Television and education, partners on the verge of hysteria

Abstract

When television first appeared, many educators and teachers imagined it would bring them help and assistance. It was indeed considered as the promise of valuable teaching material. But desillusion quickly came… and even rejection. This new opium of the people wouldn’t play the part it was supposed to play in the class room. The television we would have dreamed of was definitely not that one… Yet, with the help of media education, it may bring us some interesting illustration of what media products are, even if we think of TV programs like commercials, telereality or the news where information and communication are often mixed up. Analysing such products with our students can bring them to a more critical eye and independence. This trash TV is able to bring them a lot if we are ourselves able to train them to analyse these programs and to stand back from mediatic confusions and drifts. Moreover, doing so, we shall take their own mediatic culture as a starting point, which seems essential to us. So, their television might become the television we want… as educators..