Abstract:

This paper analyzes the concept of media in teaching and education. The reflections refer to two central questions: which media are suitable for the creation of appropriate presentations of reality and how to confront the threats of forming inappropriate or even wrong presentations through the media.
Two central questions of the paper are: What forms of presentation, i.e. media – having in mind previous experiences of students – are suitable for the creation of appropriate presentations about the part of reality that needs to be processed? How to confront the threats of forming inappropriate or even wrong presentations?
The first question is usually classified in the field of media didactics. and the second question refers to the field of media education. In media education, the media with their possibilities and problems become the subject of teaching or educational reflections.
Media didactics and media education should not be taken as separate fields, but as the fields that are related to each other. They can be marked by a comprehensive term of media pedagogy. The research of media impact was generated from political and economic interest for the issue about the way in which the recipients are influenced through media, i.e. how could they be influenced in order to accomplish a goal. Afterwards, the starting point was an assumption that mass media are suitable for achieving the desired effect with the recipients.
This basic assumption has been called into doubt, based on the research results. On one hand, it became obvious that the relevant media are not the most important for opinion formation, but the social contexts in which people live and the attitudes/standpoints related to that. On the other hand, the question about the impact that the media have on the recipient is itself problematized, and in some studies it is replaced by the question how the recipients treat the media, i.e. for which needs they use the media in the way in which they perceive them. All of this has lead up to the benefit theory in media research, and this theory is today developed in media research in everyday life, which can be referred to as interactional. Then, in a comprehensive sense, it is asked about the significance, which the media have for a man in his everyday life. The assumption is that media significance is obtained from mutual relation between media offer, i.e. media use and a specific individual choice and processing within own living space.
Based on these reflections, as a general objective of media-pedagogical tendencies, there is training towards an appropriate, independently determined, creative and socially responsible action in the world in which exists a strong media impact. If we wish to accomplish this goal and if we take into account the current/present life situation, then we get five direct tasks and one comprehensive, indirect task, which will be discussed in this paper.

This paper is a result of a research conducted within the Project Digital media technologies and socially educational changes (Project no. 47020), which is implemented with the financial support of the Ministry of Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia for the period 2011-2014.

Keywords:

Media, education, media pedagogy, media didactics.