Bringing Diversity and Activism to Media Education through African American-Centered Pedagogical Cases: The Mediation of Ebonics and the NAACP Television Networks Boycott

This article works to illustrate the manner in which two principal goals of media education can be fulfilled in media instruction. These goals are to create savvy media consumers who are empowered to demystify their mediated worlds and to foster recognition in media consumers that they possess agency to inform their mediated worlds. Toward these ends, the author provides media educators with two case studies—the mediation of Ebonics and the NAACP television boycott—as curricular models. Each case study concludes with suggestions for further inquiry, discussion, and debate. These African American-centered cases also work to evidence how diversity can be brought to media education lessons.