June 2012 M-Passioned Member: Jessica Harvey

1)  What do you do?

Currently I am a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  I teach courses on media effects, children and the media, and communication in adolescent environments.  My research interests focus on parent-child communication about the media. Prior to this appointment I received my doctoral degree at the University of Washington and was fortunate to work with and learn from a great group of people there who were passionate about media literacy. In fact, my interest and passion for media literacy really blossomed in Seattle when I taught media literacy courses to K-6^th graders at the Seattle Urban League Summer Institute and worked with Dr. Marilyn Cohen on media literacy curriculum. This summer I will be moving outside of Pittsburgh for an Assistant Professor position at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA. I’m looking forward to continuing my work in media literacy there.

Currently, I am working with a middle-school teacher on a media literacy presentation for young girls at Girls Inc. in Indianapolis. Our goal is to empower young girls by encouraging them to think more critically about the sexualized and stereotyped images of women and girls in the media.

Youth today are inundated with mediated messages and images that work to shape how they view themselves, the people in their community, their culture, etc.  Media literacy is important to me, because I feel it is a necessary component of a child’s education and socialization process.  Unfortunately, only a portion of young people experience some type of media literacy education.  I hope that I can contribute to the great work that is going on in the field of media literacy education.

I am most excited about the increasing amount of people who are becoming more involved in media literacy and concerned about media effects.

I became involved in NAMLE because I knew that membership would keep me up-to-date on what was going on in the field of media literacy. I also value the mission of NAMLE and I wanted to be involved with an organization that is doing important work in the field of media literacy. I’m looking forward to networking with other members, learning from my peers in this organization, and attending the 2013 conference in Los Angeles.

Tags: Girls Inc, Jessica Harvey, parent-child communication, Saint Vincent College, Seattle Urban League Summer Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Category: M-Passioned Members