Media Action Projects

A model for integrating video in project-based education, training and community development

Dirk Schouten and Rob Watling, Foreword by Len Masterman

Urban Programme Research Group, University of Nottingham

1997, Paperback, ISBN 0 85359 209 8. Price £10

Media Action Projects describes itself as "a new practical guide for teachers, pupils and parents who want to use video in education, training and development". It would probably have Chris Woodhead choking on his cornflakes.

Dirk Schouten is a Dutch media teacher who has developed a systematic and structured model for engaging students in media production, influenced by Freire and Freinet*. Yes, this is - deeply unfashionably - 'child-centred', or 'student-centred' education. It's about action: 'group work", 'projects', 'real and relevant work' and other heresies. You won't find any guidelines for making pop videos, news simulations, advertising campaigns or other parodies or imitations of professional practice in Media Action Projects. In Schouten and Watling's book, video is a tool for challenging the students' preconceptions about the world around them and for enabling them to make a difference to that world.

Twelve steps to enlightenment

The core of the book is the 'Eerbeek model', a twelve-step approach to media projects which Schouten and his colleagues have developed over a number of years. The model aims to ensure that, at every stage of the process, students are systematic about what they are doing and why they are doing it. The twelve stages of the model take students through a process which begins with them analysing the topic to be approached and the skills and knowledge which they can bring to it, going on to challenge their own approach to the subject, form and test suppositions, and select a target group. It's significant that, out of the twelve stages of the model, 'choice of medium' is number 9 and 'choice of form' is number 10. Schouten and Watling are quite clear that it's the content which is the essence of media action projects.

Len Masterman's introduction welcomes the book precisely because it is in opposition to "our now over-centralised and over-prescribed curriculum". This may well sound alarm bells for teachers who, however much they agree in principle with an holistic approach to education, might expect the model to be impossible to use within such a curriculum. But the model can in fact easily be simplified and adapted for a project of a few hours in length, as Rob Watling's articles for Trac have shown.

Challenging assumptions

One of the most useful aspects of the book is its tendency to challenge assumptions and recognised ways of working. Even if you don't agree that technique should only be taught as and when it naturally arises in the course of a project, or that imitations of professional practice are hierarchical and repressive, Schouten and Watling provide explanations of their positions which deserve attention and which are obviously based on classroom experience.

Much emphasis has been placed recently on the acquisitions of skills related to understanding of the media and how they operate; the acquisition of 'media languages' and an understanding of the values communicated by the media. Watling and Schouten's approach comes from another tradition: the tradition of media as a tool for expression and for action.

There are many clear suggestions which are designed to make the process easier. These range from overall guidelines on what percentage of the time to allocate to individual stages of the model, to indications of what shooting ratio to use, how long a shot should be, and how much detail to include when logging tapes. The main emphasis is on documentary, as Schouten and Walting see this as the most approachable form for effecting change. But the sections on planning, structuring and devising an editing scheme would be useful for any kind of video production.

The book also contains sections on simplifying and adapting the model, using it with more basic equipment, and teaching yourself the basics of the model.

Although Rob Watling has adapted and edited the book from Dirk Schouten's original text to make it more accessible, it's not an easy read. Media Action Projects takes time to digest, but it's an important book. Anyone who intends to use video in education could benefit from reading it.

*Celestin Freinet (1896-1966)

A influential French pioneer of radical teaching, who believed that it was essential for learning to have a context and purpose and be relevant to the students' own experiences.

*Paulo Freire (1921-1977)

A radical Latin America teacher, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, who saw education as a form of revolutionary activity and a dialogue between the teacher and the student.

For more information, visit Dirk Schouten's website:
http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/schoutdi

Tom Barrance

www.MediaEd.org.uk the UK media and moving image education site
Free resources, diary, links and discussion forum for anyone who’s interested in media and moving image education in schools, FE, adult and informal education