photo credit: mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com
By: Jessica Farley
Who doesn’t love a trendsetter? Better yet, who doesn’t want to be a trend setter?
When it comes to the founding fathers of media literacy, it is hard to dispute that John Culkin lead the pack. Culkin paved the way for today’s media literacy scholars, and ultimately shifted the way our society interprets various media outlets.
Culkin’s history is as rich as his work in the field of media literacy. His interest in media studies began while at a Jesuit seminary at Woodstock College, Maryland in the late fifties. Following this, Culkin attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and soon became a renounced and prominent film scholar.
Culkin took his experience with media and film, and began to realize the importance that mass media outlets, such as television, film, and radio, held over our society. He spent a great deal of his life advocating for show such as Sesame Street, and programs such as media studies programs in public school systems to enhance the youth’s understanding of mass media- all at a time when books and the written text undeniably reigned supreme.
Without Culkin’s advances in the field of media literacy, one can only imagine where Mark Zuckerberg would be today.
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