The 20th century introduced multiple types of media that had not been known before – radio, television and, in addition to that, movies. The important issue is how to regulate the intercommunication of young audience with such media institutions as movies production industry. The main factor here is that children should learn more about movies and not be fenced off them.
Nowadays, it is hard to imagine what a phenomenon cinema was at the beginning of the last century. The co-operation of movie industry and education sphere was one of the most disturbing topics of discussion “at the 1922 annual meeting of the National Education Association” (Spring, 2018, p. 368). Then, and especially now, people should understand that film, first of all, is a form of art and only after that is an educational source (Killian, 2018). As Anderson et al. (2019) state in the novel Speak, “Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance” (p. 144). As Shakespeare wrote in one of his sonnets, “Art made tongue-tied by authority” (Kerrigan, 2015, p. 20). The overall idea of creating movie appreciation courses seems to be more prominent.
To sum up, instead of dealing with the same controversy, it is better to think about other, more advantageous ways of constructing a strong and long-life interconnection between media and education. Youngsters should not be kept away from movies, since they may learn more about them. In this way, each side will perform its own function – education will concentrate on teaching how to appreciate movies and filmmakers will focus on creating interesting and original artworks.
References
Anderson, L. H., Ford, A. C., & Reynolds, J. (2019). Speak. Square Fish.
Killian, T. A. (2018). Artistic Freedom v. Censorship: An ethics research paper detailing the debate of denying government funding of controversial artists. ResearchGate. Web.
Kerrigan, J. (Ed.). (2015). Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Penguin Books.
Spring, J. (2018). The American School: from the Puritans to the Trump era. Routledge.