Media Mindfulness

My colleague over at the New Mexico Media Literacy Project, Christie McAuley, wrote the following letter to Adbusters. I think it is right on, and speaks for itself. I want to qualify this as constructive criticism. I have loved Adbusters for many years but have been somewhat disenchanted with its direction. It used to be really easy to read, but now it ventures into a very postmodern realm with its efforts to deconstruct the concept of a magazine. My suggestion: stop publishing a magazine if you don’t like the format. It has gotten so artsy, I find it incomprehensible. I also find the tone very us vs. them, which to me is a lot more tired than traditional magazine formats. I actually confronted Adbuster’s founder, Kalle Lasn, about this and he just said that it was worth the risk of alienating folks such as myself. Well, I’m not alienated, I just can’t use the magazine anymore as an effective tool for change. Anyhow, please read Christie’s letter, I think it’s great.

Hello Adbusters folks,

I am jazzed to see that you included New Mexico Media Literacy Project (NMMLP) on your “After 50 Years of Media Activism, What Will it Take to Break Through?” chart in the May/June 2006 issue. The organizations you referenced, including Adbusters, do important media work, and bring a much-needed perspective not covered in Big Media. In fact, NMMLP relies on many of the resources and insight provided by these very groups to help fulfill our mission.

However, what’s a chart without any critical analysis of its content?

In any piece of media, chart or otherwise, not all points of view can be accommodated. Editors choose to include some perspectives, while excluding others, even if they are trying to present objective and unbiased information. Thus, for every piece of media that tells a story, there are untold stories as well. Unfortunately, those untold stories often include under-represented populations like people of color, the disabled, youth, the working class, immigrants and LGBTQI communities.

While the groups mentioned in your chart do necessary and compelling work, there are other organizations that were not mentioned yet are breaking ground in terms of media analysis, production, justice and activism. I’ll list only a few (due to space and time constraints): Project Censored, Bitch Magazine, Third World Majority, Bodies of Work and Listen Up. I’m inspired to know that in the fight for better communities.Whileh stronger when we join together to know the media, change the media and be the media.

United in democracy,

Christie McAuley
Director of Curriculum Development
New Mexico Media Literacy Project