrighted materials for media literacy education, she helped develop the Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in Media Literacy Education, which clarifies how the doctrine of fair use applies to educators who use digital and mass media for developing critical thinking and communication skills. In April 2010, she published Copyright Clarity: How Fair Use Supports Digital Learning (Corwin/Sage, 2010).
In 2009, Hobbs formally petitioned the U.S. Copyright Office to grant an exemption to Section 1201 of the DMCA for K-12 educators and students, enabling them to legally "rip" copy-protected movie DVDs. That action resulted in an exemption released in July, 2010 that clarifies when people can legally bypass CSS for fair use purposes.
Renee Hobbs received an Ed.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and an M.A. and B.A. from the University of Michigan in Communication, Film/Video, and English Literature.
Hobbs, R. (2008). What’s Your Media IQ? Interactive quiz helps users determine their critical engagement with the news and mass media. Independent Film Channel, IFC Media Project. Available online: http://www.ifc.com/on-ifc/mediaproject/quiz
Hobbs, R. (2007). The media straight up! Second edition. CD-ROM multimedia curriculum. Distributed by Drug Free Pennsylvania, Harrisburg PA. Author: Renee Hobbs.
Hobbs, R. (2006). My Pop Studio. Website/online learning and curriculum materials. Philadelphia: Media Education Lab. Available: http://mypopstudio.com
Hobbs, R. (2002). Media literacy: Viewing and representing in Texas. Levels I and II. Austin: Texas Education Agency.
Hobbs, R. (2000). Assignment: Media literacy. Levels: Elementary, Middle School, High School. Bethesda, MD: Discovery Communications and Maryland State Department of Education.
Garrett, S., Frey, J., Wildason, M., & Hobbs, R. (1995). Messages and meaning: A guide to understanding media. Alexandria, VA: Newspaper Association of America. Author.
Hobbs, R. (1998). SNAPS: Photo cards for media literacy. Multimedia curriculum. Distributed by the Center for Media Literacy, Los Angeles. Author: Renee Hobbs.
TV Smarts (1998). Video. Distributed by the National Cable Television Association: Washington, D.C. Concept, treatment and script: Renee Hobbs.
Media literacy
Media literacy is a repertoire of competences that enable people to analyze, evaluate, and create messages in a wide variety of media modes, genres, and forms.-Education:...
education. She is Professor in the Department of Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media at Temple University
Temple University
Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...
's School of Communications and Theater, where she founded the Media Education Lab. She is co-editor with Amy Jensen of the Journal of Media Literacy Education.
She wrote the 1998 Journal of Communication article, "The Seven Great Debates in Media Literacy Education," about whether media literacy should emphasize critical analysis of popular culture texts, examine established film classics, emphasize protectionist or empowerment perspectives, be financially supported by media companies, and be included in K-12 education or in afterschool settings?
Research
She wrote Reading the Media: Media Literacy in High School English (2007, Teachers College Press), the first large-scale empirical evidence of the impact of media literacy education on reading comprehension skills. Influenced by the work of John Dewey and Marshall McLuhan, her research uses a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the impact of media literacy education on student academic achievement. One reviewer wrote, “For Hobbs, present-day media literacy practices must move beyond protecting youth from adverse television and Internet encounters. Instead, she values media literacy pedagogy that teaches today's students how to make informed choices about the variety of texts they have at their disposal. For Hobbs, making an informed or media literate choice about media consumption and creation requires that students critically engage with new media forms, or “symbol systems, tools, and technologies” (p. 159), by asking questions about texts; learning to compose through digital, electronic, and virtual means; and sharing ideas through new modes and mediums of representation. With this in mind, Hobbs reiterates the need for people (teachers, parents, students) to take greater responsibility for their own reading and uses of texts."Teaching
Renee Hobbs' work is focused on university students and K-12 educators. Hobbs helped build a national organization for the media literacy education community, beginning with the Harvard Institute on Media Education, which ran at Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1993 and 1994, gathering over 200 educators from across the United States with interests in media literacy education With Elizabeth Thoman, Lisa Reisberg and Nancy Chase Garcia, she created the Partnership for Media Education, which evolved into the Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA), the first national membership organization for media literacy. The organization has hosted six national conferences since 1996 and is now known as the National Association for Media Literacy Education. She served as President in 1998. The organization now has over 500 members and continues to host bi-annual conferences, including the most recent one in Detroit in August, 2009.Curriculum Development
Hobbs created curriculum materials designed to help build media literacy skills. To help viewers understand and analyze non-fiction television programming, she created "KNOW TV:Changing What, Why and How you Watch" in collaboration with The Learning Channel (TLC), winning a Golden Cable ACE Award for The Learning Channel and Time Warner Cable in 1995. The program identifies "nine critical questions" for analyzing non-fiction film and television, including: "How are image, sound and language used to manipulate the message? and "What techniques are used to enhance the authenticity of the message?" Hobbs' collaboration with media industry partners was controversial, especially for opponents of the Channel One news program, who criticized her work with teachers in the Billerica Public Schools, one of the first school districts in the nation to subscribe to the programHer 1994 documentary, Tuning in to Media: Literacy for the Information Age featured Neil Postman
Neil Postman
Neil Postman was an American author, media theorist and cultural critic, who is best known by the general public for his 1985 book about television, Amusing Ourselves to Death. For more than forty years, he was associated with New York University...
, Kathleen Tyner, David Considine, Barry Duncan and Robert Kubey. It analyzes press coverage and entertainment media's representation of the Rodney King beating and Los Angeles riots, and won a Parent's Choice award. She also helped create a parent education program, “The Family and Community Critical Viewing Project” in collaboration with Cable in the Classroom, which has reached more than 100,000 parents over five years.
With the Maryland State Department of Education and the Discovery Channel, Hobbs created Assignment: Media Literacy, a comprehensive media literacy curriculum for integrating media literacy into the K-12 curriculum. For thousands of educators in the State of Maryland, this program helped them initiate media analysis and composition projects in elementary schools, middle-schools, and high schools. She also co-authored Elements of Language (2000, Holt, Rinehart, Winston), the best-selling English language arts textbook series and the first to systematically include media literacy.
Hobbs has explored using the power of online gaming to communicate media literacy. With support from the U.S. Office on Women’s Health, she created My Pop Studio, an award-winning edutainment website that introduces tween girls to media literacy concepts in the form of an online game that takes girls “behind the scenes” of popular music, television, magazines, and online media.
Policy and Advocacy
With support from the John L. and James S. Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute, Hobbs developed Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action, which was released in Washington DC on November 11, 2010. The white paper presents a synthesis of the various new literacies emerging over the past 50 years and identifies challenges that educators and school leaders need to address. Ten action steps are recommended to help bring digital and media literacy to all 300 million Americans.With her colleagues Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi, she has explored how copyright and fair use affect the work of those in media literacy education. After discovering that educators are confused about their rights to use copyrighted materials for media literacy education, she helped develop the Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in Media Literacy Education, which clarifies how the doctrine of fair use applies to educators who use digital and mass media for developing critical thinking and communication skills. In April 2010, she published Copyright Clarity: How Fair Use Supports Digital Learning (Corwin/Sage, 2010).
In 2009, Hobbs formally petitioned the U.S. Copyright Office to grant an exemption to Section 1201 of the DMCA for K-12 educators and students, enabling them to legally "rip" copy-protected movie DVDs. That action resulted in an exemption released in July, 2010 that clarifies when people can legally bypass CSS for fair use purposes.
Renee Hobbs received an Ed.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and an M.A. and B.A. from the University of Michigan in Communication, Film/Video, and English Literature.
Partial List of Multimedia Curriculum
Hobbs, R. & Mendoza, K. (2008). Growing up online. Multimedia study guide. Boston: WGBH Frontline. Available online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/teach/kidsonline/Hobbs, R. (2008). What’s Your Media IQ? Interactive quiz helps users determine their critical engagement with the news and mass media. Independent Film Channel, IFC Media Project. Available online: http://www.ifc.com/on-ifc/mediaproject/quiz
Hobbs, R. (2007). The media straight up! Second edition. CD-ROM multimedia curriculum. Distributed by Drug Free Pennsylvania, Harrisburg PA. Author: Renee Hobbs.
Hobbs, R. (2006). My Pop Studio. Website/online learning and curriculum materials. Philadelphia: Media Education Lab. Available: http://mypopstudio.com
Hobbs, R. (2002). Media literacy: Viewing and representing in Texas. Levels I and II. Austin: Texas Education Agency.
Hobbs, R. (2000). Assignment: Media literacy. Levels: Elementary, Middle School, High School. Bethesda, MD: Discovery Communications and Maryland State Department of Education.
Garrett, S., Frey, J., Wildason, M., & Hobbs, R. (1995). Messages and meaning: A guide to understanding media. Alexandria, VA: Newspaper Association of America. Author.
Hobbs, R. (1998). SNAPS: Photo cards for media literacy. Multimedia curriculum. Distributed by the Center for Media Literacy, Los Angeles. Author: Renee Hobbs.
TV Smarts (1998). Video. Distributed by the National Cable Television Association: Washington, D.C. Concept, treatment and script: Renee Hobbs.