Dawn Moffatt-McMaster
Educating for Engagement in the Digital Age
By April Weavell
Media literacy, Grande Prairie Regional College political science instructor Dawn Moffat McMaster tells her students, is a lot like reading the nutrition labels on food packaging. It requires being more aware of the messages we digest as we navigate our way through a complex media environment.
“Today we’re consumers of information. We need to be smarter, more literate consumers of the messages that bombard us every day,” says Moffat McMaster. “That means analyzing and ‘getting beneath’ the surface of what we read and hear . . . not really so different from reading nutrition labels to make wiser choices about the food we buy.”
Moffat McMaster – herself is a former GPRC political science student – says that she continually challenges her students to expand their “media diets” and seek out new perspectives and different sources for their news and information. For many of her students, thinking critically about media is a new concept, so integrating media literacy into the curriculum helps equip them with the skills to be savvy analysts of their multimedia culture.
As her students study today’s political landscape, Moffat McMaster says it is imperative that they harness an understanding of the relationship between media and politics. In her course Politics and the Media, she introduces her class to the impact of the Internet on politics. The development of this relatively new and interactive technology, she says, has radically shifted the terrain of politics, how people participate in politics, and interact with political leaders.
With a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in Political Science, Moffat McMaster says a new area of study since her years as a student is the powerful force of social media on politics. Still in its early stages, social media has presented a steep learning curve for many politicians. With a municipal election right around the corner, and many of her students of legal voting age for the first time, the opportunity is ripe to pique students’ interest in the political debates in their communities . . . and on the smartphones in their back pockets.
“Young people are moving away from the more traditional forms of political engagement,” explains Moffat McMaster. “My students take a close-up look at how politicians are learning to use social media to access their public, including this young demographic.”
“We are now living in a social context where engagement is expected,” says Moffat McMaster. “In all of my classes, my primary goal is to create engaged citizens. Media literacy and the understanding of the impact of technologies like the Internet and social media on politics are absolutely necessary in order to be effective citizens.”