The relevance of this blog: What's it all about?

Throughout the following posts I will develop a close reading of the multimedia text 'Newcastle Beachfront in Decay', written and directed by the Herald's senior journalist Greg Ray (see video link in post below). This sample of video journalism has strong local youth culture significance and integrates fluidly with the critical study of the issues surrounding street art and graffiti (rich and relevant sites for critical study in Visual Arts). It would be most suitable to aim the critical study of this media text at year 10 students. The study would be a theoretical component of a broader street art unit wherein students head towards the creation of a school or community mural, incorporating street art techniques and styles. Critical media analysis in year 10 Visual Arts would intentionally foreground students' future critical analysis of media texts in stage 6 English units: a learning experience that further scaffolds and develops student critical inquiry skills against media texts.

I'm particularly interested in this text because of its local relevance, and I hope I can pass it on to one of my colleagues (teaching locally) or perhaps use it on my next local prac experience. As a high school student I do remember quite well the few critical media analysis tasks my English teachers embedded into the classroom learning experience. I loved these tasks because I could see the relevance: I was gaining a critical perspective on the forms of media that surrounded me so much of the time. The texts engaged me with global critical discourses that I would become more and more engaged with over time, but they didn't hold any particular local relevance. I think presenting a text that has explicit local relevance such as the one I have chosen, will further boost the appeal of potential critical analysis tasks for my targeted age group. Although the text is local in its relevance, it is characterised by many of the global narratives that are found in all kinds of media texts far and wide, thus engaging students with broader critical discourses for future reference.